Will the Supreme Court uphold or overturn Heathcare

[Mr Bean]

Simple question inspired by seeing Robert Reich's column here. I don't buy most of what Reich's says but I wonder with less than a day to go what people think is going to happen here in America, will the land stand? Will it die? Or will oddest of odd worlds they only strike the Mandate but keep the rest of the bill and send the US private healthcare system into a death spiral.

[JLTucker]

I think it will follow suit with the immigration dispute and get rid of certain aspects, like the individual mandate. They will likely keep the coverage of patients with pre-existing conditions. According to this, the insurance companies plan to keep some things, like the aforementioned pre-existing conditions coverage.

[Blayne]

I find the reasoning that the Court cares about public trust to be absurd, it never has and never will. Obama should just pull a FDR and expand the court.

I have very little confidence that the court will find it constitutional, when writing the law very little effort I've heard was made to actually write in ways that are constitutionally justifiable. That and with Scalia and the Solicitor virtually talking past each other, I find the prospects for the Mandate grim.

On the bright side if it is struck down, Single Payer becomes the *only* alternative to fix healthcare costs and the Left will finally have something to rally behind.

[ArmorPierce]

I predict that it will the individual mandate will be struck down.

On the downside, costs are going to continue to rise in a exponential level.

On the plus side, there won't be bandaids on the system that allows it to continue lurching forward without the core problem being fixed and we will be forced to address the core of the problem sooner. Going to suck for people who die due to it in the mean time though.

[madd0ct0r]

On the downside, costs are going to continue to rise in a exponential level.

Why? americans already spend far more then anyone else, what's pushing the costs to continuosly increase?

[Mr Bean]

Why? americans already spend far more then anyone else, what's pushing the costs to continuosly increase?

Without the mandate but the requirement that they can't refuse your coverage or charge you insane rates there are those that say large numbers of people will cancel their insurance and simple wait until they need to go to the Doctor to re-apply. Along with the emergency coverage sections theoretically you could even apply after the fact. Other people say "Don't worry the insurance companies will still find a way to screw you". While I believe a lot of the larger ones have been spitballing ideas on how to get around the law since they help write it we will have to wait and see if they already have an easy out for the on the way to the emergency room calls.

[General Mung Beans]

I find the reasoning that the Court cares about public trust to be absurd, it never has and never will. Obama should just pull a FDR and expand the court.

It didn't work very well the last time...

[Simon_Jester]

It sure wouldn't work in the face of the totally predictable Senate filibuster.

Ultimately the problem isn't the Court, it's Congress. The Constitution designed things so Congress would be the most powerful branch, and most of that power is still there. But Congress is so deadlocked and today's politics make any kind of serious negotiations or deals so hard that it makes good legislation impossible.

We can't pass a budget. We can't pass a health care reform bill unless we lard it down with so many provisos and sops to the insurance companies that it doesn't pass constitutional scrutiny and arguably won't work in the long run anyway. We can't, say, put up a constitutional amendment to get rid of Citizens United despite the fact that it's blatantly the most unpopular Supreme Court decision ever and if we held an actual referendum on it we'd see supermajority support for the amendment.

The Court only becomes a problem because the legislature is neutered and can't do anything to clean up and rationalize the laws by which the Court makes its judgments.

[Mr Bean]

Well we will know in about ten minutes here and gotta say the polling is rather indicative that everyone believes something is going to be struck down today.

[TimothyC]

CNN is reporting that the individual mandate has been overturned.
Edit: Reporting that it may be upheld under the taxing clause. This is complicated.

Edit 2: They are now saying that it may be upheld.

[Eframepilot]

SCOTUSblog says that Roberts's vote saved ACA, which I think means that HE was the swing 5th vote and Kennedy was against. Clearly the end times are nigh.

[Mr Bean]

And the law was... upheld? Details breaking

[Eframepilot]

Mandate was upheld 5-4 according to the liveblog. Roberts must have been the 5th vote.

[Dalton]

8-1 is what I'm hearing.

[Mr Bean]

8-1 is what I'm hearing.

5-4 on the Mandate, 8-1 on the law overall is current blog reporting.

Well lets all calm down and check back in half an hour and we might actually know what's going on. Either way Obama win despite the fact I hate the healthcare reform as is.

[Grumman]

Apparently it's been upheld as a tax, not just as another example of "Commerce Clause" overreach.

And I also hate it as-is. If nothing else, it's religious discrimination: the government should not be in the business of declaring that some religion's beliefs are more valid than others, and that declaring yourself a member of Religion A should get you tax breaks not available to you if you identify as a member of Religion B.

