Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Health Care: Take Two Aspirin and SCOTUS in the Morning

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A liveblog of twitter and other stuff while we wait for the ruling...



With a little more than twenty-four hours to go before the Supreme Court is scheduled to release its last rulings of this Term, it is very likely that the Justices and their staffs are still doing some final editing on the opinion — or opinions — that will tell the constitutional fate of President Obama’s most important domestic policy: the massive overhaul of the way Americans get and pay for health insurance. The media and other pundits, and the academics, have all done their speculating on outcomes, and the blame games have started in anticipation that the ruling may turn out wrong for this or that constituency.
~ Lyle Deniston on Scotus Blog

If the Court strikes down the law, Democrats will need to redouble our efforts, fighting to ensure universal health care that’s affordable and accessible to every American is a reality.
If the Court upholds the law, dangerous Tea Party extremists will go on a rampage. Backed by Super PAC’s and shadowy front groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, they’ll do everything in their power to defeat President Obama, demonize Democrats who fought for health care reform and, if they win the election, dismantle the law piece-by-piece.
~ Patrick Kennedy, son of the late ACA leader Ted Kennedy, in a fund-raising email for the Health Care Rapid Response Fund



In the end, you have to make a prediction and take responsibility for it. I believe the mandate will not be invalidated tomorrow. Far less important, I expect the principal opinion will be written by the Chief Justice; a majority of the Court will find it has jurisdiction; and the challenge to the Medicaid expansion will be rejected.
Most observers disagree. There are certainly good reasons to believe the Court will invalidate the mandate. Most important, at the oral argument, the questions of two critical Justices – Justice Kennedy and the Chief Justice – were on the whole critical of the mandate’s constitutionality.
But in the end, based on the entire mix of information I have, I think the mandate will not be struck down tomorrow. (I don’t have any inside information, nor does anyone else.) My prediction includes the possibility that there will not be a single majority opinion for the theory on which the mandate is upheld, and even the thin possibility that the Court will not have a majority to find the mandate constitutional.
Tom Goldstein, Publisher of Scotus Blog

Right now it feels more like waiting for the results of my prostate exam. If the law is upheld (a good result), life will go on with all its attendant pleasures and travails. If the law, or more likely, parts of it, are struck down, like an exam’s bad news we are still left with a series of options, some less appealing than others. In any case, like the exam, the process has been annoying, and I for one will be happy when it’s over. Mostly, because its been an unneccessary pain in the butt.
~ Michael Waldholz in Forbes









































































There Will Be Outrage!








I spent a great deal of time vetting Justice Roberts in making my recommendation to President [George W.] Bush that he appoint Chief Justice Roberts to the court. One of the traits I most admired about him, and this is very consistent in his judicial decision making, is to decide decisions on the most narrow grounds possible, to not get to constitutional issues you don't have to in order to dispose of a dispute....So in that respect, I expect Justice Roberts to follow that approach in deciding this case.
That may mean, that he's going to be pushing the court to perhaps not make a decision on this case, wait until 2015, when the penalties on individual mandate come into play....Perhaps the chief justice is not going to go that way, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did.
~ Ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on CNN, quoted by Politico




































































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