The Supreme Court ruled today that ObamaCare as it now stands is Constitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts provided the swing vote, with Justices Alito, Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia dissenting.
Oddly enough, Justice Roberts' decision was based on the notion that the individual mandate, the heart of the bill is a tax and therefore falls under Congress's power to levy such taxes. That's the exact opposite of what the Obama Administration said in it's oral arguments, and what the president himself said earlier.
“Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness,” Roberts said in his opinion.
The court also disputed the law’s expansion of Medicaid, but agreed to allow it as long as the federal government does not threaten to withhold states’ entire Medicaid allotment if they don’t take part in the law’s expansion.
“The act before us here exceeds federal power both in mandating the purchase of health insurance and in denying non-consenting states all Medicaid funding,” the dissenters said in a joint statement.
Apparently, there's nothing government cannot do, no commerce or activity public or private they cannot compel, according to Justice Roberts and the Court's majority.If this stands, we can mark this as the end of America as a free country.
My prediction from yesterday on the reaction of the dinosaur media and the left is,of course already taking place.
DNC Director Patrick Gaspard, via Twitter: "It's constitutional, bitches."
The response to Sarah Palin's tweet, "Obama lied, Freedom died" was even classier ( warning, language).
MSNBC referred to it as 'a dramatic victory for the president.'
There is a silver lining to all this.
The Obama Administration now has a ruling, one that redefines ObamaCare as the largest tax increase in history. . Governor Mitt Romney, the Tea Party and Americans who still believe in freedom now have a cause and a major campaign issue to rally around, and this is going to galvanize them like nothing else could. In fact, given the unpopularity of this law, it might just have ensured Mitt Romney's election, along with a conservative majority in Congress.
Ligean dó gáire a Bhuaigh...'Let him laugh who wins.'
reading some of the comments in the sarah palin link.
ReplyDeletefirst off, makes me wish she had run.
second, those are the people who want to run this country. just how do you engage that type of mentality? that value system comes from where?
Hopefully this tragedy has a silver lining. Elections have consequences, very long lasting ones. If this stands as social security and medicare have, this country will never, ever be the same, and may never regain it's former greatness. I mourn for my former great country...
ReplyDeleteI predicted that the Supremes would not declare Obama care unconstitutional but rather come out with a ruling that made this abominable legislation far worse. In my lifetime this is what the Supremes have done. They either split so closely that no one really knows what is or is not constitutional or worse they cut the baby in half and throw out some part of a unconstitutional law while leaving the most egregious part intact. But this time the Supremes made everything worse.
ReplyDeleteIf congress is able to do the best possible thing, that is to over turn all of Obamacare, the government will in the meantime have spent 100's of billions to implement it (and pay off political cronies) that we will never get back. This while we are going bankrupt and unable to fund real needs. It will also have created at least four years of total confusion for employers, insurers and care givers causing some of them to go out of business and many of them to lose money and have to reduce services to American citizens. And lastly it will create a mish-mash of regulations, expired or retracted regulations, confused regulators and situations where patients die or who's illness becomes worse simply because of the confusion this law and the repeal created.
If congress, the president and the Supremes were to have gotten together three years ago over cocktails and pondered how they could totally destroy the worlds best healthcare system it is doubtful that even the most devious mind could have come up with this legal morass and regulatory disaster.
The Supremes could have prevented most of this with a clean ruling that the entire bill was unconstitutional. It also would have set a clear precident limiting the federal power to control every aspect of our lives. But it appears that instead they preferred obfuscation, judicial legislation and constitutional destruction.