Photo Credit: Fresh Conservative (Creative Commons)
The U.S. Supreme Court is now poised to review the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.” The nine Justices will hear oral arguments totaling an unprecedented five-and-a-half hours beginning on March 26, 2012 and concluding on March 28.The usual allocation of time for Supreme Court oral arguments is just 60 minutes—30 minutes for each side—and only in exceedingly important cases, like Bush v. Gore, which was to determine the outcome of a presidential election, does the court allow 90 minutes of argument. Though no cameras will be allowed to record the historic oral give-and-take, audio tapes of the proceedings will be provided on an expedited basis through the Court’s website due to (according to the Court) “the extraordinary public interest” in the case.
Why these unusual measures? Are the cases from the Circuits which are being reviewed really that important? The answer is a thundering, yes! Why?
The central feature of the Obamacare legislation under judicial scrutiny is something called the “individual mandate,” which would require virtually every American to annually purchase health insurance or pay a monetary penalty [Sect. 5000(A)(a)]. In one of the briefs, this newly created legal duty has been called a “wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of Congressional authority.”
Why did Congress create this new obligation on Americans regardless of whether they want or need health insurance? Put simply, Congress required insurance companies, elsewhere in the Act, to accept persons for coverage regardless of their current health or previous health conditions, and prohibited the companies from charging a higher premium that would normally be justified by a person’s higher health risk. (For instance, a higher premium for higher risks is the reason that one’s 16-year-old son causes the auto premium for the family car to substantially increase.)
To offset these unjustifiably low premiums charged to those less healthy, Congress agreed to force all Americans into insurance plans even if their health and age made going without coverage a risk they were willing to take. As one brief puts it, “the [individual] mandate’s predominant purpose and effect was … to conscript the uninsured to provide a $28-$39 billion annual subsidy to insurers and their customers.”
So, the individual mandate is a subsidization scheme, but is it constitutional?
When Congress acts, it must stay within the boundaries of certain enumerated powers listed in Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. One of those powers is the power to “regulate commerce among the several states.” The Obama administration’s position says that a person who fails to purchase insurance is engaged in interstate commerce. The administration relies heavily onWickard v. Filburn—a 1942 case in which the Supreme Court gave a very expansive interpretation to that clause. There it concluded that an Ohio farmer’s growing of wheat on his own farm and feeding it to his own cattle constituted interstate commerce and was in contravention of a federal act that limited the right to plant wheat. All constitutional scholars recognize Wickard as an example of the broadest expansion of that clause.
However, the Obama administration wants to allow Congress to go even further. Constitutional advocates may be able to grudgingly accept the government’s claim that it can regulate economic activity, even exceedingly local activity. What friends of liberty cannot and should not accept is penalizing Americans for deciding not to engage in an economic transaction, that is, failing to purchase health insurance. Federal District Judge Roger Vinson put the issue this way in his opinion striking down the individual mandate: “Never before has Congress required that everyone buy a product from a private company (essentially for life) just for being alive and residing in the United States.” Actually, it is even worse than that, as Judge Vinson points out: under the mandate, one cannot purchase the minimum amount of insurance needed according to one’s own estimation of insurance needs but must purchase the “minimum level or type” established by Congress as “the floor.”
If the Court upholds the individual mandate, it would effectively mark an end to constitutional restraint on Congress and usher in a new era of uncertainty, one whereby the federal government would be controlled only by the self-restraint of elected legislators. The Court, as it were, will have let the constitutional reins fall loose and the federal stallion will gallop forward at an ever faster and more frightening pace.
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The severity of this outrageous abuse of power by the Democrats is the mail reason that Justice Kagan MUST be required to recuse herself. As Obama’s solicitor general, she worked extensively on this case, defended it in lower courts, and the emails released show her discussion of the health care law with other government employees and her support for it. She is clearly in violation of federal law when she refuses to recuse herself, and Chief Justice John Roberts can not rely on people like Kagan to voluntarily do the “right thing”, so he must insist that she sit this one out. But he has already said it will leave it to her discretion, so I will be very surprised if the Supreme Court rules against Obamacare.
This effing cu**, Kagan, needs to be dragged out of the building by the effing neck and tossed into the nearest dumpster because she is nothing more than human filth. John Roberts needs to follow closely behind her. The citizens of this country must pay attention to the work being done by the Communists who have overtaken us and we will either destroy them, or they will destroy us. It is time to chase every one of these useless bas****s out of this nation.
I agreed with the decision made by the Florida Federal District Court Judge when he declared Obamacare 100% Unconstitutional, and mostly for violating the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. With the page count, no severability clause, and over 400 provisions having nothing to do with Healthcare or Healthcare Insurance, he decided to toss the entire packages (two Public Laws).
At this moment, we are on the verge of seeing the most severe condemnation of a President for such nonsense as Obamacare.
Added to the flames of his Administration is this Insult to the Catholic Church by attempting to force them to handout free Contraceptives at hospitals and care facilities they own or manage.
That is a Direct Violation of the First Amendment, and the First provision of same: Religious Freedom! It was the Number One cause for the American Revolution in the minds of Many Founding Fathers because the King George had other beliefs.
King Obama goes down. Hard and Fast.
I think all members of the Supreme Court should be present and each weigh in on Obamacare.
As for Elena Kagan and her past affiliations with Obama’s White House, I care less.
I want this Jewish person to sit down and think hard on Obamacare. Sure the Catholics do not support being ordered to handout Contraceptives.
But do Jewish Peoples in America support the manner in which Obamacare and Obama himself reached out to take away Religious Freedoms in the First Amendment?
That is the Question for the Entire Court, not to mention that Commerce Clause was violated and never granted the United States any powers to mandate purchases of a product.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
I can see literally no authorization of power to any body of the United States, and even amongst the several States or Territories, where they can FORCE American Citizens to buy any products for sale, that includes Healthcare Insurance.
Judge Vinson wrote a great decision. The 11th Circuit court only followed half of it, but it was, after all, that half that got the whole thing into the Supreme Court in the first place!
Beware If The One Thing This President Obama Did While In Office Was Lie And Mis-Judge The Proud American Tax Payers And Voters “Was Pass Obamacare” Yikeess, And Now It Is Found Illegal Because Number One Barack Obama Is Not President Of These Great States, Yikeess, Show Me Your Social Security Card 042-68-4425 That You Have Been Using For Years, Like On Your 2010 Tax Forms And Purchasing Your Present Home, That SSN Belongs To A Person Born in 1890 And Stolen By Barack Obama Guilty Of “Fraud” And “Felony”. You Can Hide Your Papers However Sheriff Joe Arpaio Has Your “Stolen Social Number 042-68-4425. Now Ask These Judges Again “Will Obamacare Withstand Constitutional Scrutiny”?? No, Hell No. God Bless America And Sherif Joe Arpaio.
Right on the money. A Supreme Court approval of the individual mandate would afford congress dictatorial power and authority over the American people.
Naturally the 4 Marxists on the Court will phone in their decisions. And Kagan, who is participating in the case ILLEGALLY–CONTRARY TO FEDERAL LAW ON RECUSAL- represents just one more criminal act by the Regime.
Once again we have the COURAGEOUS behavior of our Republican officials to thank for so few even knowing of Kagan’s criminal act. Only Sessions and Lamar Smith have even MENTIONED the situation.