[RJS1950]

There are several possibilities but it seems that by declaring the fee to be a tax he might have opened an avenue because the tax part of it made it a revenue bill which must originate as a revenue bill in the house. If it did not originate there as a taxing bill in its current format then it might not be constitutional.

[Arthur McGowan]

If that was his idea, then he should have declared it a tax, then declared it unConstitutional because of the Origination Clause.

No. He just wanted to be popular. He’s a sleaze and a weirdo.

[Digger]

If it did not originate there as a taxing bill in its current format then it might not be constitutional.

Constitutional. What the heck does that mean today?

[tsowellfan]

it seems that by declaring the fee to be a tax he might have opened an avenue because the tax part of it made it a revenue bill which must originate as a revenue bill in the house. If it did not originate there as a taxing bill in its current format then it might not be constitutional.

Two very good and important points

[cynwoody]

the tax part of it made it a revenue bill which must originate as a revenue bill in the house. If it did not originate there as a taxing bill in its current format then it might not be constitutional.

This morning in NR, noted attorney Andrew McCarthy argues that is not constitutional for that very reason:

Contrary to Obama’s latest dissembling, the Supreme Court’s decision is far from an imprimatur. The president insisted that Obamacare was not a tax, famously upbraiding George Stephanopoulos of the Democratic-Media Complex for insolently suggesting otherwise. Yet, the narrow Court majority held that the mammoth statute could be upheld only as an exercise of Congress’s power to tax — i.e., contrary to Obama’s conscriptive theory, it was not within Congress’s commerce power to coerce Americans, as a condition of living in this country, to purchase a commodity, including health insurance.

Note the crucial qualifier: Obamacare could be upheld only as a tax. Not that Obamacare is necessarily a legitimate tax. To be a legitimate tax measure, Obamacare would have to have complied with all the Constitution’s conditions for the imposition of taxes. Because Democrats stubbornly maintained that their unilateral handiwork was not a tax, its legitimacy vel non as a tax has not been explored. Indeed, it is because Obamacare’s enactment was induced by fraud — a massive confiscation masquerading as ordinary regulatory legislation so Democrats could pretend not to be raising taxes — that the chief justice was wrong to rebrand it post facto and thus become a participant in the fraud.

We now know Obamacare was tax legislation. Consequently, it was undeniably a “bill for raising revenue,” for which the Constitution mandates compliance with the Origination Clause (Art. I, Sec. 7). The Clause requires that tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives. Obamacare did not.

He goes on to detail exactly how ObamaCare originated in the Senate, not the House. And he notes that Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ08, is leading an effort to overturn the bill due to its having been passed in violation of the Origination Clause.