[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

"Analysis: The Final State of the Presidential Race"

He’ll, You Pieces of Garbage

The Future of Warfare -- No more martyrdom!

"Kamala’s Inane Talking Points"

"The Harris Campaign Is Testament to the Toxicity of Woke Politics"

Easy Drywall Patch

Israel Preparing NEW Iran Strike? Iran Vows “Unimaginable” Response | Watchman Newscast

In Logansport, Indiana, Kids are Being Pushed Out of Schools After Migrants Swelled County’s Population by 30%: "Everybody else is falling behind"

Exclusive — Bernie Moreno: We Spend $110,000 Per Illegal Migrant Per Year, More than Twice What ‘the Average American Makes’

Florida County: 41 of 45 People Arrested for Looting after Hurricanes Helene and Milton are Noncitizens

Presidential race: Is a Split Ticket the only Answer?

hurricanes and heat waves are Worse

'Backbone of Iran's missile industry' destroyed by IAF strikes on Islamic Republic

Joe Rogan Experience #2219 - Donald Trump

IDF raids Hezbollah Radwan Forces underground bases, discovers massive cache of weapons

Gallant: ‘After we strike in Iran,’ the world will understand all of our training

The Atlantic Hit Piece On Trump Is A Psy-Op To Justify Post-Election Violence If Harris Loses

Six Al Jazeera journalists are Hamas, PIJ terrorists

Judge Aileen Cannon, who tossed Trump's classified docs case, on list of proposed candidates for attorney general

Iran's Assassination Program in Europe: Europe Goes Back to Sleep

Susan Olsen says Brady Bunch revival was cancelled because she’s MAGA.

Foreign Invaders crisis cost $150B in 2023, forcing some areas to cut police and fire services: report

Israel kills head of Hezbollah Intelligence.

Tenn. AG reveals ICE released thousands of ‘murderers and rapists’ from detention centers into US streets

Kamala Harris Touts Mass Amnesty Offering Fast-Tracked Citizenship to Nearly Every Illegal Alien in U.S.

Migration Crisis Fueled Rise in Tuberculosis Cases Study Finds

"They’re Going to Try to Kill Trump Again"

"Dems' Attempts at Power Grab Losing Their Grip"

"Restoring a ‘Great Moderation’ in Fiscal Policy"

"As attacks intensify, Trump becomes more popular"

Posting Articles Now Working Here

Another Test

Testing

Kamala Harris, reparations, and guaranteed income

Did Mudboy Slim finally kill this place?

"Why Young Americans Are Not Taught about Evil"

"New Rules For Radicals — How To Reinvent Kamala Harris"

"Harris’ problem: She’s a complete phony"

Hurricane Beryl strikes Bay City (TX)

Who Is ‘Destroying Democracy In Darkness?’

‘Kamalanomics’ is just ‘Bidenomics’ but dumber

Even The Washington Post Says Kamala's 'Price Control' Plan is 'Communist'

Arthur Ray Hines, "Sneakypete", has passed away.

No righT ... for me To hear --- whaT you say !

"Walz’s Fellow Guardsmen Set the Record Straight on Veep Candidate’s Military Career: ‘He Bailed Out’ "

"Kamala Harris Selects Progressive Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as Running Mate"

"The Teleprompter Campaign"

Good Riddance to Ismail Haniyeh

"Pagans in Paris"

"Liberal groupthink makes American life creepy and could cost Democrats the election".


Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

U.S. Constitution
See other U.S. Constitution Articles

Title: Justices signal possible trouble for health insurance mandate
Source: la times
URL Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/politic ... andate-20120327,0,423592.story
Published: Mar 27, 2012
Author: Noam N. Levey
Post Date: 2012-03-27 12:48:45 by calcon
Keywords: None
Views: 918
Comments: 1

Reporting from Washington— The Supreme Court's conservative justices Tuesday laid into the requirement in the Obama administration's healthcare law that Americans have health insurance, as the court began a much-anticipated second day of arguments on the controversial legislation.

