Posted on 03/25/2012 7:36:58 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Nine justices, weighing health insurance mandate, will calibrate the government's reach.
..Why is the law so unpopular? The coverage mandate is one reason. Another: The exorbitant cost to American taxpayers.
Remember how the Democrats in Congress scrambled to keep the projected price tag for the health care bill under $1 trillion?
Now the real numbers are lumbering into view. The Congressional Budget Office recently issued a new spending estimate for the health law's provisions over the next decade: $1.76 trillion — or about twice what the president had touted.
How'd that happen? Early estimates included four years in which the health care program was not fully operating.
More bad news: CBO now estimates that more businesses will opt to drop health coverage for employees and instead pay penalties mandated by this law.
Will the rest of the law now sink in the same quicksand? Nine justices will answer that question. Their decision is expected by June.
If Congress has to start over, fine. There are plenty of good options for retaining the health care law's best features while also expanding care to people who aren't insured. Unlike the current law, those proposals are carefully tailored — and don't put taxpayers at such great risk.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Even should Congress "start over" it would be as big a boondoggle as this. They can't do anything right in regard to the economy so they should keep their polluted hands off of it. Let the markets decide.
It's not Obamacare it's totalitarian government concentrated in only the Executive Branch. If the SCOTUS doesn't strike it down decisively, we have become Obama's Cuba. Eric Holder will play the part of Che Guano, who will promise 50 million America's a fair trial then a flawless execution.
DrMike
Does anyone think The Supremes will overthrow this law?
Many in Congress were trying to take a common sense approach. Tort reform was a big cost inflater, but the Dims wanted nothing to do with it. The Repubs usually (at least some of them) try to take focused actions that keep our freedoms intact, but the Dims always go for the whole package where Uncle Sugar makes us wards of the government.
I think the mandate is gone. The case made in the 26 state lawsuit is simply too strong. They will uphold that decision by the appellate court. I would be extremely surprised to see them knock down the entire law. The court has seemed to let the legislative branch pretty much do what they want for many decades in terms of shifting power from the people and state to the Federal government. This court has been surprisingly good with their decisions on campaign finance and 2nd amendment...even sometimes going back on past precedent...so I hope they continue that pattern.
I’m not so sure.
A wise latina could easily make the argument that an individual mandate is perfectly legitimate.
After all, Americans have been forced to pay for wars they loathe, welfare they find despicable and onerous bureaucratic burdens they do not want for generations.
Why not pay for their own healthcare? They do want healthcare don’t they?
Of course they do!
I think it’s possible they will overturn it.
There are four solid votes in favor of Obamacare: Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. I expect that Scalia, Roberts, Alito, and Thomas will be opposed. If any of those four conservatives vote to uphold Obamacare, then it’s over.
And then there’s Anthony Kennedy. As the one who swings back and forth between the liberal and conservative sides on various issues, he could well be the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision.
The wise Latina is going to vote against it. She is irrelevant to the vote count. Both she and Kagan replaced previous no votes.
This is up to the five relevant justices. The mandate argument comes down to the act of forcing citizens to pay for a product or service in the private sector. If the federal government can force 300 million people to buy this...what can they not force them to purchase. It is an intellectual argument that is quite strong. I can certainly see Kennedy go either way, but I don’t expect to see him side with Kagan and that crew. I do however, foresee Kennedy or one of the others side with the other side on letting the rest of the law stand. Despite there being no severability clause in the law, the appellate court in the FL/26 state case reversed the lower court. Originally, the Federal judge wiped out the entire law, but the higher court kept the decision on the mandate but reversed the decision to declare the entire law unconstitutional. I don’t see this court reversing that decision by the appellate court. That would be potentially one of the largest acts by this court in history.
I'm hopeful they will, but distrustful that they will.
“...Why is the law so unpopular? “
Liberals are so clueless. Maybe, as Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill once said, it just hasn’t been explained enough. Maybe it has been explained more than enough and liberals just don’t want to hear why people reject the very ideas the law is based on.
Congress had better “start over” and craft something that reflects the true interests of We the People rather than the pack of DC Commies....
I expect the Supremes to overturn ObamaCare. This is not a close call constitutionally, and if the Feds can require us to buy medical insurance with all the quirky items that Congress mandated, then there are no limits on federal power. If I'm wrong, then the United States will die in my lifetime.
I don't know about anyone, but this one has said from the beginning they would not overturn it. They may undo the Mandate, but leave everything else in place, which would in effect require the states to implement some sort of mandate or die under the burden.
What the Progressive/commie/Socialists have put in motion, shall not be undone
Raise your window, that sound you hear is Bag Pipes, playing Amazing Grace.
They will not undo this. They may make some twisted argument to sort of undo the mandate, but the States clearly will have to pick that up.
One can only hope that the lessons of history will come in handy as we enter these dangerous times, perhaps sufficiently that the big government socialists will step back from this precipice. It might be prudent for our side to review the words and reasoning used 160 years ago to support a limited federal government and for the other side to review the price paid to expand federal power in the first Civil War:
Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, “that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.”
They further solemnly declared that whenever any “form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.” Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies “are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments— Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article “that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.”
Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: “ARTICLE 1— His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.”
Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.
The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.
If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were— separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.
By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May , 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.
Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.
We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.
In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.
On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.
Adopted December 24, 1860
Four justices will rule in favor of Obamacare and four will rule it unconstutional. That leaves Anthony Kennedy as the most powerful person in the United States.
If the Supremes don’t have enough fidility to the Constitution to overturn the law, than the American people will have to overturn it on election day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.