Start from the bottom and read to top for actions of the Court today. It seems apparent to me that the liberal justices know the mandate is gone and they are arguing their best to salvage the rest. The Chief Roberts rightly pointed out the “sweeteners” put into the mandate to bring more congressional votes on board.
Clearly to Kagan and Ginsberg the Constitution is a sheet of paper with invisible ink on it. Plus, they’re crazy.
TY
BFL
Justice Scalia says it’s “unrealistic” to leave it to Congress to figure out what to do with the rest of the law if the insurance mandate is struck down. He suggests it would be better to invalidate the whole thing and let Congress start from scratch. Mr. Kneedler, in response, said such a move would violate principles of judicial restraint.
I love Scalia!
I have a feeling the individual mandate is just the first domino. Once that falls the rest of the healthcare law will fragment.
“without the mandate, the health law would be a “hollowed-out shell.”
Hold that vision!
Congress’ intent?
It is on record, it is fact, that the Congress had not read the Obamacare bill. They were told they’d have to pass it to find out what was in it.
Therefore, Congress intent was “pass the bill”.
Therefore, the proper response is to “strike the bill”.
I’m not sure if it’s urban legend, but I understand there’s even something in the bill about the gold market. The proper thing is to simply strike it all.
Without the mandate, there is not funding.
Congress would have to raise taxes to fill in the huge shortfall left without the mandate. There’s no way the House would pass taxes to fund this and I doubt the Senate could as well, so Reid won’t even bring it up for a vote.
Romney has said that if the bill is not struck down, one of his first acts if elected would be to grant all 50 states waivers from complying with the bill.
If the mandate is struck down and the rest of the bill stands, it is still untenable. How could Obama run on health care if it means no end in sight for the taxes needed to fund it? He’d be a sitting duck.
My thinking (may be wrong) is that if the mandate is nixed, no matter what is decided about the remainder of the bill, it is dead because it can’t be implemented.
Statements made today mean little since the ruling will be sometime in June. That gives Obama and his cronies a long time to make phone calls and sway his insiders.
Hopefully, he’ll make snide ass remark about the Justices between now and then and they’ll all vote against it.