This is it. In minutes from now, the Supreme Court will rule on the Affordable Care Act, potentially impacting the access to health insurance for millions of Americans and certainly the legacy of the 44th President. The case will be announced from the bench, roughly starting at around 10:00am ET. There are other cases that will be announced today, so we may not know about the health care ruling right away. In fact, it is believed that the health care decision will not come down to around 10:15am.
David Shuster is reporting live from the steps of the Supreme Court, and of course the best way to get the information from inside the chamber is SCOTUSBlog.
While Jon Walker will give policy analysis, throughout the day I’ll be gathering reactions from lawmakers and stakeholders, so see where we go next. House Republicans have already made their determination: they will move to repeal the entire law, regardless of the outcome. It’s just a question of how much they’ll try to repeal. As for the Democratic side, the President will make a statement today, in all likelihood. But the strategy is really unclear. Some progressives are using this as a means to make a push for single-payer; the Progressive Change Campaign Committee will gather at 11am with several House Democrats at a news conference calling for that. Tom Harkin says that he has legislation ready to go in case of any contingency. But the fight will probably shift, in some fashion, to the states, which can pick up the pieces by passing their own guaranteed issue regime with some encouragement to purchase insurance, or go further and use this as a moment for a broader-reaching universal coverage plan.
Or the Court can uphold the whole law and we can all go home in the same place today as we were yesterday.
We’ll know soon enough. I’ll update as I know more.
… The two other cases that will be decided today include United States v. Alvarez, which is about the Stolen Honor Act, a law that makes it a crime to lie about military service; and First American Financial Corp. v. Edwards, which is about whether you can give standing to sue to individual homeowners over banks and title companies engaging in kickbacks.
…Here we go. The Court upholds the Ninth Circuit opinion in Alvarez. The statute of the Stolen Honor Act violates the First Amendment as presently drafted. So Congress can fix it.
…Clarence Thomas is going to give the opinion in the First American case, so you can forget about people having standing to sue banks on that one.
…First American got decided for the bank, that would be the 8th straight ruling where the Chamber of Commerce intervened on the right side.
…The health care ruling is coming out presently. Keep in mind it may be complicated and may get misreported initially.
…”The individual mandate survives as a tax.”
…There was a lot of talk that this could be the ruling, that the mandate would be struck down, in some form, but that the penalty for not purchasing insurance would be constitutional under the taxing power. But the ruling is seen as complicated, so hold on.
…Tom Goldstein says that the mandate is upheld as constitutional, with Chief Justice Roberts joining the four liberals.
…Whoa, the Medicaid provision is described as “limited” but not invalidated.
…Tom Goldstein: “The entire ACA is upheld, with the exception that the federal government’s power to terminate states’ Medicaid funds is narrowly read.”
…So much for reading the tea leaves of the oral arguments.
…This was a 5-4 ruling. Kennedy sided with the conservatives. Roberts sided with the liberals. Does that make him an umpire? Or someone siding with the insurance industry’s desire for a forced market?
…The section of the bill in question, Section 5000A, is read as upheld under the taxing power, and “it need not be read to do more than impose a tax.” I suppose you can read that as no mandate and just a tax, but either way, the framework of the law stays in place.
…The most notable law professor to predict this ruling was Walter Dellinger.
…It sounds to me like the Medicaid expansion is constitutional, but if states don’t comply with it, Congress could not withhold existing Medicaid funds. I’ll have to read more about how that could play out in practice.
…So the Court did find the mandate unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, but constitutional as a tax. Four Justices upheld under the Commerce Clause, but that did not control the opinion. It was Roberts seeing it as a tax that upheld it.
…The Medicaid portion could have serious implications, allowing some states to opt out.
….Wow, the dissent would have invalidated the entire ACA. Kennedy is reading it.
…Walter Dellinger, the former Solicitor General under Clinton, called this cold the day of the oral arguments.





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This shall be a glorious day for socialism!
When I say ‘social’, you say ‘ism’. SOCIAL!
GLAD you are “live blogging” david since I have been TRYING to make a point on your posts so I can finally get you the message;
there are NO “bush tax cuts”, those expired, the “tax cuts” you talk about are obama’s and nobody elses
please stop referring to obama’s scheme to redistribute middle class assets to the wealthy as “bush tax cuts”
As I expected, mandate upheld as a tax. Corp SCOTUS would not throw out 30 million profitable customers of private ind.
PDFs of the Court’s slip opinions are posted here immediately:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx
So far, only the Alvarez decision is up.
who is being quoted in DDay’s sentence regarding upholding the mandate as a tax?
they manage a dual purpose here, they get to claim they are “bipartisan” because they agreed with obama, AND they get to do corporate bidding
man, this is all downhill
who is Tom Goldstein?
Assuming this is accurate, it explains the tea leaf I was reading on Tuesday: Scalia lighting his hair on fire in rage at the Chief Justice for joining a liberal majority.
it’s not socialism when government forces you into buying from the private sector, that’s actually fascism as it was originally defined by musilini himself
CBS — Jan Crawford. Roberts, writing for the majority (with liberals) holds that the mandate is constitutional under the tax power
However, another CBS reported says Court just struck down the Medicaid expansion. US can’t require all states to be in the federally paid Medicaid expansion, but it can allow any state to “opt in” to this federal program.
This is much worse, because the Medicaid expansion would have covered more than 20 additional people who currently have no coverage.
Mandate upheld = court clears way for the privatization of Medicare. Why not? Make seniors captive customers of insurance corps. just like the rest of us.
it was NOT a “liberal” decision it was a corporate decision
both myself and ecahnomics speculated obama would not have forced this early decision if he did not have the decision he wanted in the bag, he would have waited till after the election
Think about the glorious precedent. What’s next on the list of things the USG can force you to buy on the thinly veiled excuse that it is a tax.
CBS, Jan Crawford. The part of the Medicaid expansion that is strike down is severable from the rest. Nothing else struck down.
I wonder if the obamabots will finally realize we will be much better off if we fire this guy, a quaterback throwing for our team who is working for the other side does more damage then if we allow the other side get the ball
obama must be fired
There was a weird underground cabal of wacknut law professors scheming to use some kind of Tenther analysis to kill Medicaid. It completely escapes me what authority the Court would use. One of the wacknuts admitted in a webcast I was on that there was zero case law supporting that proposition.
Note for future. The oral arguments may focus on one argument/theory, but the Court is always free to look to another provision of the Constitution when deciding what is permissible.
Mandata is OK as tax.
IN about 10 seconds there will be Romney ad that Obama raised taxes on the middle class.
the four who joined Roberts are still the “liberals” on the Court, whether we like it or not. I was describing the alignment of the Justices, not the outcome of this case, since I have no idea what the outcome was based on reporters’ jabbering about it.
Still no PDF on the Obamacare decision at the Court’s slip opinions publication page.
good
because he did
and this isn’t the first time either, re-issuing the redistribution of middle class asset scheme marketed as “bush tax cuts for the wealthy” is a tax on the middle class, and it’s huge
Scarecrow @16
I have argued a considerable number of appellate cases and my experience suggests that making much of the oral argument is generally a mistake.
If reporters are correct, fasten your seat belt for Scalia’s raging wind storm of evil halitosis.
Yes, it was completely wacko.
My worry now is that the Court is saying that the following model is not constitutional:
Fed: we want x done.
STates: we can’t pay for it, and we don’t want you to administer it.
Fed: okay, we will pay for most/all of it, and we will let you administer the details, but we set overall policy/goals. But if you don’t follow those rules, we wont fund.
The court may be saying that this scheme, which is used in many areas, is “coercive” on the states and falls under the 10th Amendment, or something. That would be a very damaging precedent.
Question for David Dayen: how is it “liberal” to support the mandated transfer of income to a corporation as a provision of a Heritage Foundation health insurance bill?
