Howard Dean predicts Supreme Court will declare individual mandate unconstitutional

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[Sub-Driver]

Howard Dean predicts Supreme Court will declare individual mandate unconstitutional By Jeff Poor - The Daily Caller 9:48 AM 03/26/2012 ADVERTISEMENT

On Monday’s “CBS This Morning,” former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean broke with Democratic Party ranks once again on the issue of Obamacare. But this time, he did it in terms of how he thinks the Supreme Court will view the law.

Host Charlie Rose asked Dean, a physician and former Democratic presidential candidate, if he thought the individual mandate would ultimately be declared unconstitutional.

“I actually think that’s what they’re most likely to do before, of course, we’ve heard any arguments,” Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, replied. “I can’t imagine how they’re going to decide this isn’t right yet. And you’ll have lawyers talking about the arcane legal question. But yeah, I don’t believe they’ll support that. And they certainly aren’t going to do it from the bench today.”

“I do believe that it’s likely the individual mandate will be declared unconstitutional,” he continued. “[Justice Anthony] Kennedy will probably side with the four right-wing justices. But I’d be very surprised if they — I think Kennedy will switch sides and it will be 5-4 in favor of severing that finding from the rest of the bill. The question is going to be, is this individual mandate question — can that be considered separately from the rest of the bill? And I think it will be.”

While he admitted his expertise was in medicine and not in legal matters, Dean also predicted that the portion of the legislation that expands Medicaid would be kept intact by the high court. He added that Obamacare could likely survive without the mandate portion.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Steely Tom predicts that the Obama administration will ignore whatever ruling the Supreme Court issues if that ruling inconviences them.

They may like the sound of that, but it will prove impractical when private insurers, hospitals, the Catholic Church, etc. are all able to stare Kathleen Sebelius in the eye and say "Scrooooo you, Madame Secretary, try and MAKE me!"

[Secret Agent Man]

Dean then added a “YEEEEARRRGH!”to end the interview.

[redgolum]

This has always been about creating a public health care system. My parent company, based in Europe, has been very open about wanting this. Their costs as a company would go down a lot, while my taxes would go up. The amount of money we spend on company provided health insurance is very large, and they want to shift it to the State.

Most larger companies have the same view.