Supreme Court Health Care Decision Thread

[Bob001]

Just a question here: Would the individual mandate be less controversial if a Medicare-style public option had not been dumped early in the legislative process? Suppose the government could say "We will enroll you in the public option plan and bill you for the premiums unless you enroll in a private plan of your choice." This wouldn't be much different from requiring everyone to contribute to Social Security, except that there is no option to be excluded from SS. Personally, I support a national single-payer system like Canada's, the UK's, etc., but even I am queasy about people being forced to buy a commercial product from profit-oriented private companies.

 

[MattusMaximus]

It's been upheld 6-3. Roberts voted with the left.

Actually, it was a 5-4 ruling, with Roberts being the swing vote.

Wow, once again, I am pleasantly surprised! I had no expectation that Roberts would vote to uphold the law; I will reiterate that, contrary to our own biases, it is possible for judges (and, dare I say, even politicians on occasion) to defy our expectations and preconceptions.

President Obama's speaking now. Yes we did

ETA: Seeing the earlier posts about the news coverage has made me LOL quite a lot. Another example of "get it first" rather than "get it right"

 

[RandFan]

I have argued at length that if the ACA were funded via the general fund (tax) then it would not violate the commerce clause. Guess SCOTUS agrees.

 

[daredelvis]

Obama's most significant achievement is ruled a tax increase on poor and middle-income Americans.

By partisan hacks and ill informed mouth breathers.

Daredelvis

 

[daredelvis]

Outside of conservative fantasies, did it ever mean anything? At one time or another, America has had a government that enslaved people based on race, put them in camps based on nationality, criminalized criticism of the government, forced women to carry children they didn't want, forcibly sterilized people, censored information, censored pornography, fined people for saying "bad" words, forced people to pray, forbade what chemicals or drugs people can ingest, forced people into military service. I can go on and on.

But noooo, it only is NOW. When government has reformed healthcare (for good or ill) that "limited and enumerated powers" means nothing.

Very nice Tony.

Daredelvis

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I tried to read the whole decision, but when I opened the pdf my vision blurred and I was overwhelmed with a wave of exhaustion. Secret Obama weapon?

 

[MattusMaximus]

Somebody made a ton of money on Intrade today. Wish it was me.

Speaking of prediction markets, it will be interesting to see how/if this decision affects the odds for the election.

ETA: Wow. Obama's already up by about 3% over at Intrade as compared to yesterday. Guess I've got my answer.

 

[BenBurch]

...

Except for the part about someone being ill, I expect prediction 8b to be close to coming true.

I am told that there are some smouldering health issues.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I have previously predicted the followingredictions 8 and 8a have proven correct. Except for the part about someone being ill, I expect prediction 8b to be close to coming true.

For a long time I argued that the individual mandate was OK as a tax, and even after I accepted the government's CC argument, I still wondered why they wouldn't argue (legally, that is, as opposed to politically) that it's a tax.

And I admit I don't understand at all the court's decision that it's not a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, but it is a tax as far as Congress' authority. I'll have to read the decision more carefully. (So far, I've just read through the holdings in the Syllabus.)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

But hats off to Chief Justice Roberts.

 

[JamesDillon]

For a long time I argued that the individual mandate was OK as a tax, and even after I accepted the government's CC argument, I still wondered why they wouldn't argue (legally, that is, as opposed to politically) that it's a tax.

And I admit I don't understand at all the court's decision that it's not a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, but it is a tax as far as Congress' authority. I'll have to read the decision more carefully. (So far, I've just read through the holdings in the Syllabus.)

I just read through the Anti-Injunction Act part and it seems a bit dodgy; basically the mandate is a "penalty" rather than a "tax" because... Congress says so. But I haven't gotten to the part upholding the mandate under the tax power yet, maybe it will make more sense then.

 

[Kestrel]

Somebody made a ton of money on Intrade today. Wish it was me.

Nate Silver mentioned yesterday that Intrade was far too certain the mandate would fall.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I just read through the Anti-Injunction Act part and it seems a bit dodgy; basically the mandate is a "penalty" rather than a "tax" because... Congress says so. But I haven't gotten to the part upholding the mandate under the tax power yet, maybe it will make more sense then.

