Federal judge declares entire Obamacare law void

• tk421

  

  So, since you don't think the SC should find the law unconstitutional, I take it you're ready and willing for the government to legislate other kinds of non commercial activity? What if Congress thinks everyone in America buying a GM vehicle will help the economy? What about Congress passing a law mandating buying American made products only? This still OK with you, because that's what the SC upholding this law as constitutional will do.
  
  I can't believe people aren't smart enough to understand this point. The SC upholding this law sets a VERY dangerous precedent and gives Congress blanket power to MAKE you buy and do anything they want.
• believer

  

  Swamp Fox;660192 wrote:Just out of curiosity, when did we ever see a conservative demand real and meaningful health care for the people of this nation prior to being presented with an actual bill that provided it under "Obamacare"?

  First, we already have real and meaningful health care in this nation. Just because that health care up until ObamaKare was more or less a private rather than federal matter doesn't mean it never existed. Second, had Reid and Pelosi not been stubborn hard-headed fools by not allowing Republican participation in the ObamaKare legislation, absurdities like mandating purchase of health care insurance or face federal fines might have been eliminated from the start. Other things like tort reform, permitting sales of private insurance across state lines, and other "conservative" ideas could have been included. Had these things been included perhaps Nancy Pelosi might still be Speaker of the House. God help us.
  

  Swamp Fox;660192 wrote:There was not even a whimper from the conservatives until now. It leads me to believe that the conservatives were perfectly happy before all of this "Obamacare" rattled their cages enough to start their bellowing about big government interference, socialism, communism, and all the other fear mongering terms they are so good at.

  Liberals never fear monger. No wait...they do and they're equally adept at it. Conservatives want to starve old people, are racist, sexist, homophobic, yada, yada, yada....remember?
  

  Swamp Fox;660192 wrote:They still aren't. They were (are) the ones who voted to subsidize huge corporations who mismanaged their way to oblivion, only to award their disgraced executives huge golden parachute escape clauses from any responsibility for their horrendous mismanagement and subsequent rewards

  And we all know how efficient, honest, and above-board all our Big Government bureaucrats and politicians have been in administering successful entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
  

  Swamp Fox;660192 wrote:These are the same people that claim that Obama's health care plan is socialism. Wow , when you think about it, it boggles the mind.

  When a Dem-controlled Congress and a leftist president ramrod an ill-conceived and likely unconstitutional monstrosity like ObamaKare upon the American people, it staggers the imagination. Wow indeed.
  

  Swamp Fox;660192 wrote:I'm thinking that the conservatives are hoping and praying that the SCOTUS goes along with them and kills health care once again.

  Good thinking.
  

  Swamp Fox;660192 wrote:If they don't, be prepared to hear how the liberal media caused the vote to turn out the way it did."

  And if SCOTUS kills ObamaKare be prepared for the liberal media to run exposé after exposé on those eeeeeevil conservative SCOTUS members who had the audacity of dissing their poster boy BHO by following the rule of law.
• BoatShoes

  ccrunner609;660059 wrote:6-3....................not a chance, congress cant use the commerce clause to punish "NOT" doing anything within or lack thereof in the ecomnomy. The SCOTUS is going to make this call against the congressional abuse of the commerce clause.
  
  If they uphold this mandate on health care, they are setting up the ability of the government to control everything we do with commerce. Doing nothing should be an option that cannot be touched.

  
  Not a chance you say? What evidence do you have for such a proposition? In the most recent major case invoking the commerce clause both Kennedy and Scalia went with the liberal wing of the court and given Scalia's justification in his concurring opinion. In the case the Court held that Congress could regulate medicinal marijuana production that wasn't even involved in interstate commerce. Scalia's reasoning for agreeing with the majority is that Congress may make all laws necessary and property to effectively regulate interstate commerce and found that regulating intrastate marijuana production was necessary and proper for regulating the interstate marijuana trade. Given the less restrictive definition of "necessary and proper" that the courts have used since McCulloch v. Maryland, it seems that, if Scalia can find that Congress was within its power to regulate intrastate commerce in order to effectively regulate interstate commerce in regards to the marijuana, trade, it's even more within Congress to attempt to eliminate the free rider problem in health care economics through an individual mandate so that Congress may effectively regulate the interstate health care markets.
  
