The Heart Leaps
Just posted on the website of the New York Times, more evidence that, as Adam notes below, the mandate is in trouble:
“Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked the lawyer, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., only minutes into the argument.
Justice Antonin Scalia soon joined in. “May failure to purchase something subject me to regulation?” he asked.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked if the government could compel the purchase of cellphones. And Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked about forcing people to buy burial insurance.
The conventional view is that the administration will need one of those four votes to win, and it was not clear that it had captured one.
Too early to pop the corks, of course. But lay in some champagne.
ObamaCare delenda est.
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May '10
Re: The Heart Leaps
Now, now, now... you'll jinx it if you get too optimistic.
(That said, I understand that the ideal temperature for Champaign is 46 degrees Fahrenheit, 8 degrees Celsius.)
Sep '10
Re: The Heart Leaps
While it would be some sort of victory to have O-care overturned by the courts it is hardly a cause for celebration. The choices offered to voters by the two major parties is to continue moving toward socialism quickly or continue to move toward socialism more slowly. Will limited government conservatives be able to take control of the GOP? That is the important question and it looks like this is no where close to happening.
Re: The Heart Leaps
Very, very interesting, Peter. It gives one hope.
Re: The Heart Leaps
I agree, but beggars cannot be choosers -- and right now we do not have a viable candidate. Alas.
Apr '11
Re: The Heart Leaps
What I heard was that Kennedy was saying that there had to be a extremely serious justification for changing the relationship between the citizen and the state. But my guess (and that of Ace Of Spades) is that he will decide that health care is important enough to provide that justification and they will write a "we will allow it this time" opinion.
Mar '11
Re: The Heart Leaps
Paul A. Rahe
I agree, but beggars cannot be choosers -- and right now we do not have a viable candidate. Alas.
Even the perfect candidate is useless as long as 80% of the electorate can't stomach any cuts to Medicaid or Medicare.
Striking down the individual mandate is necessary and proper, but until a majority of Americans doesn't instinctively look to the state to provide healthcare, my champagne consumption will be limited to the drowning of sorrows.
Re: The Heart Leaps
To buttress this line of thought, consider this, which just came across my desk from someone who is extremely close to the case:
Re: The Heart Leaps
I loved Alito's question about burial insurance: a great example of everything the administration says is "unique" about healthcare. Everyone will have to be buried or cremated, and if they don't leave enough assets to pay for it, the cost is "shifted" to the rest of society. Why not force everyone to buy a plot at Happy Acres?
Jul '11
Re: The Heart Leaps
If this goes down, the GOP sure better come up with some solutions....but that is the 2016 election.
Mar '11
Re: The Heart Leaps
The serious solution, and the only proper action from Congress on this, is to bar states from forbidding the purchase of medical insurance across state lines. This is one case where states are trampling both on my rights as a consumer and on the Federal government's territory. They have no business telling me that my insurance can't be purchased from an out of state agency. There's no excuse for having fifty different Blue Cross agencies because they can't make one large one for the whole American insurance market because of various state regs barring that.
Apr '11
Re: The Heart Leaps
It all sounds good, but as a Scotch-Drinkin' Curmudgeon, I'm going to save celebration until we hear word.
Mar '11
Re: The Heart Leaps
ante victoriam ne canas triumphum
(Pseudodionysius, did I get that right?)
Jun '10
Re: The Heart Leaps
the government created the uncompensated medical care market by compelling hospitals, etc. to treat evertybody whether they could pay or not. If hospitals could turn down people without payment, there would be no uncompensated care problem, and ipso facto no "market." So the government has created a market that creates uncompensated care, and then creates the solution by forcing people to buy pre-paid insurance to avoid the uncompensated care problem. I don't see how it can be upheld.
Edited on March 27, 2012 at 9:58pmJun '10
Re: The Heart Leaps
Will the Court strike down just the mandate, or the whole act? And if it kills the mandate, but leaves the rest in place, will that weaken opposition to Obamacare once the least-popular element is removed?
Sep '10
Re: The Heart Leaps
Douglas
The serious solution, and the only proper action from Congress on this, is to bar states from forbidding the purchase of medical insurance across state lines. This is one case where states are trampling both on my rights as a consumer and on the Federal government's territory. They have no business telling me that my insurance can't be purchased from an out of state agency. There's no excuse for having fifty different Blue Cross agencies because they can't make one large one for the whole American insurance market because of various state regs barring that. · 6 minutes ago
Well said, Douglas. But that's just the start. Healthcare is the most distorted market that I can think of, and it's not entirely government's fault. Billing and insurance reimbursements are rife with fraud and that kind of behavior needs to be brought into the sunlight, if not prosecurted.
Jul '10
Re: The Heart Leaps
We aren't home yet on the mandate, Joseph. I believe tomorrow's arguments are about whether the mandate can be dumped all by itself.
As for the final question: maybe. But in that case, Obama will have a whole new series of cost estimates to deal with for the election. He'll have to pitch some kind of fix for that in his campaign.
Re: The Heart Leaps
Douglas
The serious solution, and the only proper action from Congress on this, is to bar states from forbidding the purchase of medical insurance across state lines. This is one case where states are trampling both on my rights as a consumer and on the Federal government's territory. They have no business telling me that my insurance can't be purchased from an out of state agency. There's no excuse for having fifty different Blue Cross agencies because they can't make one large one for the whole American insurance market because of various state regs barring that. · 45 minutes ago
Amen to that. If the problem is a lack of competition, the answer is a national market.
Re: The Heart Leaps
Palaeologus
We aren't home yet on the mandate, Joseph. I believe tomorrow's arguments are about whether the mandate can be dumped all by itself.
As for the final question: maybe. But in that case, Obama will have a whole new series of cost estimates to deal with for the election. He'll have to pitch some kind of fix for that in his campaign. · 0 minutes ago
Single-payer, perhaps?
Jun '10
Re: The Heart Leaps
Paul A. Rahe
Palaeologus
We aren't home yet on the mandate, Joseph. I believe tomorrow's arguments are about whether the mandate can be dumped all by itself.
As for the final question: maybe. But in that case, Obama will have a whole new series of cost estimates to deal with for the election. He'll have to pitch some kind of fix for that in his campaign. · 0 minutes ago
Single-payer, perhaps? · 1 minute ago
Exactly, that's what worries me. I'm convinced that was the plan all along.
Wasn't the individual mandate there mainly to get the insurance companies on board? It was supposed to make up for the ban on charging more for pre-existing conditions. If the mandate is struck down, people can just wait until they get sick to buy insurance. That will bankrupt the remaining private insurance firms, leaving the "public option" as the only option.
Jul '10
Re: The Heart Leaps
Joseph, you're right but the industry won't go bankrupt between June and November. If it's just the mandate that goes... I'm not exactly sure where that leaves us. But it does put a major crimp in his campaign. Whatever positive agenda he's pitching must take a back seat to re-arguing his unpopular, unconstitutional, signature achievement in altered form.
If that new form is single-payer, the GOP nominee ought to be salivating. My bet is something more subtle like a tax credit instead of a penalty. Still, he doesn't want to have this same fight again, because it implies he hasn't accomplished anything.