Court Rules: Obamacare Stands !

[Littlejoe]

The Supreme Court is expected to announce on Thursday morning its decision on the health care overhaul that President Obama signed into law in 2010 — an act of Congress thousands of pages long, containing hundreds of changes costing hundreds of billions of dollars and affecting nearly every American from cradle to grave.

But the nine justices are expected to answer only a few principal questions, stemming from a handful of conflicting lower court decisions. Although the arguments are complex, the questions are fairly straightforward.

First, and perhaps above all, did Congress overstep its powers when it passed the “individual mandate” requiring virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty? If a majority finds that it did, the most prominent feature of the law will be overturned.

Second, if the justices strike down the mandate, what other parts of the law are so closely tied to its centerpiece that they must also fall? Both the Obama administration and the law’s opponents have argued that two other provisions — requiring companies to sell policies to anyone who applies and prohibiting insurers from charging extra to sick people — should fall, to keep the insurance market functioning.

But not all experts agree with that argument, and the justices could decide to strike down only the mandate — or to strike down the entire statute.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/us...-care-law.html

[WKUHilltopper]

Of course it stands. These people work for the government.

[ShilohRose]

I told my DH last night that it would stand, but he disagreed with me.

Obama and company just won't be satisfied until the U.S. is destroyed.

[mattfivefour]

It was asplit decision, 5-4 in favor of the government. BUT ... it is very, VERY interesting to read the dissenting opinion written by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito. Their dissenting opinion absolutely SAVAGES the opinion of the five justices who ruled in favor of the government. The four dissenting justices accuse them of judicial overreaching, damaging constitutional freedoms, risking the well-being of the nation, and putting American's liberty at risk.

Please do yourself the favor of reading the dissenting justices' conclusion. It is of paramount interest to every American:

-----
This Court must not impose risks unintended by Congress or produce legislation Congress may have lacked the support to enact. For those reasons, the unconstitutionality of both the Individual Mandate and the Medicaid Expansion requires the invalidation of the Affordable Care Act’s other provisions.

The Court (my note: when they say "The Court" they are referring to the five justices who wrote the majority decision in favor of the government) today decides to save a statute Congress did not write. It rules that what the statute declares to be a requirement with a penalty is instead an option subject to a tax. And it changes the intentionally coercive sanction of a total cut-off of Medicaid funds to a supposedly noncoercive cut-off of only the incremental funds that the Act makes available.

The Court regards its strained statutory interpretation as judicial modesty. It is not. It amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching. It creates a debilitated, inoperable version of health-care regulation that Congress did not enact and the public does not expect. It makes enactment of sensible health-care regulation more difficult, since Congress cannot start afresh but must take as its point of departure a jumble of now senseless provisions, provisions that certain interests favored under the Court’s new design will struggle to retain. And it leaves the public and the States to expend vast sums of money on requirements that may or may not survive the necessary congressional revision.

The Court’s disposition, invented and atextual as it is, does not even have the merit of avoiding constitutional difficulties. It creates them. The holding that the Individual Mandate is a tax raises a difficult constitutional question (what is a direct tax?) that the Court resolves with inadequate deliberation. And the judgment on the Medicaid Expansion issue ushers in new federalism concerns and places an unaccustomed strain upon the Union.Those States that decline the Medicaid Expansion must subsidize, by the federal tax dollars taken from their citizens, vast grants to the States that accept the Medicaid Expansion. If that destabilizing political dynamic, so antagonistic to a harmonious Union, is to be introduced at all, it should be by Congress, not by the Judiciary.

The values that should have determined our course to-day are caution, minimalism, and the understanding that the Federal Government is one of limited powers. But the Court’s ruling undermines those values at every turn. In the name of restraint, it overreaches. In the name of constitutional avoidance, it creates new constitutional questions. In the name of cooperative federalism, it undermines state sovereignty.

The Constitution, though it dates from the founding of the Republic, has powerful meaning and vital relevance to our own times. The constitutional protections that this case involves are protections of structure. Structural protections—notably, the restraints imposed by federalism and separation of powers—are less romantic and have less obvious a connection to personal freedom than the provisions of the Bill of Rights or the Civil War Amendments. Hence they tend to be undervalued or even forgotten by our citizens. It should be the responsibility of the Court to teach otherwise, to remind our people that the Framers considered structural protections of freedom the most important ones, for which reason they alone were embodied in the original Constitution and not left to later amendment. The fragmentation of power produced by the structure of our Government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty at peril. Today’s decision should have vindicated, should have taught, this truth; instead, our judgment today has disregarded it.

