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The Small Error That Could Ruin Dem's Health Care Efforts
Business Insider ^ | 11/30/10 | Brian Beutler

Posted on 11/30/2010 2:01:25 PM PST by jimbo123

Conservative foes of the Affordable Care Act want the federal courts to smother the new health care law in its crib. They've argued that Democrats failed to erect the proper safeguards to protect the legislation from being stricken down entirely by the courts. And when a Virginia district court judge rules in the coming days on the Constitutionality of the law's insurance mandate, he'll also have to decide whether none, some, or all of the law must go with it.

The obscure term of art here is "severability." Quite often, legislators include what's known as a "severability clause" in their bills. These are meant to protect the bulk of a law in the event that a small portion of it is determined to be unconstitutional. That small portion must go, or be changed, but pretty much everything else is allowed to stand.

In a sin of omission, Democrats left such a clause out of the health care law, and now the plaintiffs in at least one of the cases against it want the court to take an axe to the whole thing if the judge decides that the individual mandate provision is unconstitutional.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: deathpanels; obamacare; pelosicare
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1 posted on 11/30/2010 2:01:27 PM PST by jimbo123
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To: jimbo123

Incompetent AND corrupt.


2 posted on 11/30/2010 2:04:31 PM PST by swain_forkbeard (Rationality may not be sufficient, but it is necessary.)
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To: jimbo123
Excellent!

Throw it all out!

3 posted on 11/30/2010 2:05:07 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: jimbo123

We can always hope, I suppose. I just don’t see it, unless that particular judge wants to wake up next to a horse’s head.


4 posted on 11/30/2010 2:05:40 PM PST by CalvaryJohn (What is keeping that damned asteroid?)
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To: jimbo123

Oh please please please please!!!


5 posted on 11/30/2010 2:11:49 PM PST by diamond6 (Pray the Rosary to defeat communism and Obamacare!!)
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To: jimbo123

This is what Ken Cuccinelli has been saying all along and what he’s aiming for. A big “oops!” in their rush to get this crafted and passed!


6 posted on 11/30/2010 2:14:07 PM PST by mancini
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To: jimbo123

I can see the left, however, through some route,

saying that the severability clause isn’t needed in this particular case and the rest of the law isn’t struck down when the requirement is struck down.

(However, in reality, without the mandate, they can’t make it work.)


7 posted on 11/30/2010 2:17:28 PM PST by MrB (The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

This is funny. The Obamanoids are in panic over the fact the clause wasn’t included in the Senate bill they passed. The Virginia AG is going for the kill.


8 posted on 11/30/2010 2:18:40 PM PST by jimbo123
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To: jimbo123

Liberals are idiots at detail. They think they are grand “big picture” people, and compared to their attention to detail, they probably are.

For the most part, they think the details will “take care of themselves” if the intentions are good.

A great example of this is the DC chapter of Free Republic, and their unbelievable longstanding counterprotests against the Code Pink Moonbats outside of Walter Reed Hospital.

They had one side of the crossroads in front by permit, and the moonbats had the other side. It was sickening the men inside had to look out and see the moonbats with their signs like “Enlist here to die for Halliburton” right out in front of the entrance.

When Trooprally went to renew the protest permit, he saw that the moonbats had neglected to renew theirs, and snapped it up, no questions asked.

The moonbats had to move 100 yards down the road to a little indentation that you couldn’t even see, and the Freepers took over the entire crossroads with great messages of support for the wounded soldiers.

Whether they make health care legislation, run an economy or fight a war, they always, Always, ALWAYS screw it up. If we wait and watch, occasionally we can see them step on their own crank.


9 posted on 11/30/2010 2:18:50 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: jimbo123

I hope so


10 posted on 11/30/2010 2:19:25 PM PST by kalee (The offences we give, we write in the dust; Those we take, we engrave in marble. J Huett 1658)
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To: jimbo123

What an incredibly boneheaded and fortuitous effort.

I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve been involved with a fair amount of contracts and litigation as a party, and even I wouldn’t make a rookie mistake like that.


11 posted on 11/30/2010 2:20:43 PM PST by Maceman (Obama -- he's as American as nasi goreng)
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To: mancini

I don’t know that it was a mistake....I think it happened on purpose.


12 posted on 11/30/2010 2:21:12 PM PST by shield (A wise man's heart is at his RIGHT hand;but a fool's heart at his LEFT. Ecc 10:2)
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To: MrB

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/conservative-suit-against-the-mandate.php

recent precedent makes it exceptionally unlikely that any of the lower courts will attempt to strike the entire law. In an opinion written this year, Chief Justice John Roberts struck one provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, which lacks a severability clause. “We agree with the Government that the unconsti­tutional tenure provisions are severable from the remain der of the statute,” he wrote.


13 posted on 11/30/2010 2:21:53 PM PST by jimbo123
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Oh it is just a clerical error. The same excuse the dems use to get out all of their corrupt and illegal doings.


14 posted on 11/30/2010 2:22:30 PM PST by Roklok
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To: CalvaryJohn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_E._Hudson

Henry E. Hudson (born 1947) is a United States federal judge.

President George W. Bush nominated him on January 23, 2002, to a new seat created by 114 Stat. 2762. The United States Senate confirmed the nomination on August 1, 2002, and received his commission on August 2, 2002.


15 posted on 11/30/2010 2:24:33 PM PST by jimbo123
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To: shield
I don’t know that it was a mistake....I think it happened on purpose.

I'm curious. Why do you think that?

16 posted on 11/30/2010 2:24:51 PM PST by mancini
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To: jimbo123
I seem to recall them saying this omission was on purpose to protect the individual mandate part of the bill.
17 posted on 11/30/2010 2:26:20 PM PST by 5thGenTexan
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To: jimbo123

Without the mandate, the only way the bill can work without payments going in, is to just borrow $trillion$ to pay for it. This would suit the left just fine, too, since it furthers their cloward-piven agenda a bit quicker (as in immediate).


18 posted on 11/30/2010 2:26:22 PM PST by C210N (0bama, Making the US safe for Global Marxism)
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To: jimbo123

I reported on this “Severability” omission a long time ago. It will be the Achilles heel of this monstrosity of a bill. In their rush to slip this by the electorate they forgot to include it. And “Above My Pay Grade” in his rush toward immortality signed it as fast as his little hand could maneuver.


19 posted on 11/30/2010 2:27:53 PM PST by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannolis. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: jimbo123

Well...I guess maybe Nancy’s “We need to pass it so we know what’s in it.” wasn’t such a good idea.


20 posted on 11/30/2010 2:30:06 PM PST by BulletBobCo
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