  In Gonzales v. Raich it was 6-3 with the libs plus Kennedy and Scalia. Perhaps either Kennedy or Scalia switch but not both. JMO.
  
  
  Fwiw I think Judge Vinson's opinion has been the best I've read on the issue so far and I think his analysis is thorough and thoughtful but I'm merely stating that I think Justice Scalia's previously articulated views in opinions might prevent him from coherently deviating from them in this context. Nevertheless, in his opinion it seems to me that he's not acting like a district court judge and applying the precedents of Raich and Fillburn....
• believer

  

  Boatshoes,
  
  You have valid points but medical bonging doesn't compare to ObamaKare as a "major" issue. Just sayin'...
• fish82

  

  It's a reach to use Gonzales v. Raich as a precedent. Allowing congress to regulate the production of something is less than comparable to forcing citizens to buy it. Scalia can justify the difference in one page or less.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  For those of you who are scoffing at conservatives not wanting this bill:
  
  Do you like this particular billand everything that comes, and goes, with it?
  Do you like the IDEA of this bill and everything that comes, and goes, with it?
  Or
  Are you just FOR this bill because democrats plopped it out?
  
  I'm really curious to see the method of thinking with any and all of you who don't want this bill, or parts of it, repealed. I'm thinking my last question (bolded) is the forerunner so far - hopefully somebody proves me wrong.
  I come to that conclusion based on these little tidbits of information:
  

  
  There's simply too much money involved for conservative members of Congress to bother fooling with it.

  
  Just out of curiosity, when did we ever see a conservative demand real and meaningful health care for the people of this nation prior to being presented with an actual bill that provided it under "Obamacare"?

  
  And, by the way. Can somebody PLEASE explain to me (draw me pictures if you have to) how Obamacare is "real and meaningful" in any way, shape, or form?
• believer

  

  CenterBHSFan;660272 wrote:Can somebody PLEASE explain to me (draw me pictures if you have to) how Obamacare is "real and meaningful" in any way, shape, or form?

  I'll supply the crayons. My kids have plenty of 'em.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  I knew I could count on you to help, Believer!
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  ccrunner609;660385 wrote:tehy dont even know whats in it......I bet all those libs like stuff like the 3.5% tax on home sales buried in it. Obama is tax raping everyone in this bill, 2000 pages should tell you that htis thing stinks.

  
  While I agree that the D's didn't read it and hell even the administration did not fully understand all aspects of it (leading to its PR Fail), just because a bill is 2000 pages does not automatically make it awful.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  ptown_trojans_1;660402 wrote:just because a bill is 2000 pages does not automatically make it awful.

  In this case though, I think it absolutely does. Actually, I would think it would make any bill awful in that the logical reason to have so many pages is because there's something you deliberately want buried.
  In fact, I can't think of anything that would seriously need to be 2,000 pages long other than a tax code, and there are good arguments out there where a 2,000p. tax code could be seriously diminished.
  
  So, yeah, I totally disagree.
• BoatShoes

  fish82;660269 wrote:It's a reach to use Gonzales v. Raich as a precedent. Allowing congress to regulate the production of something is less than comparable to forcing citizens to buy it. Scalia can justify the difference in one page or less.

  
  Even Roger Vinson agrees that Congress has the power to regulated the interstate health insurance markets. The crux of the matter under the reasoning in scalia's concurrence in Raich is whether or not "forcing" citizens to purchase private health insurance is necessary and proper for Congress to effectively regulate the interstate health insurance markets. A case could be made that the free rider problem of economics that has ransacked our health markets poses that an individual mandate is necessary and proper to have an effective private health insurance market. It seems to me, that if it's necessary for the feds to regulate activities that will never really affect interstate commerce in order to properly regulate the interstate market (as in Raich), it might at least be a reasonable proposition that one might regulate the decision to purchase private health insurance when it can be demonstrated that the lack of such purchase and the subsequent use of health goods has a negative effect on our national health markets.
  
  Nevertheless, supposing Scalia could find a way to distinguish the general principal he espoused in Raich, the question is would he want to? Scalia despite being a conservative is also a Hamiltonian in many respects and has expressed a belief in strong federal power "used wisely." Justice Thomas and others like to say that this kind of commerce clause jurisprudence leaves Congress with "unlimited power" but that is not true. It leaves Congress with "few and defined" great powers.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  CenterBHSFan;660409 wrote:In this case though, I think it absolutely does. Actually, I would think it would make any bill awful in that the logical reason to have so many pages is because there's something you deliberately want buried.
  In fact, I can't think of anything that would seriously need to be 2,000 pages long other than a tax code, and there are good arguments out there where a 2,000p. tax code could be seriously diminished.
  
