SCOTUS: ObamaCare Decision

[RickStain]

The only thing I'll predict with any certainty is that the mandatory health insurance provision bites the dust.

This.

Though I've been consistently intrigued/puzzled by **** and Stain's sheer confidence that the mandate will be upheld.

"Uphold the rest but take out the mandate" is one of those "Everything's complicated so let's just split the difference" ideas that seems casually appealing, but it doesn't seem remotely workable to me in a practical sense.

 

[schiezainc]

5-2?

Sorry, meant 5-4. Typing is hard.

 

[RickStain]

Although let me note, I don't share ****'s sheer confidence. I'm simply saying that if I have to be pinned down to a single scenario that I think is more likely than any other, it's that it will be upheld. I wouldn't be shocked at all to see 5-4 overturning it.

 

[printit]

5-4 to overturn. Just not constitutional. If the power to regulate interstate commerce means the power to regulate inactivity then it means literally EVERYTHING and, thus, means nothing. 5-4, it's gone.

And the idea that the Court doesn't strike down "major" legislation (whatever that even means) is just not historically accurate.

 

[Guy_Incognito]

6-3 to uphold everything

Alito, Thomas, and Scalia?

I'm guessing 7-2 or 8-1, with only Thomas or Thomas/Alito dissenting.

Has Thomas ever been the lone dissenter on anything?

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Final-Stats-OT09-070710-15.pdf

http://www.communityrights.org/thomasops.pdf

 

[Dick Whitman]

5-4 to overturn. Just not constitutional. If the power to regulate interstate commerce means the power to regulate inactivity then it means literally EVERYTHING and, thus, means nothing. 5-4, it's gone.

And the idea that the Court doesn't strike down "major" legislation (whatever that even means) is just not historically accurate.

It is not inaccurate to say they don't do it very often. They don't. I never said that they don't do it ever.

And it's not going to be upheld under the commerce clause. It's going to be upheld under Congress's enumerated taxing power.

 

[dixiehack]

5-4 overturned. And if all they do is take out the mandate, the rest of the law becomes fiscal suicide.

 

[User 4332]

I believe it will be upheld 5-4, Kennedy as the swing. Not a particularly bold prediction, I know, but that's what I expect. The individual mandate will be upheld as falling within Congress' taxing authority.

 

[amraeder]

6-3 to uphold everything

Alito, Thomas, and Scalia?

I'm guessing 7-2 or 8-1, with only Thomas or Thomas/Alito dissenting.

I'll back this guess.

 

[MileHigh]

I don't think it's coming tomorrow -- but next Thursday. I think Arizona comes out before health care.

 

[printit]

5-4 to overturn. Just not constitutional. If the power to regulate interstate commerce means the power to regulate inactivity then it means literally EVERYTHING and, thus, means nothing. 5-4, it's gone.

And the idea that the Court doesn't strike down "major" legislation (whatever that even means) is just not historically accurate.

It is not inaccurate to say they don't do it very often. They don't. I never said that they don't do it ever.

And it's not going to be upheld under the commerce clause. It's going to be upheld under Congress's enumerated taxing power.

Forcing someone to pay a tax to the government and forcing someone to buy a service from a private company are not the same thing. If Congress wants to pass a tax increase of X and take X and buy everyone insurance, well, they could do that. But that's not what they did.

 

[old_tony]

5-4 to overturn. Just not constitutional. If the power to regulate interstate commerce means the power to regulate inactivity then it means literally EVERYTHING and, thus, means nothing. 5-4, it's gone.

And the idea that the Court doesn't strike down "major" legislation (whatever that even means) is just not historically accurate.

It is not inaccurate to say they don't do it very often. They don't. I never said that they don't do it ever.

And it's not going to be upheld under the commerce clause. It's going to be upheld under Congress's enumerated taxing power.

Forcing someone to pay a tax to the government and forcing someone to buy a service from a private company are not the same thing. If Congress wants to pass a tax increase of X and take X and buy everyone insurance, well, they could do that. But that's not what they did.

This.

 

[Quakes]

I'd be very surprised if the decision comes tomorrow; there are several cases from earlier in the term that haven't been decided yet, and I'd expect the Justices to knock those out before putting the finishing touches on the healthcare case.

It should be 8-1 to uphold, but I'll predict a splintered 5-4 or 6-3 vote to uphold. The four liberals will find the mandate easily constitutional under the Court's Commerce Clause precedents. Kennedy will, in typical Kennedy fashion, create some mushy, ill-defined new test for government mandates -- requiring more than a mere rational basis, even though this is just economic legislation -- but find that the mandate in this case stands up to heightened scrutiny, given the unique nature of the market for health insurance. Maybe, just maybe, Roberts writes his own opinion concurring in the judgment.

 

[da man]

Prediction?

Pain.

 

[HejiraHenry]

6-3 to uphold everything

I disagree with your predicted outcome, but I will say that both this and the Arizona decision really need to be 6-3 in some direction or other just to get us off the dime on these 5-4 decisions that both sides can interminably jawbone as being "partisan." If that means the decisions need to be narrow to get to 6-3, so be it.

 

[steveu]

5-4 to junk the entire piece of legislation, forcing a do-over by Congress (this one or the next one)

 

[Flying Headbutt]

I'm guessing the mandate gets scrapped, and then the rest of it becomes fairly useless as a result. Because the rest of it only works when there's a mandate.

 

[DanOregon]

Upheld - perhaps with one of those screwy decisions that can't be held as precedent. Or maybe they just spell out exactly how Congress needs to change it for it to be legal.

 

[Tarheel316]

Struck down 5-4 by the court's Republican majority in a political decision.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

5-4 to junk would be the latest Exhibit A of the Soprano family and their henchmen running roughshod over any and all opposition -- which is why it's precisely what I expect. I'm sure Roberts would love to see a more-emphatic lean to the "no", but can't see how he'll get it.