Scotus predicitons re: Obamacare
 

Lets all take off the gloves and have one them there kumbaya moments, as it were. I want a friendly no argument prediction on the decision of the Court over Obamacare with a breakdown of who voted where. I will start,

Upheld by the court 6-3 with Roberts and Kennedy joining the 4 liberals.


Only a day to go! Lets find out who has the best Crystal Ball.:)

Individual mandate struck down 5 - 4. The rest upheld 6 - 3. That's why Nino is in such a foul mood.

John

That sounds about right.

I predict that there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Pete

The Supreme Court is still the Supreme Court - an institution deserving of respect. I would hate to predict that the members of that august body will disregard the commerce clause, so I will remain optimistic and say that the ACA will be upheld.

Regards,

D-Ray

As for the decision, I'm highly uncertain. However, I'm convinced that regardless of the decision, both sides will claim that it helps their odds in the November election.

As Socrates would say "Most True"..

although Bibically isn't it "wailing" instead of weeping? Cannot remember its been a long time since those scary fire and brimstone sermons about the coming Tribulations...my Southern Baptists upbringing did leave its scary marks on me...

5-4 partisan hardline on anything that would cost the healthcare industry. They will probably say that the 26 year old on parents policy is ok because that is actually more cash to the industry.

Carl

Don, I think your only hope is Kennedy. Roberts, Scalia and Alito will not care a fig for the Commerce Clause since it's inconvenient to the service of their agenda. Thomas will vote however they do.

Hell, Thomas even changed his religion to the extreme Catholic Opus Dei sect at the urging of, and with the assistance of, Nino Scalia. Roberts may or may not also be Opus Dei but he sends his kids to a private Opus Dei school. There is speculation that Alito, also a Catholic, may be Opus Dei too.

John

If my prediction is correct it'll be on both sides.

John

Ice I think you are correct, I think it's wailing too :)

Pete

Yours may be the worst outcome...no individual mandate to pay for the other parts of the bill everyone finds more palatable. Makes the situation worse than it is...unfundated mandate on steroids.

Yes, and potentially lethal to the Obama campaign.

John

I think the mandate may fall by an even larger margin, but I believe that other provisions of PPACA will not be struck.

Thomas is just another head on Scalia's body. The Supreme court may be an institution deserving of respect, the Roberts court not so much.

Not necessarily. There are elements of the Act that enjoy broad support, such as the prohibition against denying coverage for pre-ex conditions, coverage for dependents up to age 26, etc.

There is a strong likelyhood that the funding provisions (taxes) in PPACA will also be upheld, which should make those on the left happy as clams. :p

The federal court here puts on a yearly seminar and one of the regular speakers is a constitutional law professor who is a walking encyclopedia of Supreme Court History (He is the founding dean of the UC-Irvine Law School). It happens this Friday. I am looking forward to his comments on the decision, whatever it may be.

Regards,

D-Ray

Finally, the Justice department becomes fully integrated :)

Pete

If it is struck down then the pressure for a singlepayer type plan should increase as we simply cannot afford the cost of the current system.

Tough call, however, 5-4 seems the popular choice. That said, I'm going 7-2 that the mandate is struck down and 9-0 upholding the rest of the legislation. In this case, a SCOTUS punt seems appropriate and moving the immplementation back to the legislature would do that IMHO.

A commentator recently pointed how political reporters find the absent of leaks perplexing because they are so used to dealing with the executive and legislative branches. That alone says much about the court IMHO.

I think you've captured the essence of the Conservative side.......

If the mandate is struck down, but the rest of the bill passes, this decision will be the worst disaster to have hit the US economy in a long time......

It will be more; "You can have it all and pay for none of it."

That NEVER works.

Dave

As I noted earlier, even if the mandate is struck, the revenue (tax) provisions of the act could well be upheld (in fact, that seems likely to me).

One thing not mentioned much is the big insurance companies do not want the mandate struck down. They will lose millions of new customers.

That has been, however, a prominent plank in the GOP platform for about 3 decades. More accurately, it is "You can have it all, but must pay for it with tax cuts."

Yes, but we would still have far too many uninsured placing undue burden on the system. I would like to see everyone covered, but if at all possible I would rather make them pay for their own, then have my taxes raised to cover them. The poor I don't mind helping out. Young, middleclass suburbanites, who simply refuse to pay because they think they don't need insurance piss me off.

When I hear the argument that, "Young people don't really need it, so why should they be forced to pay for it?", my blood boils. Really? Come on. There should be no need to explain why. We were all twenty somethings once. Sports, drug and alcohol abuse and just plain jackass shenanigans that young people engage in make them an even higher risk (In regard to accidental injury.) than us more mature folks.

Dave

Roberts is taking way too long writing his decision. He is a modest man & feels like he really needs to explain why he is voting against the law IMO.
Also, the court does not want to do another Roe V. Wade type decision that never becomes part of the American fabric.
I say (hope!) the whole thing goes down for these reasons.

Why do you think it is Roberts writing the decision?

Regards,

D-Ray

Inside info.

With this court my guess it is "expect the unexpected".



Barney

That sounds wonderful. We expect a complete report by 10:00 AM sharp on Saturday.:D My thinking is that the SC would like to bounce this back to Congress and let them deal with the details. Currently only about a 20-25% of the populace are in favor of the PPACA law. We only have about nine more hours.

Funny you should say that, just last night I overheard a news interview of people on the street. When told what they would actually be loosing the percentage jumped up to over 70% approval.

Kept hearing over and over "didn't know that was in there".



Barney

Tee Hee!
 

Everything is upheld. SCOTUS reinterpreted the Individual Mandate as a tax. Otherwise, The Affordable Care Act pretty much stands as written.

Suck on that, Repubs!

John

Sorry about that, Repubs. I'm doing that "team sport" thing I hate so much. The thing is, you won too. You just don't know it yet.

Congrats to everyone!

John

Hey I guess I was right but I have not seen the breakdown of the vote yet!

Even if he is just a one-term President, this decision marks Obama as one of the most important Presidents of our times as far as social legislation is concerned...puts him in league with FDR,Truman and LBJ.

Apparently Roberts joined the liberal justices in voting for PPACA.

Yes, he did. The fuss that's being made about that suggests that the vote was 5 - 4 with Roberts as the deciding vote, meaning, I believe, that Kennedy, Alito, Scalia and Thomas voted to overturn.

John

As I tell my nephew, well I'll be a monkeys' uncle.

I'll see if my premiums (and quality of care) go down or up before guessing it a win.

FDR? Truman? :p

And LBJ? Well Obie did bomb the hell out of a few countries lol. I think that overall this is a political loss for him though regardless of merit.

Pete

You were not around for Lyndon's carpet bombing of North Vietnam? Much good as that did. Obama does not even come close to that. Lyndon gave you your Medicare;)...or maybe your just a teenager hanging around this barber shop with us old timers:p

Well I guess you agreeing with me about the bombing reread your post..

Political loss? I do not think Obama really cares about that...it is more for the helping bring more health care to people.

Yes I was pointing out that LBJ and Obomba share a love of bombing lol. No carpet bombing but of course we've got bombs with discernment now!

Boy you really attribute Obama with a lot of altruism, I admire that ;) I'm much more cynical.

I see as part of 'fixing' Medicare he's just going to reduce payments to doctors. Why am I cynical again?

Pete