Barrett won't say if Medicare is constitutional

[question everything]

WASHINGTON — In the third day of Senate hearings, Democrats continued to press their case that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is hostile to the Affordable Care Act, a central element of their long-shot effort to derail her nomination. That argument was helped along on Wednesday by an exchange between Barrett and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, during which the nominee refused to say if the law creating Medicare is constitutional.

While that may not keep Barrett from joining the Supreme Court, it could hurt the prospects of both President Trump and Senate Republicans. Democrats have relentlessly depicted them as wanting to take away Americans’ health care, an argument helped along by the GOP’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Barrett seemed to unwittingly play into that narrative in her exchange with Feinstein.

(snip)

Feinstein then proceeded to read from a brief 2015 essay by Michael Rappaport, a conservative legal scholar at the University of San Diego. Titled “The Unconstitutionality of Social Security and Medicare,” the paper argues that “these programs would have never taken their pernicious form if the Constitution’s original meaning had been followed in the first place.”

(snip)

With that view plainly in mind, Feinstein asked Barrett if she agreed with “originalists who say that the Medicare program is unconstitutional.” Barrett said she was “not familiar” with Rappaport’s article. Pressed by Feinstein for an opinion on the broader point about Medicare’s legitimacy, Barrett said she could not “answer that question in the abstract,” citing the so-called Ginsburg rule, an excuse frequently used by Republican-nominated judges to avoid revealing how they might rule. “I also don’t know what the arguments would be,” she added, referring, presumably, to a case that sought to challenge Medicare’s validity. A seemingly incredulous Feinstein described Medicare as “really sacrosanct in this country.”

https://news.yahoo.com/barrett-wont-say-if-medicare-is-constitutional-175120149.html

[calguy]

1. She isn't saying anything. Which says a lot!

[Beakybird]

2. They should ask her if public schools are constitutional.

Then if she says yes, they should revisit the Medicare question.

[BigmanPigman]

3. Good idea!

[Hoyt]

4. There's a reason they call it the Ginsburg Rule, although she certainly

indicated where she stood over the years. For as long as I can remember, no SC nominee answered such questions.

The last thing I’m concerned about is Social Security or Medicare being ruled unconstitutional. It’s not going to happen. Now, sufficient funding is a concern.