Even before the administration's top lawyer could get three minutes into his defense of the mandate, some justices accused the government of pushing for excessive authority to require Americans to buy anything.

"Are there any limits," asked Justice Anthony Kennedy, one of three conservative justices whose votes are seen as crucial to the fate of the unprecedented insurance mandate.

PHOTOS: Demonstrations outside Supreme Court

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that the government might require Americans to buy cellphones to be ready for emergencies. And Justice Antonin Scalia asked if the government might require Americans to buy broccoli or automobiles.

"If the government can do this, what else can it ... do?” Scalia asked.

The tough questioning of the administration's lawyer is no sure sign of how the justices will rule when they hand down their decision in the case, Department of Health and Human Services, et al., vs. State of Florida, et al., likely in June.

But Tuesday’s arguments may signal trouble for the mandate, widely seen as a cornerstone of the law's program for achieving universal healthcare coverage for the first time in the nation’s history.

With the court's four liberal justices expected to vote to uphold the sweeping law, the administration will have to win over at least one of the five justices on the court's conservative wing.

Few believe Justices Clarence Thomas or Samuel A. Alito Jr. will support the mandate. That has made Scalia, Kennedy and Roberts the focus of intense speculation for months.

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. tried to argue that the insurance mandate would not open the door to other requirements to buy products because healthcare is unique.

"Virtually everyone in society is in this market,” said Verrilli, who was prodded on by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and other liberal justices. That means that if someone elects not to get health insurance but then gets sick, as everyone will, that person will pass along costs to everyone else, Verrilli explained.

To prevent that, the administration has argued that that Congress can use its authority under the commerce clause of the Constitution to impose the mandate as a means to regulate health insurance.

The Constitution says Congress has the power to "regulate commerce" and to impose taxes to promote the general welfare. The court has in the past upheld federal laws regulating all manner of business -- from agriculture and aviation to who can be served at the corner coffee shop -- and Roberts, Scalia and Kennedy have in other cases supported the government’s broad authority in that area.

But Tuesday, the three -- and Alito -- repeatedly criticized the requirement to buy health insurance as forcing people to enter a market, which they said was a new and troubling use of federal power.

"That changes the relationship of the individual to the federal government," Kennedy said.

The architects of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included an insurance requirement after years of experience with insurance markets suggested that it is very difficult to guarantee health insurance to everyone, including people with preexisting medical conditions, without a way to induce younger, healthier people to get covered. That offsets the cost of insuring older, sicker ones.

Under the law, most Americans, starting in 2014, will have to get a health insurance plan that meets a basic set of standards or pay a tax penalty that will rise from $95 in 2014 to $695 in 2016. (The penalty for a family will be up to $2,085 in 2016.)

Health policy experts warn that without some incentive to get insurance, people could wait until they got seriously ill and then sign up for coverage, pushing up premiums for everyone.

The mandate was once embraced by both political parties. But more recently, it has been seized on by conservative critics of the healthcare law as an egregious example of government overreach. And it became the crux of lawsuits challenging the healthcare law by 26 states and plaintiffs represented by the conservative National Federation of Independent Business.

Over the last two years, federal courts across the country have issued conflicting rulings on the insurance requirement, though only one appellate court has backed the constitutional challenge to the law. Two high-profile conservative judges have supported the mandate.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: calcon (#0)

"Are there any limits," asked Justice Anthony Kennedy, one of three conservative justices whose votes are seen as crucial to the fate of the unprecedented insurance mandate.

His is almost certainly the deciding vote.

His questions today signal he isn't happy. But he has done this before and still ruled for vast expansions of gooberment power. Apparently, he thinks this makes him look all judicial and objective. I think it makes him look like a squeamish liberal who turns out to have a lack of an even-tempered judicial temperament.

Tooconservative  posted on  2012-03-27   15:24:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

Please report web page problems, questions and comments to webmaster@libertysflame.com