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The Supremes & Obama Care: Five Hypocrites and One Bad Idea
The Supreme Court is so full of it. The entire institution, as well as its sanctimonious judges themselves, reeks of a time-honored hypocrisy steeped in the arrogance that justice is served by unaccountable elitism.
This artist rendering shows attorney Gregory G. Katsas speaking in front of the Supreme Court Justice in Washington on Monday. (Dana Verkouteren, AP)
My problem is not with the Republicans who dominate the court questioning the obviously flawed individual mandate for the purchasing of private-sector health insurance but rather with their zeal to limit federal power only when it threatens to help the most vulnerable. The laughter noted in the court transcription that greeted the prospect of millions of the uninsured suddenly being deprived of already extended protection under the now threatened law was unconscionable. The Republican justices seem determined to strike down not only the mandate but also the entire package of accompanying health care rights because of the likelihood that, without an individual mandate, tax revenue will be needed to extend insurance coverage to those who cannot afford it.
The conservative justices, in their eagerness to reject all of this much needed reform, offer the deeply cynical justification that a new Congress will easily come up with a better plan—despite decades of congressional failure to address what is arguably the nation’s most pressing issue. In their passion to embarrass this president, the self-proclaimed constitutional purists on the court went so far as to equate a mandate to obtain health care coverage with an unconstitutional deprivation of freedom; to make the connection they cited the spirit of a document that once condoned slavery.
These purists have no trouble finding in that same sacred text a license for the federal government to order the young to wage undeclared wars abroad, to gut due process and First Amendment protections, and embrace torture, rendition and assassination, even of U.S. citizens.
Now they hide behind the commerce clause of the Constitution to argue that the federal government cannot regulate health care coverage because that violates the sacrosanct principle of states’ rights. If the right-wingers on the high court consistently had a narrow interpretation of federal power over the economy, there would be logic to the position expressed by the Republican justices during the last three days of questioning. Of course, the court’s apparent majority on this has shown no such consistency and has intervened aggressively, as did the justices’ ideological predecessors, to deny the states the power to protect consumers, workers and homeowners against the greed of large corporations.
We would not be in the midst of the most severe economic meltdown since the Great Depression had the courts not interpreted the commerce clause as protecting powerful national corporations from accountability to state governments. Just look at the difficulty that a coalition of state attorneys general has faced in attempting to hold the largest banks responsible for their avarice in the housing disaster.
The modern Supreme Court has allowed the federal government to pre-empt the states’ power to protect homeowners, whose mortgage agreements were traditionally a matter of local regulation and registration. The court has no problem accepting Congress’ grant of a legal exemption in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that allows the bundling of home mortgages into unregulated derivatives.
The court has vitiated the power of the states to control interest rates, even though quite a few had explicit provisions in their constitutions banning usury. The result is that loan-sharking by banks that can claim to be engaged in interstate commerce is constitutionally protected, which is why there are no limits on mortgage, credit card or personal loan interest rates.
The sad truth is that President Obama and the Democrats brought this potential judicial disaster upon themselves. In light of what has been said this week in the Supreme Court, it seems inevitable that the linchpin of the 2010 reform—mandated coverage—will be thrown out, probably along with the crucial accompanying reforms. Forget coverage for the young and those with pre-existing medical conditions. The Democrats will protect themselves from this reversal by arguing that all they did was copy the program that this year’s prospective Republican presidential candidate implemented when he was the governor of Massachusetts. Mitt Romney’s plan included the dreaded mandate that he and the Republican justices condemn.
How ironic that Barack Obama’s health care agenda would be in a far stronger legal position had the president stuck by his earlier support of a public option. Clearly, our federal government has the judicially affirmed power under our Constitution to use public revenues to provide a needed public service, be it education, national security, retirement insurance or health care. Obama’s health care reform should have simply extended Medicare and Medicaid coverage to all who wanted and needed it—no individual mandate—while allowing others to opt out for private insurance coverage. That’s an obvious constitutional solution that even those die-hard Republican justices would have a difficult time overturning.