David’s last post on Medicaid is what cnbc reported as well.
You are so right. I was just dumbfounded at Toobin for getting all hysterical about how badly the U.S. Solicitor General “performed” at the oral argument. Lotta pundits gonna look stoopid when we get to see the written opinion(s).
I cannot argue your point, the fact that the “liberals” are now finding for corporate swill is even more distressing
mark my words, if this were a republican president we would have the same ruling only the conservative judges would all agree with the mandate and there would be a supposedly “liberal” judge who agreed
we
are
screwed
Man, you’re on fire, and I agree with everything you’ve written.
Yes, if some expansion of Medicaid was invalidated on constitutional grounds that would be as bad as the “economic liberty” decisions of the late 1920s. I can’t wait to read their stare decisis. They would have had to invent some BS analysis, because they have never held any similar federal program invalid in over 70 years.
Understand pups, this means single payer is dead. Won’t happen. Not now, not ever. We are now captives of the oligarchy and they will never let us up.
yes to all of your points. We were already screwed by corporate corruption, this case is just a fake drama.
Watch governors decide not to opt in to Medicaid expansion.
Now remember, that although pitched as for “the poor”, Medicaid subsidizes the long-term care of a lot of middle class folks in nursing homes who have either been bankrupted by the system or spend down and give away enough to qualify.
No way was Roberts going to do anything that would anger the drug and insurance industries. That’s why the mandate wasn’t touched.
It’ll be interesting to see Romney attack Roberts as a ‘liberal’.
Although I don’t pretend to understand the technical aspects of this decision, I will offer that it has a peculiar corporate odor wafting out of it…
This was a no-brainer prediction. There was no way that a right-wing, authoritarian Supreme Court would ever ruin a free money grabbing scam by the wealthy oligarchs at the expense of the serfs.
Bet it’s a states rights unfunded mandate argument because states are partly responsible for funding Medicaid.
Copy that.
Reading David, this could be narrow on Medicaid.
1. We have current Medicaid, paid half/half (or other for some states) by States and Feds.
2. ACA vastly expands Medicaid — about 20 millions
3. To mollify states, ACA agrees Feds to pay 100% of this increase for x years, then 90% thereafter, declining later.
4. ACA says that if states don’t allow the expansion, then they lose funding for the existing program as well. So accommodate the expansion, but if you don’t, we take you completely out of the system.
5. Court rules: its coercive to remove states completely from original program, even if you don’t expand per ACA
6. Court: states therefore get to opt in to the expansion, with no risk of losing Medicair for current levels.
So Texas can let people die, while Massachusetts won’t.
Pete Williams is saying that if you don’t pay the penalty for not buying the insurance nothing happens. There,is no enforcement provision. That sort of says the mandate is really gone. Onmedicaid the states do not have to opt in to the new provisions.
So, the mandate is upheld as a form of taxation. Not Constitutional under the Commerce Clause, but Constitutional as a Tax.
Americans are therefore paying the “tax” to the Private Insurance Companies, as a way of increasing those Private Insurnace Companies’ bottom lines and shareholder returns, and then those Private Insurance Companies get to decide how, when, where to spend that Tax Revenue.
But, Obama was unwilling to do the Public Option, or Medicare for All, because he and the Democrats didn’t want to “raise taxes.”
Wow. So, instead of raising a tax and letting the Government manage the tax revenue, OBama instead “raised a tax” and will allow PRIVATE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS to manage the tax revenue.
Welcome to Fascism. The outsourcing of Federal Taxation to Private Industry is the biggest step backward this nation has taken in over a hundred years. Teddy Roosevelt would be twisting in his grave about now.
What are Americans going to be forced to buy from private corps next? Guns, oil, cigarettes, mj (only after private corps get the monopoly on it).
as usual it seems david doesn’t participate in his own threads, particularly alarming however obsurd he doesn’t even participate when he “live blogs”
I am getting pissed off with this charachter, so much I expect to be banned soon for making the point
The “expansion” of Medicaid in the ACA was to make eligible all those who currently make too much to qualify today, but who’s income is still below 133% of federal poverty level.
That enforcement could easily be amended into it in the next round. The lack of enforcement was 11-dimensional chess. Just to get the base happy. Now that it survived SCOTUS, the enforcement will be written in. And the regulations of how Insurance Companies have to use those premium dollars will slowly be repealed and whittled away. Sort of like the Bush Tax Cuts. Once the taxing power has been established on this, now it can be modified. And money is speech. The biggest money will make the biggest changes…
So I guess now a “tax” can be collected by private entities. Good ruling, Supremes./s
The mandate is not really upheld. There appears to be no enforcement of,the mandate.if,you,don’t pay the penalty nothing happens.
Excuse me? The guy is covering six different sources and getting ready for other stories today, and you complaining about something. Don’t.
I think he’s leaving his comments on the bottom of the original post.
Not with a divided congress.
how long do you think it will take for penalties assigned?
I guess not even a year
So how exactly is Obamacare helping anyone
but the health insurance industry and big pharma?
and of course the WH as a BS p.r. ‘win’.
Excuse my innocence here but how could they possibly spin this as
anything but corporate welfare?
holy shit! that was a close call.
And we all over-reacted about the Medicaid expansion, based on reporters’ jabbering. Sounds like the majority did NOT adopt a completely baseless Tenther analysis. Stay tuned ….
OffT. I heard a good description of what Erdogan is all about.
we’re down here ecahn, writing up there is not participating in his thread it’s editing it
SCOTUS made the corporate decision.
It may turn out that the biggest decision today is the precedent about the limits of the commerce clause. Seems a majority is saying you can’t do some parts of the ACA under the commerce clause, and that may be troublesome.
hey Tarheel! stick around, we gotta read the actual text together.
I don’t know if that is enough. Congress changes every 2 years, essentially, and if Bush was able to get his tax cuts pushed in, and then get them to survive this “divided” congress for the past 4 years, I don’t really know what the word “Divided” means. When Congress was mostly Democrat, in 2008 and 2009, it couldn’t get better than this piece of crap legislation. The “divided” congress theory doesn’t convince me. Lobbyists are pretty good at getting Democrats and Republicans to vote the way the money talks…
Good god, this place is so bizarre. Honestly, I think you’ve all gone so far to the left that you’ve reached around and come full circle to tea party levels. Yes I’d like single payer too, but we came one justice away from having millions of people denied health care in this country. God knows how many thousands of lives would have been lost that can now be prevented. I can’t even believe you all really care about the people this law would effect; you just want reasons to be angry. This law is far from perfect, but the results of it being struck down would have been disastrous and I can’t imagine any liberal rooting for its failure.
Do not accuse others here of being racist. Ed.
The same way democrats spun this once the public option died in December 2009; since the corporate welfare will end up saving some lives, that is worth indenturing over 300 million Americans to the large corporations.
Seems like a mixed ruling. Some work will,have to be done to make this law work. Good luck with that with a divided congress.
According to Scalia, that would be broccoli. But then mayor Bloomberg will forbid you to buy a super-sized Coke. What a great country.
Medicare and Social Security.
SCOTUS BLOG GUY, ON MSNBC: Four of justices would have upheld under commerce clause; 5 upheld on tax power. Five justices, all conservative, say it can’t stand under commerce.
Medicaid can give money to states for expansion, but can’t lose prior funding for existing program if they don’t expand. Tom says that may not be important, because Administrations have never pulled funding. [Not sure that's true; they've threatened to do that in Texas]
I would have to agree with that.
Great points.
Max Baucus was unwilling to do a public option. And the legislation did not go anywhere without going through Baucus’s committee. Presidents do not have clout over Senate Finance chairs. Hillary ran into the same obstacle with Daniel Patrick Monyihan.
