Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe SCOTUS can rule against the mandate BUT

[joeybee12]

keep much of the rest of the law intact. I think that's most likely..the 4 neo-facist slugs ruling against everything, the four sensible ones ruling for most of the law, and Kennedy finding some compromise with those 4 to uphold a good deal of the law. There will be arguments that if the mandate goes, it all has to go, but I don't think the justices will buy that argument.

[Poll_Blind]

1. There's no severability clause in the law. It's all or nothing, AFAIK. nt

PB

[Romulox]

18. On the contrary. In general, the SCOTUS will strike down unConstitutional provisions, and

let those that are clearly Constitutional (e.g. those based on Congress' unquestioned power to regulate the insurance industry,) stand. Severability clause or no, ruling on the narrowest issue in front of the Court is one of the first rules of Constitutional construction.

If striking down the individual mandate leaves us with an unweildly scheme, then it is up to Congress to correct it, not the SCOTUS.

[BlueDemKev]

22. Without a severability clause, the court reserves the right....

...to strike down the entire law or allow parts of it to stand.

[adigal]

23. They can, but they have to protect their cronies in the insurance industry

If they are not getting millions of health new people, they will lose $$ if they take those with preexisting conditions.

[Poll_Blind]

24. Good point- I was listening to the audio from today and Justice Breyer (?) brought that up.

I stand corrected. Whatever justice it was said the Supreme Court has often disregarded severability if it chose to- which I thought was really interesting!

PB

[TheMastersNemesis]

2. Loss Of The Mandate Pretty Much Scuttles The Plan

The insurance companies would freak because they could not operate under the rest of the law. Costs would really skyrocket and premiums would be huge.

[subterranean]

3. Obama administration: If the mandate goes, the consumer protections should also go.

They have already asked the court to invalidate the consumer protections in the law if it strikes down the mandate. Which is stupid, because there are other ways to encourage people to buy insurance without the tax penalty.

If the Supreme Court strikes down the mandate, the Obama administration and the insurance industry have asked the justices to also invalidate consumer protections such as the law's ban on denying coverage to people with pre-existing health problems. Unless everybody is required to be in the pool, they argue, those safeguards won't work as intended, and could destabilize the insurance market.

http://news.yahoo.com/loss-insurance-mandate-wouldnt-kill-health-law-202004820.html

[joeybee12]

6. I didn't realize the administration asked that...

Is it because they think SCOTUS will uphold it all...OR...are they really in bed with the insurance companies?

[SpencerShay]

7. Naive.

The Obama administration was naive in thinking a radical right-wing supreme court would uphold the entire law.

[BlueDemKev]

20. Obama was naive PERIOD.

He totally underestimated how partisan the American right has become. He came into office thinking that everyone was going to come forward and work together to help the country get back on its feet.

I didn't vote for Obama in the primaries, not because I didn't like his ideas (shit, I LOVED them!) but I saw him as too inexperienced for presidency having just been a political newcomer only a few years earlier. However, he won the party's nomination fair and square and I had to accept that. I voted for him in the general election silently praying that he would be able to find good advisers who would help him in his new position.

But sadly, my concerns about his inexperience have been realized, and as a result, it appears that all that Pres. Obama has been able to achieve these last four years may be completely lost because he and his at-best-mediocre advisers didn't understand just how partisan the right-wing in this country is, to say nothing of how immature the American people as a whole have become.

God Help us all.

[great white snark]

30. Well there it is.

Must be true since you capitalized it. All he's accomplished will be lost is only true if you were in a coma the last 4 years.

[kudzu22]

10. I think they gambled that the Court wouldn't have the guts

to invalidate the entire law over one point, and therefore it would have to be kept. Looks like they may have bet wrong.

[joeybee12]

11. Sounds like it...nt

[karynnj]

13. I agree with you - I don't understand the President's gamble

It would seem the easiest way to deal with no mandate is to allow very high entry fees for people who opt out and then want to join when they need services. ( alternatively, they could be allowed to pay a much smaller portion for the first year so they do not need to test if people are coming just because they need it.) The point being that it many might not take the risk of going without insurance - and if they did, they would pay a price for having gambled.

There were plenty of discussions like this during the primaries. ( Obama was asked about how to prevent people not joining only when they needed costly services - and Edwards and Clinton were asked how high the penalty for not paying would be - addressing the problem without a mandate and with one.)

[dmosh42]

4. Reason & logic have nothing to do with Scotus. Only what the corporations want.(in this case,....

the Insurance Cos. Like everything else in the USA, it's all rigged!

[ellenfl]

15. but the insurance companies WANT the mandate.

all those healthy people paying premiums.

ellen fl

[LynneSin]

5. Honestly that was the one thing that I was most challenged about with Obama's healthcare

Forcing people to buy health insurance. I felt it was a lame attempt to make up for not giving us single payer.

I just don't want them to strike down the pre-existing conditions or coverage until you're 27. Those two features alone have allowed more people to get insurance coverage. Especially that one for extended coverage for young adults. The job market is so tough out there that if we extend the benefits until a child turns 27 then it gives the kid almost 8 years to find a job with benefits.

