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Health care reform to SCOTUS? Finally?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by MisterCreosote, Sep 27, 2011.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Not necessarily. They would probably see that as silly formalism.
     
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    No, they want it to flare up. They want to have this debate head-on.
     
  3. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    I have read some thinking in that regard, and it makes sense to me that that would pass muster (Lord knows it's not out of line with all of the other crud in the tax code). I have read some other writing that says the real constitutional issue is that payment advisory board.
     
  4. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I don't know about that ... the opponents talk louder, but there's not nearly the unanimity of opinion against this that they portray. (The polls that show disapproval don't take into account the percentage of people that dislike it because it didn't go far enough.) And as they are setting up the rich vs. everyone else storyline -- "class warfare" if you're the GOP -- this fits in nicely.
     
  5. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    See, I read the Breyer transcript with Hugh Hewitt and I disagree.

    He says it's up to Congress to write the law so it holds up. They're free to go back and re-write it, but he's not going to give them credit if they get it wrong on the first attempt:

     
  6. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    Why is that? Medicare and Medicaid can already determine what they will and will not pay for. Why is IPAB any different? I'm asking not to be contentious, but because I don't know.
     
  7. CarltonBanks

    CarltonBanks New Member

    Yes, and it would also violate the equal protection clause as well as not originating in the House. Dick is excercising a bit of wishful thinking here.
     
  8. Greenhorn

    Greenhorn Active Member

    Here is an article from the Yale Law Journal stating the health care law is constitutional.

    http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal-pocket-part/constitutional-law/bad-news-for-mail-robbers:-the-obvious-constitutionality-of-health-care-reform/
     
  9. CarltonBanks

    CarltonBanks New Member

    So, was Obama lying here on ABC?
    Mr. Stephanopoulos: "I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase."

    Mr. Obama: "My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we're going to have an individual mandate or not, but . . ."

    Mr. Stephanopoulos: "But you reject that it's a tax increase?"

    Mr. Obama: "I absolutely reject that notion."
     
  10. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Calling it a tax doesn't give the government the right to use it as a means to exercise unconstitutional powers. As a Supreme Court junkie, you might recall McCulloch v. Maryland.
     
  11. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    As I understand it -- and I know little about it other than what I've read -- the law, in creating IPAB, represents a (potentially) unconstitutional delegation of authority. Via IPAB Congress delegates a portion of its legislative madate to the executive branch. The IPAB will massage healthcare spending by cutting Medicare payments to some executive-branch target. If Congress doesn't want to go along, it must, by a three-fifths Senate supermajority, approve cuts of equal or greater size. So the executive branch gets its cuts regardless.

    It's probably just a formalism type thing. Congress is always free to change its mind.
     
  12. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Heck, since this is a journalists' board, let's use some examples close to home.

    Governments have tried to use the "it's a tax" argument to punish newspapers and restrict the First Amendment, too. See: http://supreme.justia.com/us/460/575/
     
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