That's what the holdings seem to say: that for purposes of the AIA, Congress' intent matters, but for purposes of the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the court could overlook that intent and decide that since it functions as a tax, it is a tax. (I recall some precedent to the finding that a tax penalty is a tax as long as it raises revenue. And the revenues raised by the tax penalty in the ACA were part of the calculation of its impact on the federal budget by the CBO. And clearly the idea was that people who might otherwise be purely a drain on the system will at least be paying in something to help offset the costs of care to the uninsured. In other words, that revenue is important as revenue.)

 

[JamesDillon]

We have broccoli (er, "vegetables") argument at 22-23!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Obama's most significant achievement is ruled a tax increase on poor and middle-income Americans.

Nope.

The tax penalty most definitely does not apply to the "poor". (Depending on how you define "poor", most of them actually already qualify for Medicaid.) There is in fact a financial hardship exemption. Rather, the tax penalty is aimed at those who can afford coverage but choose not to get it because they are low risk for needing healthcare (that is, those who would like to game the system) and not at those who can't afford it.

In fact, a major aim of the ACA is to make minimum essential coverage affordable to as many of the uninsured as possible.

 

[pgwenthold]

It's not exactly unusual for the Court to express its standard post-Lochner paean to judicial modesty and the autonomy of the political branches in policy matters, and Roberts has been more vocal about deference to the political branches more so than most Justices. Seems a bit of a stretch to assume that his language here is a response to Obama's statement.

I didn't read Brown's post like that. I read it as Roberts showing that Obama's assessment was correct. The court did what it did. Obama anticipated it correctly.

As a constitutional scholar, Obama should in principle have a decent idea of how the court works, you would figure. In this case, he was borne out.

 

[BenBurch]

I didn't read Brown's post like that. I read it as Roberts showing that Obama's assessment was correct. The court did what it did. Obama anticipated it correctly.

As a constitutional scholar, Obama should in principle have a decent idea of how the court works, you would figure. In this case, he was borne out.

When Obama leaves office in 2016, I really think that President Biden should nominate him for the SC.

 

[TragicMonkey]

But really if we are going to have a "health care law" let's please get rid of this horrible overregulated piece of garbage they have created. This isn't going to make anything better in the long run. I'm pretty hardcore but if we are going to have a nationalized system we should just go ahead and be done with it by making it single payer. I don't think this half assed stuff is a good idea at all. Either completely privatize and deregulate (my preference) or move to single payer PUH-LEASE!

Agreed. The law makes some baby steps in the right directions, but it's trying to make the current system act like a different system instead of just replacing it with something better. We're basically putting improvements into a double-wide when we should be building a new house.

 

[JamesDillon]

I didn't read Brown's post like that. I read it as Roberts showing that Obama's assessment was correct. The court did what it did. Obama anticipated it correctly.

As a constitutional scholar, Obama should in principle have a decent idea of how the court works, you would figure. In this case, he was borne out.

I won't try to speak for what Brown meant, but to the extent that Obama's statement was intended as a description of how constitutional decision making actually works, it was entirely false. The degree of support that a provision under review enjoyed from the legislature or the public is (at least theoretically) entirely irrelevant to the assessment of its constitutionality. Obama's suggestion to the contrary was nothing more than propaganda-- and as I noted above, propaganda that one more frequently heard from conservatives, at least in the Warren-Burger-Rehnquist Court days when they tended to be on the losing end of 5-4 splits.

ETA: Obama was also just wrong as a historical matter to suggest that it would be "unprecedented" for the Court to strike down a law passed by a strong majority of Congress. Every federal law is passed by a majority of Congress; some of those majorities have been quite large. See, e.g., Schechter Poultry v. United States (striking down the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed by a large majority of FDR's Congress).

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

So a question for the legal minds here: is the holding on the CC authority dictum since it wasn't necessary to dispose of the controversy before the court? If not, does it change anything wrt CC authority jurisprudence?