XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.politics.obama, alt.politics.usa   
   XPost: alt.politics.usa.constitution   
   From: emoneyjoe@iglou.com   
      
   On Sat, 30 Jun 2012 10:01:45 -0400, Ubiquitous    
   wrote:   
      
   >By David Catron   
   >   
   >In a craven decision written by the Chief Justice, the Court upholds   
   >most of PPACA.   
   >   
   >The government lawyers who defended the Patient Protection and   
   >Affordable Care Act (PPACA) before the Supreme Court probably began to   
   >fear that its "minimum coverage provision" was headed for the mortuary   
   >when Justice Kennedy, from whom they had hoped to receive a reprieve,   
   >said the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance "changes   
   >the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very   
   >fundamental way." They must have known it was a goner when Kennedy   
   >followed up with this lethal injection of reality: "Do you not have a   
   >heavy burden of justification to show authorization under the   
   >Constitution?"   
   >   
   >The Solicitor General, Donald Verilli, fended off that apparently deadly   
   >thrust with the absurd claim that the mandate wouldn't affect the   
   >government's relationship to the citizen as profoundly as Kennedy had   
   >suggested: "[A]ll this minimum coverage provision does is say that,   
   >instead of requiring insurance at the point of sale, that Congress has   
   >the authorityŠto ensure that people have insurance in advance of the   
   >point of sale." This argument was so weak and its delivery was so poor   
   >that most of the law's supporters sank into slough of despond. CNN's   
   >Jeffrey Toobin called Verilli's performance a "train wreck" and all but   
   >pronounced the PPACA dead.   
   >   
   >But the death of Obamacare and its much-reviled mandate was, as it turns   
   >out, greatly exaggerated. In an utterly Orwellian opinion authored by   
   >Chief Justice Roberts, the majority held that the mandate was not a tax   
   >for purposes of applying the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA), but that it was   
   >constitutional because it falls within Congress' taxing powers: "The   
   >Affordable Care Act describes the ?s]hared responsibility payment' as a   
   >?enalty,' not a ?ax.' That label is fatal to the application of the   
   >Anti-Injunction Act.ŠIt does not, however, control whether an exaction   
   >is within Congress's power to tax." So, sometimes it's a tax and   
   >sometimes it's not.   
   >   
   >Chief Justice Roberts had to use two definitions of "tax" because AIA   
   >forbids legal challenges to taxes before they go into effect, and the   
   >mandate doesn't take effect until 2014. For the AIA to apply, then, the   
   >mandate had to qualify as a tax. When the first legal challenges to   
   >Obamacare were litigated, the government tried to argue that the mandate   
   >was indeed a tax, but couldn't find any buyers because Congress had gone   
   >out of its way to avoid characterizing it as such. In all of the many   
   >courts that considered the legal implications of "reform," only a single   
   >judge in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals took the tax argument   
   >seriously.   
   >   
   >And Roberts also rejected that argument -- until it came time to deal   
   >with the central question of the Obamacare challenges: Is it within the   
   >legitimate power of Congress to command individuals to purchase health   
   >insurance? To answer this question in the affirmative the Chief Justice   
   >had to change his method of defining the word "tax" in midstream.   
   >Notwithstanding the contortions Congress went through to avoid   
   >associating the "T" word with the mandate, Roberts followed "a   
   >functional approach, ?d]isregarding the designation of the exaction,   
   >and viewing its substance and application.'"   
   >   
   >The Court also upheld the rest of the law, except for part of its   
   >Medicaid provision. In all, the justices considered four questions to   
   >arrive at this ruling. The first involved AIA. The second concerned the   
   >mandate. A third question involved severability: Was the Court required   
   >to strike down the entire statute if it deemed the mandate   
   >unconstitutional? Obviously, the ruling rejected the jurisdictional   
   >issue raised by AIA and the severability question was rendered moot when   
   >the mandate was upheld. The final question considered was the claim,   
   >made in Florida v. HHS and NFIB v. Sebelius, that PPACA's expansion of   
   >Medicaid was unconstitutionally coercive.   
   >   
   >On this Medicaid question the majority took a different view than was   
   >taken by the lower courts, where the plaintiffs had a tough time selling   
   >the coercion argument. Even U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, who struck   
   >down Obamacare in its entirety in early 2011 and started Florida v. HHS   
   >on its long road to the Supreme Court, wrote that the states "always   
   >have the option, however impractical, to withdraw from Medicaid." Today,   
   >the Court ruled that the federal government cannot withhold all matching   
   >funds from a state that does not agree to expand the joint state-federal   
   >program as PPACA dictates.   
   >   
   >Needless to say, some of the justices disagreed with the majority.   
   >Justice Kennedy, whom everyone expected to be the swing vote, was   
   >particularly succinct as he read his dissenting opinion from the bench:   
   >"In our view, the act before us is invalid in its entirety." Kennedy   
   >went on to point out the glaring inconsistencies between the "reform"   
   >law itself and the way it was characterized in the ruling: "What   
   >Congress calls a penalty, we call a tax ŠCongress went to great lengths   
   >to say it was a penalty ŠIn short, the court imposes a tax when   
   >Congress deliberately rejected a tax."   
   >   
   >Thus Chief Justice Roberts saved Obamacare and its egregious mandate. He   
   >cast the deciding vote with the Court's liberals, justices Kagan,   
   >Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor. Then, he wrote a majority opinion   
   >containing enormous logical and semantic inconsistencies to justify that   
   >vote. He used two conflicting definitions of "tax" and, as Kennedy   
   >pointed out, ignored the actual text of the statute. So the country will   
   >have to go on living with the the grotesque morass of bad ideas and   
   >corrupt bargains that constitutes Obamacare, despite countless surveys   
   >showing that Americans wanted the Court to overturn all or part of the   
   >monstrosity.   
   >   
   >As to the effect of the ruling on the industry Obamacare purports to   
   >"reform," it will be minor. Health providers have been preparing for the   
   >advent of Obamacare's major provisions for two years, in areas ranging   
   >from quality of care to information technology to reimbursement to   
   >regulatory oversight. Most health care insiders I have talked to never   
   >believed that the potential demise of PPACA was going to change our   
   >lives very much. The consensus was that most of Obamacare's provisions   
   >would have been imposed on us by government fiat, no matter what the   
   >Court decided in Florida v. HHS or NFIB v. Sebelius.   
   >   
   >And the patients? They will continue to receive the best health care   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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