Harry Byrd (D-VA) and Russell Long (D-LA) were the Senate Finance chairs during the LBJ years. Both of the negotiated with LBJ on his programs. Likely even LBJ did not get as much as he wanted through their committees. Pat Harrison (D-MI) was chair of the Senate Finance Committee during the New Deal. Harrison (whose based was monied Mississippi), like Baucus on the ACA, was one of the four key players in crafting Social Security. Would be interesting to see how he tailored that to the planter’s interests.
Here is some weird Obama-Bot trash just texted to my fone:
Oh, goody, that’s all I was waiting for. NOW I feel okay about re-electing a homicidal psychopath war criminal spy-freak as my chief executive ….
Hello Kyeo, who Owns Obama?, who Owns the GOP?, and now the Own the Supreme Court?
read below
Matt Taibbi put the list below together
Obama’s top 20 list included:
Goldman Sachs ($1,013,091)
JPMorgan Chase & Co ($808,799)
Citigroup Inc ($736,771)
WilmerHale LLP ($550,668)
Skadden, Arps et al ($543,539)
UBS AG ($532,674), and…
Morgan Stanley ($512,232).
McCain’s list, meanwhile, included (drum roll please):
JPMorgan Chase & Co ($343,505)
Citigroup Inc ($338,202)
Morgan Stanley ($271,902)
Goldman Sachs ($240,295)
UBS AG ($187,493)
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher ($160,346)
Greenberg Traurig LLP ($147,437), and…
Lehman Brothers ($126,557).
Obama’s list included all the major banks and bailout recipients, plus a smattering of high-dollar defense lawyers from firms like WilmerHale and Skadden Arps who make their money representing those same banks. McCain’s list included exactly the same banks and a similar list of law firms, the minor difference being that it was Gibson Dunn instead of WilmerHale, etc.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/iowa-the-meaningless-sideshow-begins-20120103#ixzz1icl0E0pm
Kyeo? are Democrats running for congress going to talk about how they love Individual Mandate? probably not
However, this decision will give a lot Progressives the reason they need not to vote for OBAMA
Have good day!
Govt. By Corporations For Corporations!
Really, a tax? Now I pay taxes to the corporations? That is seriously messed up!!!I would say I want to move, but where in the fuck would I go??? The whole world has gone crazy paying homage to the corporate elite…I need to go throw up and then try to figure out HOW I’m going to pay for this.
Argh! boggles the mind…
Meanwhile, we can’t have universal
health care — b/c someone might have to pay for it!?
I don’t see how anybody here is being racist.
There were lots of ways this law could have been written. There is almost no regulation of what the Insurance companies can actually CHARGE for the premiums, nor is there any regulation of what they have to do with the money once they have it, beyond a few basic guidelines which already exist. The loopholes are gaping in favor of industry recklessness and profit. And yet, the people are forced to buy the insurance product.
The problem of healthcare and costs and access have not been solved by this law. Forcing homeless people to buy homes would never solve homelessness if you don’t regulate the lenders who control that access. Forcing people to sign for home loans or risk being taxed is not a solution.
How is this any better? Racism has nothing to do with it. I hate Mitt Romney’s Massachussets plan as well, and always have. This is no better. It just affects the entire country, whereas Romney’s plan only affected a single state. But both are awful.
There was just a good interview on RT-tv of a Belgian economist who explains that same thing is going on in Europe as in the U.S.
Sports on now.
Man, I love this argument. Yes, let’s not vote for Obama because he’s corporate-owned! Clearly we need an alternative to this presidential candidate who is bound hand and foot by corporate interests!
Boy, those sure are a lot of tumbleweeds over there.
Presumably, it will take congressional action to legislate a tax that is equivalent to the penalty portion of the mandate. Good luck, Barack, in getting that bit of bipartisanship through a House dominated by Republicans and a Senate with a Republican superminority.
We seriously need to fire Obama.
Baby splitting. The right wing trash argument about broccoli carries the day, but they lose anyway.
Criticism of the law is not a problem. Of course it could have been made better; if you read, I said I’m as in favor of single-payer as anyone. The problem is when it’s a choice between this law and nothing, it’s a hell of a huge relief to know this law will stand. Thinking that killing this law will cause a single-payer system to rise from the lake like a dragon is fanciful at best.
And oh please. I’ve been reading this site for years. You guys hate Obama. Every single thing he does you find fault with. You hate him more than you hate Romney and the Republicans. I always find it fascinating that you guys are screaming about corporate fascism but you never have a peep to say about Republicans’ attempt to legislate women’s bodies. This place has turned into a white male circle-jerk of outraged privilege.
I used to think that people who contribute to both candidates in an election were naive, i.e., that they considered politics to be an art form and they were patrons of that art. I now realize that it’s much more serious than that; that it’s a display of force.
I think what Roberts did was give the dims a chance to rehabilitate the law by allowing them to put some teeth in the penalty for not buying the insurance. As it is now it seems there is no enforecement for the penalty (per Pete Williams). So we will have to see if they are able to do that. Failing to do it means no one has to buy the insurance. Same sort of thing applies to medicaid, since the expansion is voluntary.
There are many nations that solved this puzzle, and Private Financial Insurance Companies were not part of the equation. Look in Europe and Asia. Only in America would you find that the healthcare system is being run by the Financial Industry.
Because that is what “health” insurance really is. Now that we have dismantled Glass-Steagall and implemented the Phil Gramm/Bill Clinton Financial Modernization Act of 2000, the Insurance Industry/Banking Industry/Invesment Industry can use consumer banking deposits to gamble on financial derivatives (and get bailed out by the government) and then invest in “health” insurance policies. The same way they invested in home mortgage loans.
This law creates a captive market of insurance purchasers. It now allows those insurance policies to be pooled and securitized and derivative products created from them.
Doctors? Patients? Where is that in the bill? Over half the pages of that bill was written as a TAX law, but the Federal Government is largely written out of the process. It is in the hands of private industry. A private FINANCIAL industry.
Canada, Europe, and other places have radically different systems, much more efficient, with fewer private industry shenanigans in the middle, and the real trick is how many Americans can emigrate before its too late.
Obama is worse than Sarah Palin. K, you just made my argument for me right there. Also I love it when people have to come back and reply to comments a second time, that’s when you know they’re serious.
Good article. Thanks.
Just pulled down the 193-page PDF.
Obama is an asshole not ONLY because he is a sock-puppet for corporate criminals, but because he is a psycopath — he just craves killin’ those brown folks with his asassination drones. Not to mention enabling and coddling torturers by refusing to enforce federal law against torture. Obama turned into a war criminal before our eyes. He is a ruthless shithead. Entirely aside from your nit-picking about which particular corporations own him.
That is a lie when it comes to the Republican War on Women, people here were just as vocal about that as we were about Obama. RHRealityCheck gets posted quite a bit on here, and I often comment in support of those articles.
No you pay a penalty to the governement if you don’t buy the insurance. But as it is now there is no enforcement of the penalty, so you don’t need to do buy the insurance unless congress puts some teeth in the penalty.
Did you just accuse Obama of racism? Glenn Beck, is that you?
Slip opinion is up, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. Third one down.
enough for now.
Yeah, doubt it. I’ve seen more than one person say they hope Obama loses the election in here. If you believe that, you don’t care about women at all.
Nobody is being denied health CARE. The problem with health INSURANCE is that 1) without it, health CARE is prohibitively expensive and 2) with it, you can still go bankrupt — in fact more than three-quarters of medical bankruptcies are for people with insurance.
The ACA didn’t fix that problem.
Won’t it require new legislation to turn the mandate into a tax?
If so, how with BO get that through the House?
Kyeo why are you upset?
The Supreme Court upheld the Individual Mandate? smile Kyeo
When is Obama going to run commercials talking about his health care law? ever?
the Corporate puppet that is Obama served his purpose? smile Kyeo
Why is Obama working on a trade deal that some say is bigger than NAFTA, and will send more USA jobs off shore? WHY KYEO?
