Affordable Health Care Law under review by SCOTUS

[chancellor]

The idea that those who owned slaves constructed a perfect document about how to govern a society is ludicrous. Of course it's a living document.

Of course it is. That's why the signers constructed the capability to amend the Constitution.

The concept of "living, breathing document to be interpreted according to the times" is BS. All that does is allow legal decisions that are already constructed based on politics to be readily justified. And it's seen based on decisions on both sides of the aisle.

[Lucky]

Of course it is. That's why the signers constructed the capability to amend the Constitution.

The concept of "living, breathing document to be interpreted according to the times" is BS. All that does is allow legal decisions that are already constructed based on politics to be readily justified. And it's seen based on decisions on both sides of the aisle.

What is BS is the notion that we can (or even should) determine the intent of the framers. It was a committee. Have any of you been on a committee which produced a document of any type? At best it's a compromised conglomeration of varied and often inconsistent ideas. Likewise, the stated approach of Justice Thomas is nonsense. Defining words strictly as they were defined at the time the document was written? Is there anything in the Constitution about airplanes or computers or the internet? Or the Republican Party? Or the Democratic Party?

I love our Constitution. Unlike the majority of people, I have actually sworn a solemn oath to protect and defend it. I was the keynote speaker at the Constitution Day festivities at our local college. My career is dedicated to ensuring that our Constitution remains inviolate. But despite all of that, I recognize that it was a seriously flawed document as drafted, which needed to be amended numerous times and still needs to be read in light of today's reality. Those who pretend that it is a sacred document mystify me, since it doesn't treat African-Americans as real people and doesn't recognize that women should have the same rights as men. If anyone were to set forth a document with such fatal flaws today, they would be laughed out of the public marketplace of ideas.

So, with all due respect to the strict constructionists and originalists, we have the choice of either attempting to follow one of those unworkable theories, which have no basis in law or history, or to apply our Constitution as best we can to America in 2012. So, we get the best people we can as judges and let them do the best job they can, without trying to read the minds of people who have been dead for 200 years or finding the 1828 edition of Webster's Dictionary.

[Gregg]

Sometimes I feel like I've been tied to the whipping post. Good Lord, I feel like I'm dying.

Great song. Nicely played.

[onejayhawk]

Decision expected tomorrow. Any comments before the ruling?

I have a question. If the funding provision is struck down, is it possible to pick up the pieces?

J

[Lucky]

Decision expected tomorrow. Any comments before the ruling?

I have a question. If the funding provision is struck down, is it possible to pick up the pieces?

J

I don't know, but I'm guessing that if they strike it down, then the whole thing will be stricken because of how integral the funding provision is to the whole. But, I haven't heard anything one way or the other as far as which way they are leaning.

[Moonlight J]

oh boy

[Judge Jude]

I'm guessing mandate strikedown only.
But yeah, then how do they pay for it?

[Lucky]

Another face of Team Romney. His defense, embraced by the GOP, is that the individual mandate would only work in a single state, not on a nationwide basis. This is one of the silliest, most self-serving arguments I have ever heard.

The sign in the pottery store says if you break it, you bought it. I think this should apply to the health care legislation. If the GOP breaks it, which looks like it will happen, then they have to fix it.

[Moonlight J]

fix it: Tort reform (doesn't work), Sell insurance across state lines (fraught with troubles)



I'm puzzled as how a state law could hold up while a national one cannot.

How would MA's healthcare law that passed be any different from Montana's campaign funding law that was just overturned? I guess nobody in Mass filed a case as outsiders did in Montana?

[Moonlight J]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_HEALTH_CARE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Judge Jude]

everyone saying upheld, except CNN

[Updated at 10:06 a.m. ET] In a landmark decision that will impact the nation for decades, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, ruling that requiring people to have health insurance violates the Constitution.

(somebody may get fired today)

[Moonlight J]

Damn activist judges

[Lucky]

Upheld. They ruled Congress can't "require" under the Commerce Clause, but you can penalize people for not having insurance under the power to tax. Seems to accomplish the same thing.

The right can say they "won" on the mandate, but since the penalty portion was upheld the Act will work the same way.

Big win for proponents of national health care.

[Judge Jude]

It's a little awkward for Obama, especially in an election year.
One of the oddities of this whole case has been that the "tax" power was the most logical Constitutional argument - but one the cynics in the Obama re-election campaign refused to admit. Obama appeared with a straight face in interviews to claim this wasn't a "tax," for political purposes.

So now he wins, based on the fact of it being a tax.
It's a good day for anyone on the left; just a little complicated for the Obama folks.

And Roberts being the key vote to accept it should make independents more comfortable with its Constitutionality...

[B-Fly]

Apparently 5-4, so did Roberts vote with the "liberals" and Kennedy with the "conservatives"?