I hope that somewhere in this argument is the stated the fact that because a person(s) does not have insurance that he/she/ is denied medical care.
I heard that Justice Roberts’ questions indicated he might not be voting against the mandate.
So I get a job for the summer. The idea that the employee has to give me health insurance or get fined....guess what...He's not going to hire me.
Here's the clincher. I'm exempt when I'm working for myself because I make so little. If I work for someone, he pays??
This case is about the Commerce Clause, not whether “health insurance” is “important” or not.
If Kennedy is actually interpreting the Constitution, rather than just a blesser of whatever Congress says is “good public policy”, he has no choice but to strike down the Mandate.
Kennedy has subsituted his personal preferences in the past. He better not this time.
I was about to eat dinner but this news made me lose my appetite.
I agree, you can’t trust Kennedy, he’s always seen as the “justice in the middle” and will try to find some way to cut the baby here.
What gets me is USSC political hack judges are allowed to make straw man arguments instead of doing their effen job of making sure laws passed by congress are allowed by the Constitution.
Kennedy’s concern about some hypothetical young person increasing insurance costs is NOT A CONSTITUTIONAL argument. Either the Constitution allows the Federal Government to force us to buy insurance or it does not. I does not matter one iota if then net result is good or bad in the eyes of government as if it were bad the only way to resolve the issue is to AMEND the Constitution not just bend it because it makes you feel better. Unfortunately most of those pieces of crap on the USSC are ignorant of this fact or don’t give a damn and will continue to use a judicial activist position to modify the Constitution without using the ONLY method which is Constitutional and that is the amendment process.
I listen to Court arguments all the time. Questioning does not always indicate the way they vote.
Supreme Court Justices, at least the good ones, have a habit of picking apart both sides. They’re not always asking questions to make a point — as hack Congressmen do — they’re asking to hear the arguments.
SnakeDoc
I think that the justices totally know how they are voting, and they’re putting on a show, to show how “seriously they considered it from all sides” before shoving it down our throats.
I was immediately struck by this statement and had to wonder if Justice Alito is a fan of Mark Steyn. Steyn has been saying this exact thing since they first threw this monstrous bill on the table.
I sure hope I am wrong, but my guess is the court will uphold the individual mandate and Obamacare. Asking 4 conservatives and as squish to overrule something this big that has passed through both the Legislative and Executive branches is going to be tough. They may all know it is a bad, bad idea - but I suspect that Kennedy and perhaps Roberts will not want the courts to trump the elected branches of government. They may also believe that the alternative to the individual mandate is pure single payer socialized medicine.
Until Kate Smith sings..all we can do is pray.
LOL. What the hell qualifies you as an analyst of SCOTUS? Opinions are like a##holes, everyone has one.
“the young person who is uninsured is uniquely proximately very close to affecting the rates of insurance and the costs of providing medical care in a way that is not true in other industries.”
So what? Behold the travesty of legal thinking. Here’s a guy obviously very skeptical of the government’s arguments generally, but then he goes and gets himself all tangled up in the “matters of degree” that make up most of life’s questions. Firstly, health insurance is absolutely not unique in the effect of people not buying. That’s called demand, and there’s a law for it—along with supply—that holds true for every market.
As for the youth in particular having special impact on the insurance industry via their non-purchase, give me a break. Young people also habitually fail to buy Centrum Silver, Depends, and Worthers Originals. Does that make it a concern of the federal government? Only because not enough agitprop agents have made a cause of it yet.
Nevermind all that, however. Let me grant that healthcare is special. Let me grant that people not buying insurance has no analogue anywhere in the U.S. economy. Again I ask: so what? What should a SCOTUS justice care? What does any of this have to do with the Constitution? The feds have the enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce; I do not recall a clause along the lines of: “Congress shall regulate the non-purchase of commodities for industries wherein young people come close to affecting prices.”
Seriously, where does this stuff come from?
I think that the justices totally know how they are voting, and they’re putting on a show, to show how “seriously they considered it from all sides” before shoving it down our throats.
We can liken the government’s notion of the young and their responsibility to overpay for health care in order to make it cheaper for older folks, to life insurance. Why is it not similarly a good idea to have the young be forced to buy unneeded life policies to make life policies cheaper for those closer to their end? After all, regarding life insurance, most don’t buy it until they perceive a benefit in having such an expense.
We all know this bill is not Constitutional. If they say it is, then the country is over.
The US is no longer a free nation.
You don’t have to have insurance...you could pay cash.
How can they insist that you pay for something you may not need. Doesn’t matter if the vast majority uses insurance, you are making everyone pay whether they need it or not.