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105 Comments so far
Show AllThe Roberts court, what a joke, these are the same disrespectful assholes that brought us citizens united. The sarcastic bastards have been proven to be prejudice but still demand respect, screw these worthless bastards. it is just sickening to hear all the bullshit about Obama not wanting single payer, the democrats barely got the votes for the law even with kissing the corporate asses of the republicans, on a law that they created. I do not respect what Obama care turned into just to get enough votes to pass, but the conservatives on this court are just making a mockery of the judicial system, they are even married into the tea party for gods sake, they should be prosecuted.
'these are the same disrespectful assholes that brought us citizens united"
and they were supported by the ACLU!
And George Bush.
Again constitutional, you are deluded. Obama made back room deals with the inurance companies.
You do remember his pledge during the campaign when he said he would veto a bill w/o a PO in it? And that he was against mandates?
Kind of like his promise to filibuster THE FISA BILL. He voted for.
Give it up bot.
They had the votes if they would have changed the 60 vote rule.
One Party playing good cop bad cop.
Or you can change your name to delusional.
Give it up, joecool. You can't change his mind. He is too brainwashed to think in terms of Blue Team vs. Red Team, and his team MUST win at all costs. He either won't address your very good points, or he will vomit up the ole' "He's still better than a Republican" nonsense.
Yeppers...I couldn't agree more with you. What really gets me, is that especially starting with the Bushy Crime Cartel days, all of these people allow and even come right and say, it's OK to break/dis-obey a law you don't like and/or agree with. And then yet, as you say, they actually EXPECT and demand respect! What a friggin joke.
And then these same people, all have the nerve to wonder why, the "crime" rates and uncivil behavior rates, are climbing to heights never seen before.
The elephant in the room is never mentioned. I haven't heard it mentioned in the audio excerpts of the proceedings before the Supreme Court, or in the commentaries and discussions in the MSM. The elephant I refer to, of course, is the fact that over 120 people die every day in this country unnecessarily due to lack of affordable health care. That's about 15 times the number lost in the 9/11 attacks. This is an on-going national emergency. If we lost that many citizens -- even though they're largely from the 99% -- from plane crashes, all the airlines would be grounded in a week, just as they were immediately grounded on 9/11 out of fear of more hijackings.
The lumbering, convoluted process of laying Obamacare to rest is no substitute for the immediate action needed to do what Sheer advises in his last paragraph. And that could be done in less time than the Supreme Court will spend playing around with the lives of our citizens.
Scheer comments on the Republican Supreme Court Justices "zeal to limit federal power only when it threatens to help the most vulnerable. The laughter noted in the court transcription that greeted the prospect of millions of the uninsured suddenly being deprived of already extended protection under the now threatened law was unconscionable. The Republican justices seem determined to strike down not only the mandate but also the entire package of accompanying health care rights because of the likelihood that, without an individual mandate, tax revenue will be needed to extend insurance coverage to those who cannot afford it."
ISN'T THIS THE VERY DEFINITION OF A "DEATH PANEL?"
OG: You are right. But we can take it further. How do we characterize multiple deployments in war zones? How do we describe environmental degradation and global warming on multiple fronts, if not a death sentence for future generations? Astonishing to me is that Scherer talks about the vulnerable but apparently has not read the damn bill. If this bill makes it through the Court, mandates will further erode the disenfranchised ability to stay above water. Does Scherer think people earning poverty level wages can suddenly cough up a couple thousand when they are currently earning less than 12K per year? The Bill was crap from the moment Obama sold out to his corporate handlers in the insurance industry. It is still crap. Scherer rightly decries the Court, but will not utter one peep that Obama Care is a For Profit mechanism which the poor can hardly pay. Vulnerability, please spare me! Scherer has no idea what it means to be poor.. What the bill does is shift revenues AWAY from the disenfranchised and poor to provide more for people with means. Yes, now the enfranchised can cover their little darlings until age 28; while the poor get their benefits downsized including Medicare and Medicaid. Poor Scherer been sitting behind his computer too long to know anything whatsoever about people on the economic edge. If he honestly understood their plight, he would never again advocate for the Democratic Party.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they shared the view of Scalia and Kennedy that the law should stand or fall in total. Along with Justice Clarence Thomas, they would have a majority to strike down the entire statute as unconstitutional.l
The law lacks the normal severance clause. If the court rules against the mandate, the argument is that the whole bill had to be voided. Deviating from the norm was intentional, and now the Obama adminin wants portions of the law to survive?
