The Supreme Court And Obamacare
Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE
On June 28, 2012 the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Act. Chief Justice Roberts read the majority opinion. He sided with the four liberal judges in ruling it constitutional.
The pundits on the left and the right have been speculating on the significance of the decision for the past five days. It can make anyone who is trying to understand the significance of the decision, as I have, dizzy.
The fact is Obamacare is a terrible law. It must be repealed. It is a super entitlement program that will bankrupt our nation.
Recently, the CBO said is would increase the budget deficit $1.76 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. President Obama has claimed Obamacare will decrease the deficit.
Obamacare is going to be difficult to execute because of programs such as Accountable Care Organizations. Deadlines have already been extended. This will result in increased cost and increased budget deficits.
States do not want to increase their spending, raise taxes, or go into further debt States are required to balance their budgets. Most will not cooperate with the expansion of Medicaid or the Heath Insurance Exchanges.
The role of the executive branch of the government has already been expanded on President Obama’s watch. Non-elected officials are making policy decisions without congressional approval.
The end result will be that the healthcare system will collapse. The federal government will then socialize medicine completely.
I believe this is President Obama’s goal. It is the reason he did not insist on the Public Option before passage of the bill.
President Obama has used many trick plays to achieve his goal. The last trick he played was to try to intimidate the Supreme Court.
I was positive President Obama could not intimidate the Supreme Court justices. It is hard to know if President Obama’s intimidation tactic influenced Chief Justice Roberts’ decision.
Some believe Chief Justice John Roberts has handed a remarkable victory to American Independents, Libertarians, and Republicans by declaring Obamacare’s application of the commerce clause unconstitutional.
The effect would be to limit broad application of the commerce clause. In the past the federal government has used the commerce clause to justify its intrusion in Americans’ personal life and limit their freedom of choice.
Nancy Pelosi was grinning from ear to ear and made a couple of incomprehensible comments about President Obama, Harry Reid and her victory in the Supreme Courts decision. She even had a party before congressional members.
We can all remember Nancy Pelosi gloating and saying, "we cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare” to pay for ObamaCare.
She has been credited with being the mother of “double counting.” She also made this brilliant statement, "We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”
Sixty percent of Americans do not like Obamacare. They want it repealed.
If the commerce clause was upheld the federal government could force Americans to buy and eat broccoli.
The error the Chief Justice made is that by declaring it a tax the government can tax people who choose not to eat broccoli.
“However, with Chief Justice Roberts almost surreptitiously joining with Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy in ruling that ObamaCare is barred by the federal Commerce Clause, a new era has begun in Commerce Clause jurisprudence.”
This is a big deal. It limits the federal government’s power over its citizens by resetting the rules for lower courts.
Long after many of us are gone, this 5-4 opinion finally setting limits on the reach of the Commerce Clause will continue to affect American lives and protect private citizens from Washington's intrusions.
In order to pass Obamacare with 60 votes needed in the Senate, President Obama threatened some Democratic senators into voting for his bill.
President Obama jammed an unpopular healthcare reform act through a barely willing Democratic dominated congress.
President Obama insisted on the mandate. He claimed it was constitutional according to the commerce clause.
President Obama did not want to impose a tax at a time the economy was so poor. A tax on families earning less than $250,000 a year would have been political suicide.
President Obama would not have gotten 60 Democratic votes in the Senate if he was imposing a tax on those corporations, organizations, and individual who chose not buy healthcare insurance.
The Healthcare Reform Act was passed without bipartisan support. Therefore, President Obama cannot claim that the bill was passed by a bipartisan congress.
“Chief Justice Roberts majority decision said the Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance . . ..
His error was to give the President some help by calling it a tax.
The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance." (National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Slip op. at 3, 41-42, 44)”
President Obama has insisted it is not a tax but a mandate. Today he is insisting it a not a tax. It is a penalty for not buying insurance. The legal definitions of taxes, penalties and mandates are all different.
No one can know if John Roberts was intimidated by President Obama’s admonition or if he thought he was acting to defend the constitution.
In effect, he and the liberal justices rewrote Obamacare as it was originally written.
Democratic congresspersons are starting to catch on. Many are declining to attend the Democratic Party’s convention.
“The ObamaCare tax does not apply to those who presently are untaxed, (50% of the public).
It will not apply to the more wealthy, who will be excused because they carry health insurance anyway.
Guess who absorbs the bullet? Families earning under $250,000 a year.
The President who promised no new taxes against the middle class conclusively has been "outed" by the Chief Justice as having imposed the biggest tax on middle-class Americans in a generation.
President Obama has “outed” his supporters with false hope throughout his presidency using trick plays. Seniors will be unhappy when they start realizing the impact of the $500 billion dollars removed from Medicare.
Employers will be hesitant to employ greater than 50 employees in order to avoid the tax. Unemployment will rise. Obamacare in offering money for unfunded liabilities as more people will need subsided insurance.
This represents the largest tax increase in United States history along with 20 other new taxes in Obamacare. These new taxes are going to affect everyone including taxpayers’ earning under $250,000 a year.
President Obama knew all along Obamacare’s mandate is not constitutional. He was trying to pull a trick play. He knew Americans would not buy an added tax.
He then faked out the Supreme Court when his lawyer asked if Obamacare would stand as constitutional if the mandate would be considered a tax.
“The idea that if Congress had mustered the courage to pass the mandate as the tax it is, it would have been well within its right to tax the people. But Congress didn't do that. They manipulated the language, and thereby the people, playing us for fools.”
The economy remains the major issue in the 2012 elections. President Obama will use every trick he can to divert America’s attention from the main issue. Obamacare is making the economy worse.
“The number-one national issue in the 2012 presidential election is economic, but as a cultural question, the scope, limits, and trustworthiness of government looms large and ominous to those who perpetrated the fraud of duplicity:
Disguising a wolfish tax in the sheep's clothing of moral imperative, just long enough to pass it. It's at least as unwise to scam voters, as it is not nice to fool Mother Nature.
Some believe that Chief Justice Roberts has given Republicans the ability to tie the healthcare issue back to the economy.
Chief Justice Roberts returned Obamacare front-and-center back into the November elections debate. Defining it for what it really is — a new, enormous federal tax on at least four million Americans (Slip op. at 37)
It will be up to Mitt Romney and the Republicans to define the connection of the two issues.
I have a feeling President Obama will outsmart the Republicans once again with additional trick plays.
John Roberts did not do Conservatives, Libertarians, the constitution, the economy or the American people a favor with his decision.
It is up to the people to speak at the voting booth on November 6nd.