Do you think NAFTA is a Liberal idea?
Hard to believe that pols in other countries could be just as egotistical & stupid as in the U.S. But apparently Erdogan is.
Source?
Folks, this is post about the Supreme Court decision. Take all the pro/anti Obama flame wars somewhere else.
Do you want to be an even bigger pedant or do you want to address the substance of my argument?
Funny how this kind of comment only appears when someone defends Obama.
From the text of the decision.
First off, Roberts rules that the decision does not have to wait until 2014 (when folks actually have to pay the “tax”) because Congress in designing it as a “shared responsibility payment” did not intend it to fall under the Anti-Injunction Act, which prohibits suits on taxes until after the taxes have been paid (actual incurring of damages [?])).
Let’s be clear on one important point: the ruling does not require anyone to pay health insurance companies anything. The refusal to buy health insurance will trigger payment of a tax to the IRS.
From Justice Roberts’ opinion, pg. 32:
Unsurprised. The rightwing/conservative/1%er SCOTUS upheld a rightwing/conservative/1%er ACA, which causes the 99% to pay and pay and pay again to the corporate elites.
The only *marginally* amusing thing about this is watching rightwinger heads explode bc this drek of a “law” was passed by someone who happens to be black and happens to be called a “Democrat.” That the “law” is very rightwing and causes the 99% to pay UP to the 1% (which is what conservatives appear to “want”) makes no difference. Fools.
Sheesh: welcome to today’s Chapter in the all-consuming Kabuki Show.
Here we go (PDF p. 12, opinion p. 6):
Chief Justice Roberts channeling Freddy Prinz:
The pawn of SA angle is fascinating, especially as it relates to NATO. There was a Saudi funded Kurdish Al Qeada group in northern Iraq, IIRC. Lots of strings to pull…
Thank you. I don’t think this law came anywhere close to solving anybody’s problems except for helping the financial industry create more customers for themselves. This law was so poorly written that it would have been better to strike it down and have a redo. And, contrary to what some defeatists may claim, it was worth fighting to resurrect the public option or single payer. It was that important that it wasn’t worth giving up. We are on the road to financial slavery and people think that’s okay because Obama is the one who made it happen.
I think the same arguments can be twisted around. Would all these Obama supporters have been happy if Mitt Romney had passed the exact same law while he was president?
No. They would have used the same language I am using. Corporate Fascism. I understand now why the financial industry supported Obama so heavily. By using a democrat to get this passed, it immunized itself from the backlash of the majority of the liberal voting population. Why? Because it learned that the majority of liberal and conservative voters are captive to the cult of personality, but it knows that this nation is really a center-left nation in terms of population, but the majority of that population is easily fooled when the center-left candidate by name is really a hard-right candidate by deed.
No, this applies to everyone. People are flaming you, and I’m asking them to stop.
Then, this should empower people who want to see Medicare expanded to cover all Americans.
Should we be equal opportunity fools, and support corporatist politicians who shill for the 1% regardless of the color of their skins?
Much of the anger at Obama has to do with the reality depicted in this graph:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000
There doesn’t seem to be much of a recognition from anyone in government that reality has become substantially worse for a large segment of the population, the folks who are now indefinitely out of work as described in the link I provided. People are angry because government doesn’t care. Obama gets the brunt of that anger because he’s the most powerful of politicians.
But maybe it’s all just racism, and the indefinitely-unemployed should just suck it up.
Roberts on the Commerce clause:
Does not invalidate the Commerce clause but says that the Commerce clause does not support the constitutionality of the individual mandate.
I DID address the substance of your argument. Is there some portion of that substance you would like me to address further?
PDF pp. 13-14 (opinion pp. 7-8).
Back to the court case…
The SCOTUS liveblog had an interestint comment:
“10:52 Lyle: The rejection of the Commerce Clause and Nec. and Proper Clause should be understood as a major blow to Congress’s authority to pass social welfare laws. Using the tax code — especially in the current political environment — to promote social welfare is going to be a very chancy proposition.”
So, this law allows for the government to tax you if you fail to purchase a financial product (per Oregondave at Comment 100), but it sets up a difficult precedent using the tax code to create any future social welfare programs?
The simpler route of taxing people, and then using the money to pay doctors and health providers DIRECTLY would have been much more cost-efficient and fair.
If Congress now has the power to tax us for NOT purchasing a financial product, does that mean that people who don’t have a home loan could now be taxed? Interesting precedent.
Roberts on the Necessary and Proper Clause:
Even if necessary, it violates the “proper” use of Constitutional power.
Could you elaborate on in what way you think it may be troublesome?
Roberts pulls it through with a might thin thread:
Roberts voting with the “liberals” on the Court is very suspicious–highly probative that the ACA decision was influenced by outside forces.
This will galvanize right-wing opposition to ACA as a tax. This is not a victory for Obama.
This seems confusing. Is Roberts accepting the argument that this was a mandate to buy a product, which he equates with engaging in commerce — and then when he gets to the tax argument, he’s saying you’re not required to but the product; you’re only required to pay a tax to cover health coverage costs??
I agree,
this validates that we now have a Govt. own and run by Corporations
So, there is a penalty in there after all. If I make too large a deduction on my return, and claim too large a refund, then the next year, the IRS will withold the amount, with interest. They can do the same with this. By not paying the tax, one will be, in effect, claiming too large a refund.
This law impacts small business owners and sole proprietors just as heavily as many other groups. There is also the problem of larger employers dropping their employees ahead of this law. What about people who can’t get their insurance through the employer?
And what about when the premiums become half the paycheck? What are people going to do? This is a massive redistribution of wealth from the lower and middle class to the upper 1%, not just by mandating the purchase, but through the entire law. SCOTUS appears to have kept all that intact, but now has set the precedent that future taxes can be created using private industry and negative incentives. If you don’t purchase something, you can be taxed. Just imagine how lobbyists are already preparing to use that to their advantage.
It can be extended to businesses as well. If a business does not include a food ingredient in its products, it can be taxed. The Corn Growers Association will have a FIELD DAY with that.
And then he deals with the tax issue:
I figured they’d uphold everything except the Medicaid part. How fast do you think most states will opt out? With the speed of lightning, I imagine. What a crock.
pass it on or suit to taste with your state: “Hey Brownback, where’s my Affordable Care? Fight ya for it.”
He says the “simplest reading” is as a mandate to buy a product.
The argument is actually this – a Republican president with Dems in control of House and Senate would be much easier to control than a Fake Democrat President who appears to be a fascist with Dems in control of House and Senate who would all agree to severely cripple Social Security and Medicare given the opportunity simply because they are all Dems and must stick together. Does that make more sense to you?
Yes. Paying additional Medicare taxes, and getting health care coverage as a result, is preferable to paying a tax penalty and getting nothing for it.
Here it is:
I appreciate your repetition of this meme. I would like to return, then, to the question I asked upthread — how are the mandate-supporters on the Court “liberals”?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/30/1079054/-What-if-Barack-Obama-weren-t-a-leftist
I’ll have to read it all, but as you know, much of federal regulation of the economy since the New Deal is based on the commerce clause. If the court narrows it’s scope, then other matters could be affected, both existing programs and future ones. We’ll have to see.
On the Direct Tax clause:
Like maybe the health-insurance industry?
As a side effect, this ruling will empower the TP by enraging TP voters.
A trifecta.
The Medicaid summary:
Because of the Court’s blizzard of different opinions, only Parts I, II and III-C constitute the majority opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States on the merits of the mandate and the Medicaid expansion. Parts III-A, III-B and III-D are Roberts all by himself and have nothing to do with the outcome of the case, which was to reverse the 11th Circuit entirely and uphold the law entirely on the two grounds on which it was challenged.