I know when I had graduated college and off my parent's healthcare plan. My mother gave me so much crap about not having healthcare and to get myself covered that I gave up the chance at a state job in Pennsylvania to find a job that provided coverage. The good thing about that job was it got me out of the Harrisburg region and mother's house, something I knew I wanted to do. But had I just give the state job I had about 2-3 years I could have moved from a 'temporary full time' employee to a full time employee with benefits, and PA state jobs had great benefits back then. Not sure how my life would have changed if I had healthcare coverage until I was 27 - who knows? But I have nieces and nephews now out of high school and not in college - this part of Obama's health care plan is huge! It would be a shame for it to be pulled.

[joeybee12]

14. If they put in a public option to counter the mandate, I would

have been fine with it...the mandate only is a real problem. Thing is, insurance companies love it so I can't see those five far-right SCOTUS members striking down something that pleases their corporate masters.

[kudzu22]

8. The supreme court can do whatever it wants, severability or not

but I seriously doubt they would strike down the mandate and leave the rest intact. Without the mandate, they would have to lose all the major provisions like guaranteed issue, preexisting conditions, community rating, etc. Without the mandate the insurance companies would be out of business within a year. As tempting as that might sound, it would be really bad for a lot of people (with no public alternative) and I seriously doubt the Supremes would wreak that kind of havoc.

[Johonny]

9. It is hard to believe the corporate judges would keep

the anti-corporation parts and dump the pro parts.

[joeybee12]

12. True, Scalia, Roberts and the others are just toadies for corporations...

And the mandate is really liked by their corporate masters...that makes the eventual decision really hard to predict.

[Romulox]

19. None of the other parts of the bill "have" to be struck down if the mandate is...

It may be unwise or even untenable to enforce the other provisions of the ACA without the individual mandate.

But unwise or not, it is clearly within Congress' power to enforce said provisions. Nor is it the SCOTUS' job to make tough political decisions (e.g. with regard to the severability of the various provisions of the ACA) if Congress has been unwilling to make these tough choices.

[kudzu22]

25. Of course they don't have to

I'm saying it's very doubtful that they'd leave those provisions in place and strike down only the mandate. It's unworkable from a pragmatic standpoint. They could also rewrite the thing so that it is constitutional, but I think that's even less likely, given the size and scope of the act.

[Bandit]

28. The Extreme Court can not write Law...Period

They can interpret Law and if they find it unconstitutional they can send it back to Congress for a rewrite, but the Court can not EVER write Law....

[subterranean]

26. There are ways to make it work without the mandate.

What is the "mandate," anyway? It's really just the tax penalty for not having insurance. That's what they're arguing about.

How about instead of a fine, we make a rule where if an affordable policy is available but you go uninsured for longer than a certain period (six months or one year, for example) and then try to sign up after you get sick or injured, the insurance company would be allowed to exclude your pre-existing condition and charge you 20% more than the standard premium. Wouldn't that give people incentive to acquire insurance when they're healthy? And those few who truly object to the idea of health insurance and don't intend to use it (for whatever reason) wouldn't be punished for not buying it.

This is just one idea, but don't you think something like that would work just as well as the tax penalty?

[kudzu22]

27. It probably would survive

if the law had simply raised everyone's tax by $700, and then allowed a $700 deduction if you have qualifying coverage. However, that might have thrown the CBO budget numbers above where they could claim that it was a deficit savings. Plus, the right could have claimed that the law raises taxes on the poor, and technically they would have been right. I'd guess those are the main reasons Congress didn't go that route.

[madinmaryland]

16. OR do they punt this down the road a couple of years, using the fact that

since the mandate does not happen until 2014, no-one has been affected by it yet and as such there are no grounds yet to sue.



They could signal in their statements, that they feel they mandate is unconstitutional which might push Congress to do something else.

[BlueDemKev]

21. No, The Supreme Court....

...is nothing more than a political body now, which has a conservative caucus and a liberal caucus. Scalia and Kennedy want to ensure President Obama's defeat simply because 1) they disagree with his politics and 2) both men probably want to retire between 2012 and 2016 and want to make sure a Republican president nominates their replacements.

In 1985, Justice Thurgood Marshall said "So help me God, I'm going to outlive the Reagan presidency." He did, but thanks to that imbecile Michael Dukakis, it was George Bush who nominated his replacement--Clarence Thomas.

There is no way Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Roberts, or Alito will ever voluntarily step down with a Democrat in the White House.

In the past 44 years, only one conservative justice has been replaced by a liberal justice (that being in 1993 when Clinton nominated Ruth Ginsburg to replace Byron White). Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens held on by their fingernails and outlived what seemed to be endless tenures of Republican administrations (Reagan-Bush, 1980-1992) and Bush-Cheney (2000-2008). Don't expect Ruth Ginsburg to be able to do the same.

[BlueDemKev]

17. Don't Hold Your Breath....

....Kennedy wrote the opinion in Citizens United for the conservative wing of the court. The court is basically now a conservative caucus and a liberal caucus, it's no different than Congress.

[meow2u3]

29. If the Fascist Five strike down the ACA

Dems can use this decision to point out that we're living under a judicial dicatorship, ruled by five tyrants in robes.