For the reasons here stated, we would find the Act invalid in its entirety. We respectfully dissent.

[KR McKay]

ROBERTS?????????????????????‏


ROBERTS WAS THE "SWING VOTE????????????????"


Am I the only person who feels like they just suffered one of the worst "sucker punches"OF ALL TIME???????????????????

[Littlejoe]

The Obamanation Government of America now owns about everything..Banks,Car dealerships,Healthcare,and our freedoms !!!

[WKUHilltopper]

ROBERTS?????????????????????‏


ROBERTS WAS THE "SWING VOTE????????????????"


Am I the only person who feels like they just suffered one of the worst "sucker punches"OF ALL TIME???????????????????

No...you're not the only one feeling it was a sucker punch. Frankly, I knew this entire affair was nothing but a "dog and pony show". It was a facade to begin with. I mean, come on! Kagan wrote the government's defense position on it two years before she was appointed to the Supreme Court.

I kept trying to tell everyone around here (i.e., around my neighborhood) this would be upheld--but they'd remind me how all the news people were saying it was going to be overturned. I kept telling them--this is what they said about getting it voted on in Congress in the first place. They kept saying it was dead, they didn't have the votes--then magically they passed it.

We have no republic--I don't know what we have--but the entire "government" is nothing more than a facade and an attack on individual liberties.

[Littlejoe]

We have no republic--I don't know what we have--but the entire "government" is nothing more than a facade and an attack on individual liberties.

Were slowly becoming a socialistic Nation..And when Obama wins in Novemeber,it will be finished !!We haven't seen nothing yet,especially when WWIII starts.....

[WKUHilltopper]

Were slowly becoming a socialistic Nation..

Slowly? Wait until Obama gets re-elected and claims a public mandate. You ain't seen nuthin' yet.

[Littlejoe]

Today’s ruling is important because it is the first time in history that the federal government has required citizens enter into contract with private corporations to buy a product or service. It also represents one of the most egregious violations of the Constitution in American history

If you are skeptical of this, consider a recent report in Britain. “NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday,” the Daily Mail reported last week.

It is being sold as a “death pathway” that is the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly.

Slowly? Wait until Obama gets re-elected and claims a public mandate. You ain't seen nuthin' yet.

Yep !!!

[caligal]

Congress, we the people, now turn our attention to you. The buck has been passed to you by the Supreme Court, and you had better be paying attention to we the people. Get it right or you will be voted out!

[Lujack Skylark]

ObamaCare wins. Are we on the road to dictatorship before the November 2012 elections?

[WKUHilltopper]

ObamaCare wins. Are we on the road to dictatorship before the November 2012 elections?

On the road? We've been in the fast lane for a few years now.

[mattfivefour]

The dissenting opinion by the four justices who voted against this decision is probably the most scathing dissenting opinion I have ever read in a SCOTUS ruling. In fact it is so scathing that the justices actually stated the ruling threatens America and violates the Constitution. I was so struck by the anger of the dissenting justices that I posted the concluding paragraphs of their dissenting opinion in my post #4 above— Dissenting Justices Condemn Ruling. If you haven't read what they said, read it.

No doubt this will give much fuel for opponents of this bill.

[RanYakumo]

Meh.

Honestly, I put my trust solely in God and God alone instead of any earthly institution a while ago. Besides, I personally always felt it was easier to just amend out the problematic parts of the law instead of destroying the entire thing outright. Or is there something I should know that would make repealing the whole law the better option?

Not to mention that this will fire the Republican base up. Mitt Romney might actually benefit from this all.

[FaithInChrist]

Not to mention that this will fire the Republican base up. Mitt Romney might actually benefit from this all.

That is my hope. We cannot expect anything that congress or the courts do to fit in with our point of view. We see the world much differently than the world sees itself.

