Posted on 02/28/2015 9:59:58 AM PST by Kid Shelleen
It wasn't so long ago that Republicans were viewing the prospect that the Supreme Court might overturn a key provision of the Affordable Care Act with unalloyed glee.
The court might "ultimately take it down," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) crowed in December. "You could have a mulligan here, a major do-over of the whole thing, that opportunity presented to us by the Supreme Court."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Except that this isn’t a tax credit for buying. It’s a penalty for not buying. That’s the difference, and it’s where Roberts chose to rewrite the law.
You’re not required to have a mortgage, nor are you required to do any of the other things that the code incentivizes. But you are required to have health insurance. if not, you pay this additional amount. That’s different from the mortgage deduction or the personal exemption or any of the numerous other exemptions. Roberts knew that, but pretended it was the same. You MUST have health insurance under the law.
So it’s not a tax, it’s a penalty, as the law itself says. Yet Roberts chose to treat it as a tax, thus rewriting the law.
And having shown his willingness to rewrite it, there is no reason he couldn’t rewrite it again.
The court, let alone Roberts, didn't change one word of the law.
Oh, but of course he did. (The other 4 justices who voted for it just don't care.)
The "penalty" is imposed when you file your income taxes. If you have health insurance then you don't pay it.
This is an absolutely backwards interpretation, and contrary to the language of the law. It REQUIRES -- MANDATES -- that you have health insurance. This penalty is more like the fine for a criminal offense than a tax.
you only look at the result you wanted
No, that's what you're doing. I'm simply looking at what the law says.
The upcoming case is completely different. This time I expect he will again uphold the law as written, and it will have very different consequences.
I wouldn't. You're simply reflexively defending him because he is a Republican appointee, IMO.
The upcoming case deals with a different aspect of the law, but it is like the prior one as there is serious question whether the Court will follow the letter of the law or simply choose to interpret it to fit the outcome they want.
They didn't "uphold the law as written" last time; why would we expect them to do so this time? As I said, Roberts has shown that he has little respect for the written law or the Constitution when it gets in the way of what he wants to do.
The mandate is very clear. it's not a tax incentive; it's a requirement, a mandate, and if you do not comply, you are punished. You can twist that around any way you like, but that's what it is in actuality.
A criminal law requiring everyone to buy broccoli probably would be unconstitutional.
It's PRECSIELY, EXACTLY,/i> the same thing. I set that up to mirror Obamacare's structure. So if that's unconstitutional, then the individual mandate is unconstitutional. But Roberts simply decided that it was waht it obviously, clearly was NOT, in order to get a result he wanted to get. Period.
That process takes a few months. At least it did in the past. I think these guys are faced now within a few days with the wealth possibilities of corruption and the impossibility of advancing within the Congress if they don’t play the game. Remember almost all of them are the sort of people who are drawn to become politicians.
The Republican base has continually allowed the people they elect to get away with endlessly talking about problems instead of taking meaningful actions to solve them. They need to be held accountable, just like the rest of us are in our daily lives. We are expected (and rightfully so) to try our best.
For some reason, Republicans just don’t play to win. If you want to win at anything, you have to go on offense and put points on the board. They’re the ones on the playing field, and we expect them to score. If they don’t why do we continuously support them? It makes no sense at all.
Yes, agree with you. They are the type of people who are “pre-disposed” to play the game. They are climbers, not producers. we’ve all seen the same personality types in the workplace. They too are politicians, only at a lower level. Many of them could be good GOP prospects! lol
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