(PDF p. 6, syllabus p. 6).
Thanks.
I agree with you on that. This basically undermines the entire reason the democrats went with this law. They wanted to avoid raising taxes. So, the Roberts Court basically made that the centerpiece of the ruling. Its a tax on not paying for insurance.
I think the theory of this law fails to understand the practical realities. The average American household makes less than $50,000 a year. Insurance Premiums can run up to $1000/month or more. That is $12,000 in premiums. Those policies require people to spend $10,000 out of pocket before the policy kicks in at 80%. That means, the average American family will have to pay $22,000 a year to obtain the benefits of most insurance policies.
Most people don’t spend that kind of money each year unless it becomes major surgery or life-threatening, etc. They will be paying into the Insurance Industry coffers for perhaps twenty or thirty years before they can use the policy effectively. IT almost makes more sense to purchase Life Insurance!
But, my point is that isn’t Social Security and Medicare the same thing? We pay into it over a period of time and draw the benefits later? Why is that system being denigrated while the introduction of privatization of the same thing being applauded? At least with a tax directly levied by the government on the people, it becomes subject to political pressure and transparency and oversight. The government is a public servant, a public institution. PRivate insurance companies are run behind closed-doors, protected by trade secrets jurisprudence, and not subject to transparency. Only powerful shareholders will have access, whereas the voters no longer will.
In this case, they defended the application of the Commerce clause to the ACA with a broader interpretation of the clause than did Roberts. That in the Supreme Court context makes them “liberals” (i.e. within the New Deal precedents).
What’s with this “we” shit, Comrade?
Kagan & Sotomayor are smirking. Did just what they were planted to do.
Interesting:
The Tea Party lives in a constant state of enragement. Nothing new there.
kyeo,
Slow down. Not everyone here disagrees with you on your statements especially about women and protecting them.
Scarecrow is to be trusted here and he is trying to keep the dialog about what just happened with ACA.
You say you have been here many years, so have I starting Christmas Day 2005. This was my refuge in the storm of the Bush years so we are on the same page.
If you listen carefully, there are a lot of us who are certainly disappointed in what President Obama (said with respect) has done in many areas, but ACA is the topic and I too would appreciate staying on topic instead of bashing Obama right now.
Thank you for your comments.
“Pat Harrison (D-MI) was chair of the Senate Finance Committee during the New Deal.”
The White House fellow designing the plan – Myers – always said – and in his book said – that Harrison simply excluded from Social Security all those the planters/the south wanted excluded. Hence the expansion of who was covered had to wait 20 years.
How many people were to be covered by the Medicaid expansion? Doesn’t this void the claim of “30 million more covered” arguments.
Because it allows further privatization of public wealth and yet another upward redistribution of wealth.
Yup. And how ’bout this?
(PDF p. 42, opinion p. 36 text accompanying footnote 9.)
This hair-splitting becomes the heart of the analysis:
(PDF pp. 43-44, opinion pp. 37-38) (italics added).
Don’t pay tax to corporations – get your state to follow the Vermont lead and install single payer while requesting your share of the tax that would otherwise go to insurance companies as subsidized premiums (the Exchange money) be used to fund the state single payer.
Oh yeah – by the way – Obama has to approve the Vermont request for a waiver – and he has not promised to do so.
The “Obama is a liberal” meme is so well-distributed in American political discourse that it overpowers practically any observance of the reality of the matter. Oldgold posted this link in another thread:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/151814/Americans-Huntsman-Romney-Paul-Closest-Ideologically.aspx
Here’s the money quote from the Gallup poll:
Thus we allow ourselves to imagine that Barack Obama is a leftist. Of course some of us (you and me, for instance) backtrack on this popular misconception and tell ourselves that Obama is no such thing, which should tell us that the Reality Principle is indeed present in our psychic makeups.
So there is no mandate unless a tax is enacted?
According to a Kaiser Foundation summary, the CBO estimated that an additional 16 million people would be covered by the expanded Medicaid.
This is from the Updated CBO estimates report:
Compared with prior law, the ACA is now estimated by CBO and JCT to reduce the number of nonelderly people without health insurance coverage by 30 million to 33 million in 2016 and subsequent years, leaving 26 million to 27 million nonelderly residents uninsured in those years (see Table 3, at the end of this report). The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance is projected to rise from 82 percent in 2012 to 93 percent by 2022. According to the current estimates, from 2016 on, between 20 million and 23 million people will receive coverage through the new insurance exchanges, and 16 million to 17 million people will be enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP. Also, 3 million to 5 million fewer people will have coverage through an employer compared with the number under prior law.5
Exactly.
The pretzel-logic being used to justify this law, and the way the court had to do it by saying Congress can tax you for NOT doing something is making my head spin. THe outcome was decided a while back, and now the twisting of the laws to suit the outcome is becoming twilight zone.
Tax the people for a purpose, and then use the revenue to pay for that purpose.
The entire argument and pretzel-logic revolves around making the Insurance Industry the centerpiece of this equation. They are now firmly ensconced as a permanent fixture of our government. Purchasing their products will result in a lower tax rate, but not purchasing their products will result in a higher tax rate.
That is the most absurb analysis and justification I have ever heard. And now its the law of the land. The government will use its taxing authority to effectively punish people who choose not to purchase a financial product. Being taxed by the IRS for a non-income event is pretty punitive. That is a penalty, and the majority of Americans are not going to be happy with it. And the cost outcome of that tax is going to be impossible to determine easily because we have to look at SEC Filings to understand the corporate balance sheets and cash flow statements and income statements of the Private Financial companies that are now collecting the premiums and using them to somehow make American “healthier.” How will we, as voters, ever have a transparent handle on the cost/benefit analysis of this law? We won’t. Bad law, bad governing, bad precedent, bad economics, and bad politics.
I see. So allowing the government to mandate the purchase of a corporate product is an expansion of the Commerce Clause, which makes its judicial supporters “liberals.” Thus in calling people “liberals” we don’t discriminate between uses of the Commerce Clause which benefit the people as a whole, and those which mainly benefit the 1%.
If that were at all politically feasible, that would have been the basis of the government’s case to begin with, no?
Thank you for the answer. At the rate states are dropping all social services, I can’t see too many opting in. It affects me personally as being eligible for Medicaid in two years was basically my last best hope. Oh well.
Obviously, that isn’t politically feasible the way I worded it, so the government obviously never wanted to make that argument.
But, its the practical outcome of this law and this ruling. If it quacks like a duck…
Roberts: Hey, Barack, you won: it’s a tax!
Roberts: Oh, and that Medicaid stuff — the expansion of coverage? — not so fast.
I added a quote from the CBO report to my response above.
Good luck with getting coverage; looks like it’s up to your state
These two sentences will be misconstrued and exploited and blown out of proportion by every wing-nut & Tea Bagger for the next five months:
(PDF p. 50, opinion p. 44.)
But those lines are the opinion of one Justice, Chief Justice Roberts, because they appear in Part III-D, which no other Justice joined.
It is vital that Firepups understand how the Court operates so we can explain this circus to our insane right-wing relatives at the Fourth of July picnic. One person out of the nine on the Court does not announce legal policy; it takes five. No five Justices agreed to anything except parts I, II and III-C. Part III-C upheld the mandate as a tax. Period. I cannot find ANYTHING in parts I, II or III-C that expressly says that the mandate was not consistent with the Commerce Clause.
Also, perhaps more important, I cannot find any portion of parts I, II or III-C that says a single word about the Medicaid expansion.
The pretzel logic is reminiscent of Bush v. Gore.