I keep trying to figure out which entity is going to get rich off the Obamacare venture? The doctors (most likely not, since doctors right now are so bogged down with insurance rules and regulations as it is), the insurance companies are going to be taxed, so they will probably pass the expense on to us, but they will still probably struggle to make it since they are going to be required to cover the sick and well alike, the government hasn't made money doing anything in years, the last government entity to make money was the post office and they are in debt these days, the drug companies? Perhaps this is where all this money is going to go? Simple fact is, this money isn't going to disappear, it needs to be tracked and I want to know who is going to profit. Oh wait, I know who is going to profit, the same people that already profit off every public entitlement program known to man. Again, it will pay NOT TO WORK! Just call us New Greeceland.

I pray we will be taken out of here before things get much worse.

[Gerardo]

If you guy's didn't know yet that under the OBAMACARE it will be mandatory to micro chipping(RFID) people for medical purposes. Of course you'll know where this will lead to in the near future. Wow we are so close.

Moderator note: The claim in this post is false. The legislation does NOT include microchipping. Many people have been fooled by this. It has been going around the web, but stems from a misreading of HR4872. All the bill calls for is a registry of medical devices that are intended for implantation (such as pacemakers). We discussed this a few months ago in another thread.

That said, we are indeed getting closer and closer to the Rapture!

[GlennO]

RanYakumo said:

Honestly, I put my trust solely in God and God alone instead of any earthly institution a while ago.

We have no other choice........

Rom 13:1-2
(1) Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
(2) Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

13:1 Those who have been justified by faith are obligated to be subject to human government. Actually the obligation applies to everyone, but the apostle here is concerned especially with believers. God established human government after the flood when He decreed, “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed” (Gen_9:6). That decree gave authority to men to judge criminal matters and to punish offenders.

In every ordered society there must be authority and submission to that authority. Otherwise you have a state of anarchy, and you cannot survive indefinitely under anarchy. Any government is better than no government. So God has instituted human government, and no government exists apart from His will. This does not mean that He approves of all that human rulers do. He certainly does not approve of corruption, brutality, and tyranny! But the fact remains that the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

Believers can live victoriously in a democracy, a constitutional monarchy, or even a totalitarian regime. No earthly government is any better than the men who comprise it. That is why none of our governments is perfect. The only ideal government is a beneficent monarchy with the Lord Jesus Christ as King. It is helpful to remember that Paul wrote this section on subjection to human government when the infamous Nero was Emperor. Those were dark days for Christians. Nero blamed them for a fire which destroyed half the city of Rome (and which he himself may have ordered). He caused some believers to be immersed in tar, then ignited as living torches to provide illumination for his orgies. Others were sewn up in animal skins, then thrown to ferocious dogs to be torn to pieces.



Never the less....the morning news was a gut punch for me.

[readyforhome]

This stinks. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it REALLY stinks! Okay enough griping, though I guess I could go on. The fact is that the idea behind this law; providing healthcare for everyone, sounds great. The implementation, not so much. I know there needed to be reform and big time, but there had to have been a better way then this. I haven't mentioned it before but I have MS. The treatments for which are all very pricey, thousands of dollars per month. The med I currently take is over $4,000 before my insurance kicks in, and is still over $800 afterwards. I thank the father in heaven that I was able to find the Chronic Disease Fund, which has enabled me to pay nothing for this medicine to date. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because I most wholeheartedly agree that something needs to be done about the cost of healthcare in the United States. Under socialized medicine; which I don't think the current law is, I would be limited on the type of medicine I could choose. The side effects profiles for the other medicines are much more drastic than the one I am on, Copaxone. The fact is that all of these other countries that have major socialized programs aren't doing so much better right now. I do believe that there could have been a solution found to implement reform with the system that was in place rather than go the route that we have. I actually don't complain about my MS all that much as i do believe there is a reason for it, though I have yet to figure it out. Besides there are people who have much worse things to worry about. I can't wait to be home so this won't be an issue anyway.

The simple fact is that once something is instituted into law, there is usally almost nothing that is or can be done to undo it. Can it be reformed? Certainly, but only if there are actually people who will take the time to do so. That right there seems to me to be part and parsel of the problem with the way that the laws, and prices were to begin with. No one wanted to actually do anything who had the power to do so. The lobbyists and other factions in the governement didn't help either. Every last person working in healthcare; specifically direct patient care, who I have talked to talk about how much of a travesty this law is. That it won't save any money, and that the most it seems to be about is control. We can all send our discontent to the people in charge, and more importanly we can pray.

[SlavicBaptist]

I heard they are gonna be chipping people next year because of Obamacare. Rapture has to be soon.