Why would anyone think something might be up with the Supreme Court and Obamacare?
Posted on 09/29/2011 11:42:01 AM PDT by Hunton Peck
The Obama administration's decision late Monday not to ask for a full court review of the August decision by two appeals court judges to strike down ObamaCare is a risky but potentially high-value play by the White House in the legal battle over health care reform.
An administration source says the decision was made largely for practical reasons. For starters, the White House didn't think it would prevail if the 11th circuit had agreed to reconsider the case with all of its judges weighing in. Of the ten judges who would rehear the case, five are GOP appointees, and one of the Democratic appointees, Frank Hull, was on the panel that ruled against the law in August. The outlook was so bad, says the administration official, that "it's likely [the request for a rehearing] wouldn't have even been granted." (See 10 players in health care reform.)
A full hearing might have slowed the case up, though it's not clear by how much. The Supreme Court can take up any one of several cases against ObamaCare in time to rule before it rises in June, regardless of whether all the cases have been heard at the appellate level.
But in the strategic sense, it appears the administration has decided that it wants the case heard at the Supreme Court before the 2012 election. Administration officials continue to say publicly and privately that they think they will win, and they show no signs of trying to slow the progress of the case. This is where a risk-reward calculation comes in.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
do they think they will win because they have stevens?
The take home message here is that this administration, and the sophomoric ideologue who is its figurehead, don’t care that this issue is so divisive that whether it stays or goes depends on 1 or 2 partisan votes. They don’t care that they are ignoring the will of a huge segment of the population. All they care about, obviously, is how they can use their power to get around any opposition to their agenda. Not any different than the approach of a Castro, or a Chavez, etc.
A ruling for Obamacare will delegate it to the shredder.
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You think they polled the court?
I don’t put a dam[n] thing past them. If they have an inkling Kennedy will vote their way, pushing it up helps them and gets that messy stuff out of the way so Sebelius can press ahead full steam.
I still wistfully think Roberts and Scalia will push to have the entire commerce clause re-examined...and might even be able to persuade Kennedy.
I think this is win/win for Republicans. Think about it.
The bill is already unpopular.
1) The SCOTUS strikes it down. Republicans campaign from a “told-ya-so,” righteous position.
2) The SCOTUS upholds the law. Republicans campaign from a position of “OK, well, the only way we are going to get rid of this unpopular monstrosity is to repeal it. So vote for us!”
Win/win, imho.
Obamacare has already damaged the healthcare system beyond repair.
Hospitals are currently restructuring, instituting new policies, procedures and systems to take advantage of money from the Obamacare bill.
If the bill stands, the regulations and restrictions to get this money will have hospitals turned in knots trying to get the money, and healthcare delivery will suffer.
If the bill is struck down, and the money vaporizes, you’ll see a lot of hospitals fail.
“When SCOTUS takes this up it will be the most important case ever decided. At stake is the Constitution as we know it.
A ruling for Obamacare will delegate it to the shredder. “
I agree. A ruling upholding obamacare would mean that the Constitution is dead.
I don’t know that I trust Kennedy but I do think it’s clear that Kagan should recuse herself (The case to get Thomas to recuse is rediculous and without merit). I think there should be a serious effort to get her to do so - even though she won’t. She’ll deny that she ever gave any opinion on the constitutionality of the law while she was Solicitor General - which simply isn’t believable.
Of course, it seems to me the only honest thing she can do is to recuse herself from hearing the appeal.
But — will she? This is a matter of conscience, SCOTUS tradition, and honor: She can't be forced to recuse herself.
If she's the kind of "cheap goods" that we have in the person who nominated her to the Court, she won't recuse herself.
Interesting. This is Time, which wouldn’t hesitate to lie for Obama.
Still, it may well be that Obama didn’t want the whole 11th Circuit to hear the case. Because, with more Republicans on board, they could have produced a much worse result for him by pointing out that there was no severability clause, therefore instead of throwing out just the insurance mandate the whole damned thing would be declared null and void. That’s what the other judge determined.
In fact, the attorneys are bringing a Plea to SCOTUS asking them to declare that the 11th Circuit decision was wrong, because it didn’t go far enough in only throwing out one clause.
I suspect that was a compromise put forward by the liberal judges who heard the case.
I’m more inclined to think they got trumped by the filings by the states and the NFIB, and don’t want it to look that way, but I have no way of knowing, really, and like you, wouldn’t put anything past them.
I would think the conservative justices will decide this on the narrowest grounds possible, as is consistent with both conservatism and the need to get Kennedy to go along.
If they strike it down on the narrowest possible grounds (killing off the mandate but allowing severability) the health insurance industry will suddenly realize that the music has stopped, and they don’t have a chair.
They won’t be getting millions of new customers at gunpoint.
They will be getting reams and reams of new regulations and mandates that will be coming straight off their bottom line.
They will then fire up a campaign to repeal this turkey quicker than you can say Reconciliation. They will use the Citizens United decision and absolutely flood the airwaves with anti-Obama ads. I don’t think the GOP will even have to wage much of a campaign at that point.
She’ll deny that she ever gave any opinion on the constitutionality of the law while she was Solicitor General - which simply isn’t believable.
There should be a paper trail somewhere.
Why would anyone think something might be up with the Supreme Court and Obamacare?
I hate to break this to ya’ll, but this is all just academic noise. These clowns will just wait till the last minute and start calling it a legally passed tax increase, thus mooting the argument.
“If the bill is struck down, and the money vaporizes, you’ll see a lot of hospitals fail.”
If the hospitals “fail”, they and their equipment and their personnel do not vaporize. They just restructure,
Those justices that vote to uphold the Health Bill are borderline communists and should be impeach come after 2012.
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