  So, yeah, I totally disagree.

  
  Tax code, SS budget, and defense budget.
  
  But, yes, the healthcare bill was a massive fail.
• BoatShoes

  CenterBHSFan;660272 wrote:For those of you who are scoffing at conservatives not wanting this bill:
  
  Do you like this particular billand everything that comes, and goes, with it?
  Do you like the IDEA of this bill and everything that comes, and goes, with it?
  Or
  Are you just FOR this bill because democrats plopped it out?
  
  I'm really curious to see the method of thinking with any and all of you who don't want this bill, or parts of it, repealed. I'm thinking my last question (bolded) is the forerunner so far - hopefully somebody proves me wrong.
  I come to that conclusion based on these little tidbits of information:
  
  
  
  
  
  And, by the way. Can somebody PLEASE explain to me (draw me pictures if you have to) how Obamacare is "real and meaningful" in any way, shape, or form?

  
  I like how it attempts to create better market conditions to attempt to take a competitive market based approach to creating greater access to health insurance and how it provides a disincentive to pushing one's burden to insure their health onto others as we can predict with reasonable certainty that many folks will not voluntarily bear this burden.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  BoatShoes;660423 wrote:Justice Thomas and others like to say that this kind of commerce clause jurisprudence leaves Congress with "unlimited power" but that is not true. It leaves Congress with "few and defined" great powers.

  Which means that is IS true, simply because once government sees that it can get away with obtaining a "great" power, it's gonna push for another. In this case, government has gotten yet another "great" power.
• BoatShoes

  CenterBHSFan;660434 wrote:Which means that is IS true, simply because once government sees that it can get away with obtaining a "great" power, it's gonna push for another. In this case, government has gotten yet another "great" power.

  
  They've had the power to regulate economic markets encompassing more than one state since 1787. This is not a new power.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  BoatShoes;660431 wrote:I like how it attempts to create better market conditions to attempt to take a competitive market based approach to creating greater access to health insurance and how it provides a disincentive to pushing one's burden to insure their health onto others as we can predict with reasonable certainty that many folks will not voluntarily bear this burden.

  - Is it "OK" that in that so-called attempt that will be a certain amount of the market is flooded to the point where the insurance company cannot pay out versus what it is bringing in? I can understand the reasoning behind that train of thought if the answer is yes; however, isn't it also putting a strain on jobs and business?
  
  - Not sure if I understand your second point correctly.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  I love how each party, when they don't agree with a court decision, pulls the "judicial activism" card. What BS.
  http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/01/31/judicial-activism-and-affordable-care-act
• BoatShoes

  CenterBHSFan;660442 wrote:- Is it "OK" that in that so-called attempt that will be a certain amount of the market is flooded to the point where the insurance company cannot pay out versus what it is bringing in? I can understand the reasoning behind that train of thought if the answer is yes; however, isn't it also putting a strain on jobs and business?
  
  - Not sure if I understand your second point correctly.

  
  My second point is that when I choose not to purchase health insurance (or I cannot afford it because so many other people are choosing not to buy it that insurance companies have to raise their price to such a degree to account for this lack of volume and the knowledge that people will suddenly purchase it when they need to use it), I am shifting my individual burden onto another person. If CenterBHS insures her own health and I do not and then I insure myself through her insurance company when I suspect I have a disease, and I get insured...her insurance company gets hit with all of my high medical costs and got none of my money all that time I was healthy. I have harmed her and others in a demonstrable way and distorted the health insurance markets. If I have to pay a penalty if I do not buy private health insurance, and that penalty is high enough, I'm going to buy the insurance prior to getting sick and therefore cannot shift my personal burden onto other.
  
  People don't want a national socialistic healthcare system but they also want to let people continue pushing their burdens onto the rest of us...which we can know with reasonable certainty that it will continue to happen.
  
