Health care reform to SCOTUS? Finally?

The Obama administration said late yesterday that it won't appeal the last decision that declared the health-care law unconstitutional. That makes it likely that the Supreme Court will take it up in its next term. During a presidential election cycle. That'll go well. :

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64475.html

 

It's a tax.

The end.

 

No. It's a great idea. The Supreme Court is going to decide in a landslide that it's a constitutional tax or exercise of the commerce clause, with only Ginny Thomas's husband voting otherwise.

Win: Obama.

 

Because it is.

It's a tax pegged to income. The federal government can tax income. Therefore, 8-1.

 

Dick, I don't know squat about it, but how do you go about framing a mandate to buy a commercial product as a tax? Is it the fact that, if you don't buy it, you get taxed? Or, alternatively, that having it buys you tax relief? Is that the way it'd have to be framed?

 

If so, wouldn't it get thrown out simply because it didn't originate in the House?

 

You've said that before, but I am not quite sure what you're getting at. Does the Constitution require an income tax to originate in the House?

 

I think Carlton guaranteed us that this was going to fail at SCOTUS, so there's really no need for any suspense.

 

Re-write the law this way: There is a health care tax in the tax code of, say, $1,000. You can get a tax break if you carry health insurance. Or you can pay the $1,000 tax.

Hence: It's a tax.

 

The Supreme Court can't take the political season into consideration. That's not their job.

Justice Breyer has a new book out, and he recently did an interview with Hugh Hewitt:

http://www.hughhewitt.com/transcripts.aspx?id=d0c4a956-c0ce-47ba-b4cc-6e6544871276

It's pretty interesting.

 

I was going to post this, too, but I think he intended his criticism at the administration for not stalling.

 

I'm not sure if the Court gives guidance about how a law could be written so it would be Constitutional, but if it isn't in its current form, don't they just rule?

And, if it had to be re-written, it would never pass the current Congress.