The ACA contains a section that five Justices were willing to treat as a tax for constitutional purposes, despite the fact that Congress itself called it a “penalty,” and against the arguments and rulings of 26 states and the 11th Circuit (and a U.S. District Judge in Florida) that it was a mandate to buy insurance. The Court majority basically just held that it is NOT a “mandate” because there are no criminal penalties or severe enforcement mechanisms. It is only a tax and you can pay the tax without buying insurance and comply with the law. So it is NOT a “mandate” to buy insurance. So there. Q.E.D. Your friends, five Justices on the Supreme Court.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/06/dont-call-it-a-mandate-its-a-tax/
“The ACA’s key provision now amounts to an invitation to buy insurance, rather than an order to do so, with a not-very-big tax penalty for going without.”
How long before those penalties are increased? What will stop that? A divided congress? A divided congress has not repealed the Bush Tax Cuts. A unified Democrat Congress couldn’t even put Single-Payer on the table. A divided Congress repealed Glass-Steagal. I predict that if the insurance companies don’t get the “pool of customers” they want, the tax penalties will be increased with a stroke of the pen. Now that the framework has been created, and the framework upheld by SCOTUS as a valid tax, the only thing left to do is to insert a punitive tax regime. That won’t be stricken by SCOTUS. Congress can tax as much as it wants.
Now, who is more likely to pass that punitive tax regime? A Republican Congress or a Democratic Congress? Republicans are in the pocket of big insurance industry, but Democrats wrote this law. IF they get flack for not enough people being on insurance, then both parties have incentives to create punitive taxes. Through Kabuki Theater. The Democrats will propose the tax increases, and Republicans will holler and hate, but will ultimately go with it just enough (while getting something else pushed in, like gutting social security or medicare, for example). The horse-trading will commence, and we will have a punitive tax in this law and the tradeoff will be more steps backwards to corporate feudalism.
Very helpful. thanks. I avoid family reunions.
Well, now that the “penalty” is characterized as a “tax”, which Congress sought to avoid doing, it will fall under the GOP/Norquist pledge never to raise taxes. I don’t see Congress rushing out to raise this “penalty/tax” anytime soon.
Question for you or others — what if a harsh punitive tax is later written into the law? Does this ruling leave the door open to then come back and have it stricken as a Mandate at that point? Or is the calling of it a mandate still irrelevant since it was upheld as a tax?
In other words, this is mere quibble, right? Lets say the Court unanimously called it a “not-mandate.” They still upheld the law 5-4 as a tax. Lets say they unanimously called it a “mandate.” They still upheld the law as a tax. They didn’t address the Constitutionality of a mandate in the event of a punitive tax, but they didn’t have to. IT still holds as a tax. Punitive or not. Right? OR do you read it differently?
I don’t apply the labels. I just describe the logic. You’re dealing with nuance; you know that labels are to get rid of that.
Ding.
Not the Republicans maybe. But what about the Democrats?
And that raises the larger political question. How is this good for Democrats? Now, those of us who are wiping sweat from our heads because the tax penalties are “not-punitive” (I disagree with that characterization) will be wanting Republicans to be numerous enough to prevent the insertion of punitive penalties into this framework.
Unless Democrats come out clearly against the insertion of those penalties, but I don’t see how or why they would. They passed the entire framework in an undivided Congress. (The 39 Republican votes for filibuster was a sham argument the entire time).
And technically, the GOP does sometimes raise taxes. In a back-handed way. By extending the Bush tax cuts, and allowing the upper 20% of income earners to avoid the lion’s share of social security taxes, they are effectively raising the tax on everyone else. So, the GOP does have its own ways of raising taxes. I just wonder what the sham-game will look like when they do it.
This line is in part IV-B, which was not joined by any other Justice AFAIK:
(PDF p. 62, opinion p. 56.)
This segment is in part IV-B, but appears after the line of asterisks at the end of part IV-B, so I have no idea whether five Justices joined this segment of the opinion or not. Again, as posted above, the majority of the Court supposedly only voted in favor of parts I, II and III-C.
(PDF pp. 64-65, opinion pp. 58-59.)
Thanks – as yet those facts (“Because of the Court’s blizzard of different opinions, only Parts I, II and III-C constitute the majority opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States on the merits of the mandate and the Medicaid expansion” – meaning Medicaid expansion is not really affected except for the Feds being precluded from imposing a sanction on states that decline to accept an expansion of Medicaid under the law’s provisions – and here I do not follow/understand the reasoning) have not made it to national media – or to the commentary on FDL.
(“(a) The Spending Clause grants Congress the power “to pay the Debts and provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States.” Art. I, §8, cl. 1. Congress may use this power to establish cooperative state-federal Spending Clause programs. The legitimacy of Spending Clause legislation, however, depends on whether a State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of such programs. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 17. “[T]he Constitution simply does not give Congress the authority to require the States to regulate.” New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 178. When Congress threatens to terminate other grants as a means of pressuring the States to accept a Spending Clause program, the legislation runs counter to this Nation’s system of federalism. Cf. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203, 211. Pp. 45–51.
(b) Section 1396c gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to penalize States that choose not to participate in the Medicaid expansion by taking away their existing Medicaid funding. 42 U. S. C. §1396c. The threatened loss of over 10 percent of a State’s overall budget is economic dragooning that leaves the States with no real option but to acquiesce in the Medicaid expansion. The Government claims that the expansion is properly viewed as only a modification of the existing program, and that this modification is permissible because Congress reserved the “right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision” of Medicaid. §1304. But the expansion accomplishes a shift in kind, not merely degree. The original program was designed to cover medical services for particular categories of vulnerable individuals. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid is transformed into a program to meet the health care needs of the entire nonelderly population with income below 133 percent of the poverty level. A State could hardly anticipate that Congress’s reservation of the right to “alter” or “amend” the Medicaid program included the power to transform it so dramatically. The Medicaid expansion thus violates the Constitution by threatening States with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they decline to comply with the expansion.
(c) The constitutional violation is fully remedied by precluding the Secretary from applying §1396c to withdraw existing Medicaid funds for failure to comply with the requirements set out in the expansion. See §1303. The other provisions of the Affordable Care Act are not affected. Congress would have wanted the rest of the Act to stand, had it known that States would have a genuine choice whether to participate in the Medicaid expansion.
6. JUSTICE GINSBURG, joined by JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, is of the view that the Spending Clause does not preclude the Secretary from withholding Medicaid funds based on a State’s refusal to comply with the expanded Medicaid program. But given the majority view, she agrees with THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s conclusion in Part IV–B that the Medicaid Act’s severability clause, 42 U. S. C. §1303, determines the appropriate remedy. Because THE CHIEF JUSTICE finds the withholding—not the granting—of federal funds incompatible with the Spending Clause, Congress’ extension of Medicaid remains available to any State that affirms its willingness to participate. Even absent §1303’scommand, the Court would have no warrant to invalidate the funding offered by the Medicaid expansion, and surely no basis to tear down the ACA in its entirety. When a court confronts an unconstitutional statute, its endeavor must be to conserve, not destroy, the legislation. See, e.g., Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New Eng., 546 U. S. 320, 328–330. Pp. 60–61.
ROBERTS, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III–C, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined; an opinion with respect to Part IV, in which BREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined; and an opinion with respect to Parts III–A, III–B, and III–D. GINSBURG, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part,and dissenting in part, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined, and in which BREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined as to Parts I, II, III, and IV. SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., filed a dissenting opinion. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion.”
My question is and has always been – what makes the “Affordable Care Act” affordable?
Basically, yes, except it cannot be punitive, whatever label was applied to it, because then it would operate as a penalty whatever it was labeled, and a penalty is not a tax. The Court analyzed the function, not the label. And yes, the five said it is not a mandate to buy insurance, like I said @160.