  Nothing will create a constituency for a socialized Amerikare faster than knocking down this fair-minded generally market based approach to national health insurance.
• believer

  

  ptown_trojans_1;660443 wrote:I love how each party, when they don't agree with a court decision, pulls the "judicial activism" card. What BS.
  http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/01/31/judicial-activism-and-affordable-care-act

  
  True. I just hope this WH is willing to boo hoo as strongly the next time a leftist judge legislates from the bench.
• believer

  

  ccrunner609;660474 wrote:then explain to me how a property sales tax has anything to do with health care? If it doesnt then now we have a 1999 page bill.

  And we'll party like it's 1999!
• Ty Webb

  

  This is complete and total BS....
  
  One part of a law does not make the entire thing void
  
  This is from Republican judges and AG who are still sore their man isn't living in the WH
  
  Supremes will outlaw the mandate(as they should),but they will not abolish the whole law
• BoatShoes

  Ty Webb;660799 wrote:This is complete and total BS....
  
  One part of a law does not make the entire thing void
  
  This is from Republican judges and AG who are still sore their man isn't living in the WH
  
  Supremes will outlaw the mandate(as they should),but they will not abolish the whole law

  I doubt it. The mandate is probably going to not be found severable imho because knocking down the mandate fundamentally changes the nature of the legislation. And, for good measure, this bill would not work without the mandate and if it gets struck down and we decide as a nation we don't want to have a health insurance system that is provided largely by the private sector than so be it. Having a law that demands that insurance companies do not deny coverage for people and yet not requiring people to have insurance is a recipe for disaster, would exacerbate the free rider problem and in all likelihood, at risk of sounding over the top, would destroy private health insurance.
  
  If you're a real conspiracy theorist, maybe you can imagine BHO and Harry sitting in a dark room giggling themselves as conservatives nation wide form a rallying cry against the chief provision that could preserve an efficient, competitive, predominantly private, health insurance market. Muhahahahaha.
• Apple

  

  Ty Webb;660799 wrote:This is complete and total BS....
  
  One part of a law does not make the entire thing void
  
  This is from Republican judges and AG who are still sore their man isn't living in the WH
  
  Supremes will outlaw the mandate(as they should),but they will not abolish the whole law

  Actually, if there is no written severable clause in the law, if a part is found to be unconstitutional, the whole law is void. There is no getting around this.
  
  Though Repubs are leading the charge in opposition, their claims are rooted in the constitutionality of the law. Yes, they can gain politically, but I have to give them credit for trying to uphold the constitution of the land.
  
  From what I've heard, as they were writing the law, the severable clause was initially included. But they knew that if the IM was deemed unconstitutional and severed within the initial 10 years, the CBO would not include the revenue generated by the IM in their assessment. No revenue from the IM = No glowing report by the CBO.
  
  It looks like the Dems rolled the dice on this one thinking there would be not be constitutional opposition to their efforts. Dems took the American public for stooges and ramrodded the bill through. Voters did what they could last November to change things. The Courts are weighing in now too.
  
  This issue and the whole process of how we got to this point and where we go with it in the future gives me even more respect for the government our founders created.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  Apple;660864 wrote:Actually, if there is no written severable clause in the law, if a part is found to be unconstitutional, the whole law is void. There is no getting around this.
  
  Though Repubs are leading the charge in opposition, their claims are rooted in the constitutionality of the law. Yes, they can gain politically, but I have to give them credit for trying to uphold the constitution of the land.
  
  From what I've heard, as they were writing the law, the severable clause was initially included. But they knew that if the IM was deemed unconstitutional and severed within the initial 10 years, the CBO would not include the revenue generated by the IM in their assessment. No revenue from the IM = No glowing report by the CBO.
  
  It looks like the Dems rolled the dice on this one thinking there would be not be constitutional opposition to their efforts. Dems took the American public for stooges and ramrodded the bill through. Voters did what they could last November to change things. The Courts are weighing in now too.
  
  This issue and the whole process of how we got to this point and where we go with it in the future gives me even more respect for the government our founders created.

  
  Well done.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  BoatShoes;660809 wrote:I, would exacerbate the free rider problem and in all likelihood, at risk of sounding over the top, would destroy private health insurance.

  No, it would not. Especially when you have politicians telling people that they can quit their jobs to explore their artistic side, and still be covered by this "healthcare reform".
  So, this bill actually encourages the free riders to keep on keeping on, and probably adding greatly to the pre-existing numbers.