enter your username wrote:bane wrote:I think the SCOTUS response will be very interesting. It could go either way, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they struck it down.
If you are referring to the mandate, I would be surprised if any of the conservatives oppose it since the mandate means a big pay out to health insurance companies. They typically only support "limited Federal government" when it involves requiring the states to provide civil rights to their citizens. Big government is OK when it means big profits to large corporations or telling a state to stop recounting votes.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnis ... ndate.html
Perhaps you've long believed that extremist Islamic terrorism poses the greatest danger to America. Well, the Republicans wish to disabuse you of that notion.
House GOP leader John Boehner declared the other day that health-care reform is actually
"the greatest threat to freedom that I've seen in the 19 years I've been in Washington" - an enlightening assertion, since I'd foolishly figured that the piloting of a plane full of innocents into the Pentagon wall had constituted the greatest assault on freedom in Washington. Call me crazy, but I'd assumed that al-Qaeda scored higher on the fright meter than the prospect of Americans getting the same health protections that are common everywhere else in the democratized world.
Worse yet, real health reform hinges on a proposal that Republicans call "a stunning assault on liberty." They're incensed about the so-called "individual mandate," the idea that virtually all Americans should be required to carry health insurance. Republicans see this mandate as an unconstitutional curb on personal freedom, arguing in essence that Americans have the inalienable right to be uninsured; in the words of Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), "Individuals should maintain their freedom to choose health-care coverage, or not."
Republicans often have been quite successful in political disputes when they invoke words like freedom and liberty, which pack an emotional wallop. But there is also something called the social compact, the notion that the American community is strengthened if everybody pitches in. That's where the health-care mandate comes in.
It's simple, really: An effective, affordable insurance program spreads the risks. If only sick and high-risk people sign up for health insurance, coverage will be too costly for many purchasers. But if virtually all healthy people are compelled to sign up, premiums will be cheaper across the board and there will be more money in the till for the sick folks who truly need costly care.
What's ironic is that many Republicans in the past have agreed with this inescapable logic. They were for the mandate before they were against it.
Earlier this year, Grassley told Fox News that there wasn't "anything wrong" with a mandate. Just as motorists are required to carry auto insurance, he said, "the principle then ought to lie the same way for health insurance." At least seven other Republican senators have spoken favorably of such a requirement (South Dakota's John Thune: "There are good arguments on behalf of getting everybody into the pool"), and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney made it a centerpiece of his health insurance overhaul in Massachusetts.
But Republicans, mindful of the need to placate the Tea Partyers and right-wingers who equate health reform with various forms of totalitarianism, can ill afford to underscore their previous statements. Nor can they afford to agree with their former Senate leader, Dr. Bill Frist, who has endorsed the mandate concept, arguing recently on the Fox Business Network that it's "about the only way" to achieve reform, that Americans "should be responsible to paying for it" - and face federal penalties if they don't.
The Democrats continue to tweak the proposed penalties, much to the chagrin of Boehner. Last weekend, shortly before the House passed a health-reform plan (thus becoming the first chamber to do so in the 60 years since Harry S. Truman put it on the agenda), Boehner delivered this statement on the floor:
"We have an individual mandate in this bill in front of us, that says every American is going to buy health insurance - whether you want to or not. And if you don't want it, you're going to pay a tax. . . . Now, this is the most unconstitutional thing I've ever seen in my life!"
Translation: Even if President Obama ultimately signs a health-reform law, the fight will not be over. The opposition will hire lawyers and ask the courts to throw it out.
Whether they can succeed is highly debatable. It's true that the Congressional Research Service has looked at the constitutionality of a mandate and come up empty, saying only that "it is a novel issue whether Congress may . . . require an individual to purchase a good or service," and calling it a "challenging question." But Supreme Court rulings since the 1930s put the reformers on fairly solid ground.
When Boehner declared the mandate to be the most unconstitutional thing in his whole life, he was presumably referring to the Constitution's commerce clause, which says that Congress has the power "to regulate commerce . . . among the several states" - in other words, economic issues - but certainly says nothing about requiring Americans to buy health insurance or any other product.
The problem for Republicans, however, is that the high court has long given the commerce clause an expansive reading, and allowed the feds to regulate all kinds of behavior.
To cite the most famous example, the landmark '64 Civil Rights Act invoked the commerce clause in order to bar whites from discriminating against blacks, even though the core issue was not economic. The court was fine with that. The court has overturned only two commerce-clause cases since 1935, as even mandate opponents grudgingly acknowledge, which is why Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs was correct on Oct. 28 when he said, "I don't believe there's a lot of case law that would demonstrate the veracity" of the GOP's position.
It would be tough for the Republicans' lawyers to argue in court that an insurance mandate falls outside the commerce clause - given the reality that health-care costs have a major impact on economic commerce. In fact, the Republicans have repeatedly made that link, by complaining about how the Democrats are seeking to restructure "one sixth of the economy."
But for the GOP, this is all fertile rhetorical territory. Even if health reform ultimately fails, they can stoke conservative base turnout for the 2010 congressional races by recounting the Democrats' "unconstitutional" attempt to require health insurance and thus infringe on freedom and liberty. The mandate is hardly a threat akin to al-Qaeda, but there's ample red meat in the argument that Americans resent being told what to do.
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sure, a lot of repubs have flip flopped on the subject, but a number of them are against the mandate because they see it as an unnecessary intrusion into our lives, some are even challenging it's constitutionality:
http://www.californiahealthline.org/art ... ndate.aspx
As passage of the Senate's health care reform bill (HR 3590) seems all but assured, Republicans have thrown up a procedural roadblock by questioning the constitutionality of some measures in the bill, CQ Today reports.
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) filed a constitutional point of order against the legislation Tuesday, arguing that the mandate that all U.S. residents purchase health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional. The Senate is expected to vote on the challenge Wednesday. Fifty-one votes are needed to defeat it.
Republicans unsuccessfully have tried to use the technique several times this year, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he is confident that Democrats will defeat Ensign's challenge.
Ensign said that the federal government does not have the power to force individuals to buy a specific product. "(I)f one of my constituents in Nevada does not want to spend his or her hard-earned income on health insurance coverage and would prefer to spend it on something else, such as rent or a car payment, this requirement could be a taking of private property under the Fifth Amendment," Ensign said (Hunter/Perine, CQ Today, 12/22).
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ensign both delivered floor speeches Tuesday denouncing the constitutionality of the individual mandate, The Hill's "Blog Briefing Room" reports (Young, "Blog Briefing Room," The Hill, 12/22).
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) also said Monday that a provision in the bill that would levy fees on insurance companies -- but would provide exceptions to benefit not-for-profit insurers in Nebraska and Michigan -- "will not stand the test of the Constitution" because it "cannot be considered equal protection under the law."
Some legal experts disagreed with Ensign and Hutchison, arguing that the mandate is constitutional because Congress is permitted to "regulate commerce… among the several states." In addition, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment does not apply to Congress (CQ Today, 12/22).
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) also said that insurance is subject to the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the Washington Times reports.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs defended the deals in the bill that have come under GOP criticism, calling them part of the regular legislative process (Dinan, Washington Times, 12/23).
Health care has to be reformed.