The court has upheld the right for state based health insurance corporation to get your money under fear of tax penalty? The court has protected their business model and profits via a unconstitutional tax on life to protect health insurance business model, just as Mr. Scott was dismissed and declared property for the benefit of a slave owners. The US Congress and SJC have legislated and upheld the “servitude” of the American people to another corporate interest, who like the slave owners, oil, banking, et als, will use all the money extracted form the governed to protect their geographical monopolies in commerce and trade. In reality a sad day for America, because if the US Congress was a responsible entity rather than store bought, pimping to the highest bidder, America would have better.
Scott, declared property was law. It was horrible policy which lead to civil war. The individual mandate is law. The policy is opposite everything America’s founders fought for. “Independence from a Government which used its power to protect a corporate business model, which fucked the colonist.” On the forth we celebrate Independence form a government, a monarchy and its corporate interests. Today the “SJC,” imposed continued servitude of the American people to the health insurance interests just as Scott’s servitude was made law, benefiting a property owning class. Today, like Scott we have been all deemed as property to be insured under fear of tax penalty. Welcome the new American “Life Tax,” just before the 4th. BTW, Congress could have ended at any time pre-existing conditions discrimination long ago. But as we saw a few weeks back, congress cant even effect equal pay for woman, in the workplace. Congress protects corporations as it protected slavery. Not the American people. This is what money buys…………………
“what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance.”
So, what is the level of income that creates the threshold for penalty? And recall that those who are below the level at the beginning of a year will receive financial assistance, but if their income starts to increase above that level, they will have to pay the financial assistance back. Its complex enough to deter those beneath the level from seeking assistance in the first place. The majority of Americans fall in the category of being just above the level to trigger the penalty, but not by much. They will spend half their income on insurance now and without assistance. Therefore, they will just take the penalty and pay the tax.
Until the tax one day is as much as the insurance. I don’t see a happy ending to this, even if it does take 20 years to become worse. INflation for health insurance premiums has been as much as 20% year over year in many markets. Some more, some less. The spikes in health insurance premium costs have outstripped the increases in health services costs themselves. And yet, the economy is still stagnating and the jobs are still going overseas and the incomes are still dropping across the board. The costs of living are still going up. So, who is going to help people purchase these “non-mandated but tax-punishable” policies?
Here’s a label to consider. From Merriam-Webster Online:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberalism
Now, perhaps the ACA will ameliorate social inequities. It certainly strengthens the health-insurance end of the investor class, which furthers the inequity we know and love.
This is the sense in which today’s decision is not “liberal,” and its judicial proponents are not “liberals.”
Actually, this 4th with my conservative family will be the least fractious for me in a while, because we’re going to agree that this is a super shitty decision in defense of a law that only benefits our government’s corporate corruptors. And I’ll have one on them because the fact that Roberts voted for it will chafe.
I ain’t gonna waste any of my good time pretending this decision and/or this law is anything other than a product of a corporatist government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich looking out for its own interests.
So, the question will be what defines “punitive”?
The answer will depend on perspective. A family of four making $30,000 a year is going to have one answer. A small business owner of 5 employees grossing $500,000 a year but netting less than $50,000 a year for his/her own family will have a different answer…
You might recall that not a single Republican (one or two exceptions?) voted for the ACA. It was the Dems who passed it, and the Dems who wrote it, and the Dems who insisted on calling this a “penalty,” not a tax. And at the time, they said they did this because they did not wish to be accused to taxing lots of people. They were afraid to pass something explicitly called a tax, and they only did it on medical supplies and companies with so called cadillac employer plans. So again, I could be wrong, but I don’t think the Dems are about to rush out and raise this tax.
And they don’t need to. The CBO say that given the expected revenues from the various provisions, the NET effect is to reduce the deficit. So those who worry about deficit spending don’t have a strong argument. The other possible motivation would be that people just pay the tax and don’t get insurance, and IF the goal is to get more people to sign up and zillions don’t, then one option would be to increase the penalty, uh, tax. But you can also accomplish that by increasing the subsidies, or extend Medicaid further, etc. In other words, they’d prolly do everyone else first before rushing out to raise this penalty/tax. And this assumes we had a functioning Congress in the future that could actually pass something, which is doubtful.
It’s misnamed — it should be the Affordable Insurance Act, because the subsidies will make insurance affordable for some.
I can only hope you’re correct in your analysis/prediction. What irks me is that we got to this point in the first place. The level of uncertainty for the average family is not going to get better. The only thing this ruling really does is give the Insurance companies the green light to now make projections for an estimated number of new customers.
But, the billion-dollar question is this: “Will we see premiums go down now that 30 million more Americans are buying policies?”
IF the premiums continue to go up by double-digit percentages year over year, will we all agree this law helped, or hurt, the situation?
Unless salaries increase at the same rate as insurance premiums, the only positive outcome for this law will be to measure whether the increase in the customer pool results in a decrease in premiums for everybody. That is how insurance is supposed to work.
That will be the metric, I think. Its the only quick and obvious and accurate way to measure this law’s impact. By watching the cost of premiums in the years ahead. The cost of medical services is not directly impacted by this law, since most people rely on insurance to pay those services, and insurance sets the prices. Most Americans pay the premiums. Not the claims. They need to see their premiums go down for this to be a fincial success. Otherwise, it will prove itself as being what I suspect it is – a corporate welfare program for the uber-rich to become even richer at the expense of the majority of people using the instrumentalities of the state to perpetuate that dynamic. Fascism is the opposite of socialism. Socialism uses the state to help the majority of people better their lives. Fascism uses the state to help a minority of wealthy obtain more power over the masses. The price of premiums in the coming years will prove whether this was a socialist or fascist law that got upheld today.
(OF course, being socialist in my tendencies, I would have preferred a Single-Payer option that would have cut the private financial middleman out entirely).
Lack of any response to this from the DNC rah-rah brigade is duly noted.
Correct answer: nothing. The name is a matter of rhetoric. A lot of foolish people will believe there is some element to it that brings down costs because, hey, “affordable” is right there in the name of the act.
We’re doomed.
I’m wondering if the “liberal” justices cut a deal with Roberts. We will provide you cover on making the Medicaid expansion voluntary, if you uphold everything else. And without the deal, Roberts would have flipped on knocking down other provisions. Just speculating, and we will never know.
The reason I say this is that Robert’s logic on Medicaid assumes states would never have accepted a federal program if they anticipated the feds might expand it. That’s silly. The feds start something small; it works; they expand it. Happens alla time. And expanding Medicaid to 133% of FPL is not exactly radical. You’re still dealing with people who are basically poor and can’t afford decent insurance. That’s what Medicaid was for.
So there’s no reason for the two “liberals” to have struck down the Medicaid sanction for states that refused.
This is a damn complicated opinion.
As such, wisdom probably lies with allowing constitutional scholars some time to consider it before coming to any hard conclusions as to what it means going forward.
The “socialist Obama” meme is from the “liberal media,” so they ought to know who’s leftist and not. Right? ;-)
I can tell you how much confidence I have that this will reduce my premiums: 0. Nobody-none of the many people I’ve enountered arguing for this monstrosity-can explain to me the mechanism by which such a thing would happen. Because it won’t.
Picked this up at HuffPost comments – which is interesting and I believe it’s correct -
“Didnt the court rule it was not a tax on the first day of oral arguments? The government said SCOTUS could not hear the case if it was a tax due to the fact that suits against taxes can not be brought to the court until the tax has taken effect.”
So how exactly does this work?
The term for parts of a court’s opinion that were not agreed to by a majority of the judges or Justices on the court is “dicta.” Latin for “sayings” or “words.” Opinions can have lots and lots of dicta (dicti?) but dicta is not part of the “holding” by definition, because the “holding” is only what the majority of the court voted for. The “judgment” therefore can only transmit the effect of the opinion of the majority voting for the “holding.”
On PDF p. 65, opinion p. 59, the Court issued the following judgment:
Far up at the beginning of the opinion, the Court majority described what the Eleventh Circuit did on the Medicaid expansion provisions as follows:
(PDF p. 17, opinion p. 11) (italics added).