[Gil Hamilton]

CNN is reporting that the individual mandate has been overturned.
Edit: Reporting that it may be upheld under the taxing clause. This is complicated.

Edit 2: They are now saying that it may be upheld.

CNN had a "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment there for a little bit, because their live blogger jumped the gun.

This decision is kind of mixed. It's an obvious surface victory for the democrats, but somewhat an ideological victory for conservatives (that the Commerce Clause doesn't justify the individual mandate).

[Mr Bean]

At the end of this poll before the decision it was three votes for they would uphold the law (8%), Five votes for overturn everything and thirty votes for some portions being struck down.

The ruling itself is interesting for three reasons.
1. Roberts voted for the mandate not Kennedy which is the first (and to my knowledge) only time Roberts has sided against the conservatives
2. There are already calls from some Republicans to impeach the justices who voted for it, notably no one is calling for Roberts but there are calls to impeach Kagan.
3. The mandates up, the mandates down watching the first fifteen minutes after they read the decision was great little political theater as are the many Twitter reactions let me compare two here...
@ patrickgaspard : it's constitutional. Bitches.
@ SarahPalinUSA : Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn't a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.

If you don't know who Patrick is, he's the political director of the DNC, if you don't know who Sarah Palin is I can't help you this topic is not for you.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Everyone I know right now is going crazy with conspiracy theories saying Roberts voted for it on purpose knowing it is going to hurt Obama by saying it is a "Tax" on America.

I had actually been HOPING that it was going to get struck down, that would put the Dems in the roll of "trying to help, but the evil GOP are against us". Now it is being said from the High Court that Obama has effectivly instituted a massive Tax on the American people. ESPECIALLY as "this is not a tax" is something Obama said a hundred times over.

ALso... The call for Justice Roberts to be impeached is astounding. He is as far right as they come, he may have down this on purpose, and people are screaming that he is a traitor to "The Cause"

Astonding...

[Mr Bean]

Interesting note, we were one vote away from the entire bill being throw out according to the dissenting opinions.
Dissent Link

The Act before us here exceeds federal power both in mandating the purchase of health insurance and in denying nonconsenting States all Medicaid funding. These parts of the Act are central to its design and operation, and all the Act’s other provisions would not have been enacted without them. In our view it must follow that the entire statute is inoperative.

So Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito all voted to throw out the entire bill. Had Roberts not switched sides we would not be looking at just the mandate being struck down but the entire year of legislative effort would have been tossed in the trash bin because of it.

[Guardsman Bass]

CNN is reporting that the individual mandate has been overturned.
Edit: Reporting that it may be upheld under the taxing clause. This is complicated.

Edit 2: They are now saying that it may be upheld.

CNN had a "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment there for a little bit, because their live blogger jumped the gun.

[Alyrium Denryle]

2. There are already calls from some Republicans to impeach the justices who voted for it, notably no one is calling for Roberts but there are calls to impeach Kagan.

Really? Really?

I can understand a lot of bullshit regarding government and what is and is not constitutional, but the fact that impeaching a supreme court justice who has not done something like commit murder would require a constitutional amendment is something one learns in Jr. High civics class.

[Wing Commander MAD]

2. There are already calls from some Republicans to impeach the justices who voted for it, notably no one is calling for Roberts but there are calls to impeach Kagan.

Really? Really?

I can understand a lot of bullshit regarding government and what is and is not constitutional, but the fact that impeaching a supreme court justice who has not done something like commit murder would require a constitutional amendment is something one learns in Jr. High civics class.

I find it odd that there's even talk of impeachment at all. Last I checked, you impeached a politician/government official because you believed that they have done something unlawful, not becuase you disliked their actions(or in this case how they ruled on a case).

Edit: Clarified statement.
Edit2: Grammar

[General Zod]

Some of the reactions are pretty hilarious. I'm sure some of these are being ironic but still. http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/people-m ... -obamacare

I especially like the ones that say they're moving to Canada because the US is too socialist.

[Blayne]

That makes sense because HarperGov(tm) has been trying to make Canada more like the US, my Conservative friend's apologia notwithstanding. The difference though we have a pretty major Centre-Left party that may be able to swipe the government away from them next election who can rollback those changes.

I believe the rationale for impeaching a justice lies in whether they are actually doing their job correctly, brazenly working against the parameters of the office may suffice in their reasoning to argue for impeachment.

Buuuut, arguing this for the Supreme Court whose job is to interpret law, even in ways you won't like, is going to be a really really hard standard to prove.