Posted on 06/21/2012 5:25:23 AM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
A lot of reasonable musing has been done as to whether or not Barack Obama is advantaged politically by the Supreme Court striking down or upholding ObamaCare. But it is plausible that the ultimate liberal goals for the nation are advanced the farthest by a split decision -- i.e., the much-discussed scenario where the Court strikes down only the individual mandate, while leaving the rest of the law in place. Certainly the mandate -- as drawn up in ObamaCare -- is the most blatantly unconstitutional part of the bill, and therefore it is rightfully considered the low-hanging fruit of legal opposition. But it is far from the most malignant part. Separate from the mandate, the rest of the bill is awful. It is unworkable, and it hands over our collective futures with respect to life and death to an army of bureaucrats whom we did not elect, cannot defeat, and will never see.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Good article!
Yeah just striking the mandate would be an abject disaster. From the line of questioning the justices appeared to wantntomkillmthe whole thing lest the remaining shell be completely unworkable. Hopefully if they kill the mandate the kill the whole thing.
I have been warning about this all along.
Strike down the mandate alone and Obama-care turns into single payer medicaid, which is what the Pelosi House progressives wanted to begin with. This doesnt happen immediately but slowly as insurance companies raise rates or stop insuring.
Obamacare dies under it’s own weight without the mandate.
Also, the fact that the authors took specific action to omit the severability provision, in order to gain the votes to pass, means the court can NOT overlook that intent in their ruling......TODAY!
When the ruling comes out -— keep your powder dry —— the details are in the fine print of the rulings.....not in the headline which will be spun by the MSM.
Striking down the mandate only would, indeed, be the worst possible ruling. Anything less than a total rejection of Obamacare by the Supreme Court will be heralded by the mainstream media as a major victory for the Obama administration.
You are using logic and business sense and reaching a conclusion. The problem is, the congress nor the Court shows that kind of common sense in way too many cases. Obama Care SHOULD die under it's own weight without the mandate. Unless of course the tax payers hold it up. The severability clause SHOULD make a mandate only ruling impossible. But remember, this is essentially the same court that upheld CFR. Fear the mandate only ruling.
Indeed the questioning leads one to think that.
Oh but to be a Justice, with only a sliver of the whole law to be presented. And to know in your heart the whole of the thing is bad for the country...judicial activism?
To know these facts to be self-evident and unable to rule on them:
1. Law not debated
2. Law was not even read
3. The CBO failed to accurately assess costs & benefits
4. Knowing the law is financially unsustainable
5. And a good Justice hearing the chains of serfdom being readied in the dungeons of socialism
What is a Justice to do? Is it activism if the whole law is struck down? Or is it a reminder to congress, that congressional activism that is not republican in nature, as designed by our Constitution, illegal?
I agree. I confess, however, that I fantasize about a split decision. Sometimes things have to get worse before they got better (it took WWII to save the Jews from Hitler). If they strike only the mandate, it will speed up the timeframe of all the “get worse” part.
And lets be frank, even without Obamacare in the equation, the world is going down hard. This may speed up the inevitable, allowing the Phoenix to rise from the ashes just that much sooner.
Only a complete strike down or repeal will prevent private health insurers from going under, which is the ultimate goal of the bill. Libs couldn’t get single payer, so they went after the other payers.
A strike down of the mandate with no mention of the severability is the most likely outcome. In very short order, there would exist no private insurance companies - a crisis that demands governmental action regardless of party in power.
Not only is there no severability clause (in the normal world this means that the whole law is, by definition, struck down if the mandate is) but there was one in the previous version. It was consciously removed.
That gives the justices all the legal excuse they need to strike down the whole law.
I agree with you too. I hate to be a pessimist but things do not seem to be getting any better. The financial world is going to take us all down. We are going to have to hit bottom before things start improving.
There is, but the Court can ignore that, strike down only the mandate, and leave congress and bureaucrats to sort out the rest regarding severability.
It will be interesting to see what the Supreme Court decides, but really, this will only be solved by a new administration which passes a bill undoing the whole thing.
without the mandate who going to fund it?
Even if Romney wins and follows through on his promise to end ObamaCare, it may be a problem to get complete repeal through the Senate—the Republicans are not likely to have a filibuster-proof majority. Maybe they can identify the Senate Democrats coming up for re-election in 2014 who are the most vulnerable (ignoring the total ideologues like Harkin) to get to 60.
The problem I see with the Senate is McConnell. He loves crafting complicated beltway deals and won’t make any attempt to just steam roll the Rats.
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