On the mandate, here is how the Court’s majority described the 11th Circuit’s judgment:
(PDF p. 15, opinion p. 9.)
Here it strikes me that the Court’s judgment clearly overturned the 11th Circuit’s judgment that the non-mandate non-penalty tax was unconstitutional. It is NOT unconstitutional. That is the “reversed in part” portion of the judgment.
It does not matter for the result why the Court reversed the 11th Circuit, but much will be made of the fact that Court majority analyzed the mandate only under the taxing power of Congress, and did NOT analyze it under the Commerce Clause power. I find no majority opinion in what the Court did today holding that the non-mandate tax could NOT be upheld under the Commerce Clause.
What I am more unsure of is the “affirmed in part” portion of the judgment. Which part of the 11th Circuit’s judgment was upheld? Since the 11th Circuit UPHELD the Medicaid expansion portions, I think it likely that the Supreme Court majority just AFFIRMED that portion of the 11th Circuit’s judgment, but for different reasons. The law school classes will be taught in the coming years to cite the case as NFIB v. Sebelius, 648 F. 3d 1235 (2011), rev’d in part, aff’d in part (on other grounds), No. 11–393 (June 28, 2012), 567 U. S. ____ (2012).
Again, us Firepups must all beware the stoopids in the corporate media (like Toobin, I am amazed to be able to write) who so over-dramatized this case, both in the lead-up to the oral argument, after the oral argument, and now today after the actual decision is finally in front of us.
I cannot find any majority opinion striking down the Medicaid expansion provisions. I would love to see anyone show me otherwise.
Had the same thought but worried that such analysis was above my pay grade.
To the average citizen, it sure looks like they make up this stuff as they go along.
http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/26/10866512-court-signals-it-will-decide-constitutionality-of-health-care-mandate?lite
According to this it appears Ginsberg thought this was not a tax but now she thinks it IS a taX?? Anyway, interesting stuff from Alito in this too.
but they just allowed and approved the dollar amounts in the current statute as non-punitive. One figure I recall the Court cited is $695 per year as a minimum. Dday the other day used a figure of about $100 per month using $50,000 per year as median income and figuring the non-penalty non-mandate tax to be about 2.5% of annual income. YMMV. But the dollar amounts do NOT amount to consitutional issues.
Scarecrow, the key is that Roberts’s discussion of the Medicaid expansion provisions was only dicta. No other Justice joined that portion of his opinion, which was parts IV-A and IV-B.
Nicely done!
Correct! It protects their business model and their interests not mine or yours. The premiums will not go down, they will continue to rise higher than the cost of inflation always. So instead of holding wall street accountable, instead of regulating banks, instead of developing a cogent energy policy which doe not impale Americans on a stake like Vlad the Impaler, we get a required to buy insurance under fear of a punitive tax penalty as if we are a car, a piece of fucking property, as was Scott declared property? It’s utter fucking garbage…………………….
2.5% per individual in the home. Is that 5% on a married couple? Or is that 2.5% per individual in the home (family of five becomes 12.5%?).
Yes but not just from the media. People with leftist credentials who ought to know better (e.g. Angela Davis) have bought into the “leftist Obama” meme.
Okay, as I am reading the law, it is $695/adult up to a maximum of $2085 per household. Or 2.5% of the combined income if that is higher.
Another warning about the mirage of “credentials”…always operate on: What is s/he doing for me right now?
AT the end of the day, this law “mandates/taxes” the American people to purchase a financial product without any regulation on how much that financial product can cost. The insurance company has a de facto tax enforcement power over us now. If we don’t buy their product, we get in trouble with the IRS. People claiming that isn’t such a big deal have no idea how ruthless and efficient the IRS can be when it wants to. NOBODY gets to hide from the IRS. It was the only thing that took down Al Capone. The Insurance company can charge whatever it wants for insurance premiums and Americans can either but it or be penalized with a tax. I don’t care if they say “its not a penalty.” YEs, it is a penalty.
And what will that tax money be dedicated towards? Will it go to Medicare and Medicaid? No. No dedication of revenue in the bill. It will likely go to the War on Terror or the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty (I mean, the War against the Poor).
Real affordability would have been a law regulating how much the Insurance companies can charge. But you know why they didn’t and couldn’t pass that law?
Because only the states have the right to regulate those prices. But the Feds have the right to force us to buy it.
thank you!
Did you like the law in 93/94 when the Heritage Foundation wrote it and Bob Dole sponsored it?
The law protects big pharma from having prescription costs limited to what they are in the rest of the developed world and grants substantial subsidies and low cost customers to the health insurance industry. That’s why Roberts voted to uphold. The pressure conspiracy theorists are looking for wasn’t from Obama. It was from businesses that benefited big time from the law.
This article does a pretty good job of analyzing the case. Roberts basically agreed with the four dissenting justices that the Commerce Clause was being violated. That sort of makes it a 5-4 ruling on the Commerce Clause, in a backhanded way. And the article is right to point out that the Heritage Foundation and the Conservative Machine proposed this law already. Justice Roberts’ court basically recrafted this law in the Conservative image, and then gave Obama his “victory” by calling it a TAX.
Read the article. http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/john-roberts-evil-genius-article-1.1103982
Unfortunately, most of the media are conventional not pedantic.
Right — the important thing being that all sorts of people, and not just Fox News-watching conservatives, think of Obama as a “leftist” or “liberal.” I think of this as being a manifestation of mass political desire — Obama is a “leftist” or “liberal” because people want to believe he is, and because he compared himself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in one of his fundraising speeches:
http://youtu.be/sV3w7OD2pDs
Your reality may differ.
You mean they invent conventions, and then repeat them over and over again in strict adherence to Goebbels’ maxim that everything said three times is true?
The “mandate” is nothing but more empowering and enriching of the HMO bandits.
And, Barack Obama knew that when he sold out to them in those White House meetings.
I applaud you for calling anyone out on this.
They are not Bush’s tax cuts any more. Obama owns them.
Great rsponse, and I commend you for it.
One quibble – isn’t it true that Anti Trust and price fixing measures could indeed hamper the health insurance and health care world, except for the fact that legally there is an actual provision inside the US Code that allows the health insurers and medical people to charge what they want?
Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.
Sucks big time.
The anti-trust thing is a good point. Right now, Insurers are exempt from Anti-Trust law. That is why some states are dominated by a single insurer (Blue Cross Blue Shield, usually) that controls over 80% of the market, or more. There is no competition anyway within some states.
Right now, if the insurance industry were federalized, it would allow insurers to cross state lines and thererfore competition could potentially lower costs. But, there is also the risk of a single state racing to the bottom the way North Dakota has done with banking and usury laws (no prohibition on it) and therefore most banks incorporate in ND now. (or is it SD, forgive me if I got that mixed up).
The Federal government would need to not only federalize insurance products, but also regulate the pricing (and not the states). Since that is not likely to be a politically viable victory, then what is the next option?
Expand Medicare. It exists, its cheaper and more efficient.
Here’s why: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/node/11672 – Private insurance premiums have risen 700% since 1969, whereas Medicare has risen 400% since 1969. Proof of government efficiency trumping corporate greed. Second, Jon Walker made a great point. The ACA has no cost-control provision whatsoever.
And Insurers are using that loophole without a blink of the eye. Expect our premiums to go up another 700% over the next 40 years, while our incomes go down another 5% to 10% or more due to the offshoring of jobs to slave-labor nations and the gutting of the unions, the gutting of worker rights, and the reversion to a 19th century robber-baron economy. Meanwhile, corporations are persons, there are no spending-caps on purchasing political influence using shadowy organizations with secretive donors, the existence of offshore tax havens to keep the wealth of the American working class far from their grubby little hands… This ACA ruling was just one more piece of the pie granting the few to have dominance over the many.