Omitting the severance clause was something the health care industry wanted. The mandate was all the industry wanted. All those people paying the outrageous premiums. Once that's gone, the health care industry does not want to provide health care to anybody who is not healthy.
Ragoon,
Good analysis. Thank You.
Thomas Gilbert-
There is little doubt that from the start, the Obama Administration saw the health industry as their primary adversary in getting any reform passed through Congress. Sure, anyone can see that would be the case, but there was historical precedent for how crippling their opposition to reform could be - on only had to look back a decade to when the Clinton plan was so effectively demonized and eventually blocked through a massive campaign of Harry and Louise ads. The health insurance industry spared no expense in fighting reform and there is little doubt they would do it again. It would have been foolish in planning the strategy to ignore this history.
Obama's strategy was to get the industry's support, even if given reluctantly and with misgivings and he did that with the carrot of new business - from the individual mandate. Yes, it makes sense that the industry would have insisted on not having a severability clause because this was the carrot that made the whole package acceptable to them. It was the very reason they did not launch an all-out propaganda campaign against it.
So was this a sell-out to big business or simply a strategy to contend with a very powerful adversary? That is for each of us to decide for ourselves, but you can be sure that the GOP and other political opponents of the President are anxious to promote the first interpretation, that it was a sell-out. That too would be good strategy.
"How ironic that Barack Obama’s health care agenda would be in a far stronger legal position had the president stuck by his earlier support of a public option."
I'll just add here that what we've learned over the last three years is that this president hasn't stuck by ANYTHING he promised. He's sold us out on every opportunity to lead with courage, fortitude and the chance to make a difference. What a disappointment.
No Republican or Democrat is getting my vote this year.
It looks like this years presidential election will be between Obama and Mittens. Two people that stand for absolutely nothing. No convictions, no principles, neither stands behind anything they have ever said. What a choice.
Point taken. I should have more clearly stated they stand for nothing they have ever said.
Tom,
LOL..You passed the puck to Lanista and he fired it into the net. The goalie didn't have a chance. You get an assist on the goal..
Thomas Gilbert-
Lanista is a he?" You're sure she's not a "she?"
It always amazes me that anyone on the left could say that Obama is a weak president, that he doesn't have a backbone, that he stands for nothing, when just the opposite is so clear. Sometimes they come onto this site and are amazed at us. How dare we criticize the cool Obama when a pack of rabid Republicans are about to break down the door? Obama is the only way to keep their fangs from ripping into our throats. What amazes me further is how anyone in the year 2012 could still be falling for this scam. As I always say: It's the empire, stupid.
"As I always say: It's the empire, stupid."
RV,
Our own Alan McDonald has been telling us that for some time now. The power is not where many think it is...
Take care of yourself
Thomas Gilbert-
I have to disagree with you, nvrwalker. In fact, Obama's stupidty and arrogance has made it even more likely that the GOP's fangs will rip at our throats. There's no protection under the Obama Administration from this, and there hasn't been from the Democratic Party for more than 4 decades. What's amazing is that so many people have fallen for and continue to support Obama as their Messiah, Savior and protector, when, in fact, he's anything but...if one gets the drift.
Independent,
I believe you are both saying essentially the same thing.
Thomas Gilbert-
The same sentence stood out to me, Elizabeth. Scheer wants to re-write history when he writes about Obama the Baby Killer's "earlier support of a public option."
Obama handed the health care bill off to Max Bauchus and Liz Fowler and told them to screw the poor to the best of their considerable abilities.
"How ironic that Barack Obama’s health care agenda would be in a far stronger legal position had the president stuck by his earlier support of a public option. "
The Houseboy sold out. Money talks, bullshit walks.
I love the way Scheer rails at this AWFUL Supreme Court that never met a pro-business decision it wouldn't lavish legal praise upon. And while he aims his vitriol at the Republican segment, it's fairer to say that the entire make-up of this court is 90% conservative... and that's with Democratic (also pro-business) appointments added to its judicially repugnant mix.
Yep.
Yep, and if Roberts and Allioto were such scum bags that everyone knew they were, why the hell did the Dems confirm them?
When people tell me to vote Obama this year because it is all about the SC, that is what I say.
Look at the 2 he did appoint.
POS, baby killer
Probably because even back then, those with insider connections knew that 'citizens united' would be passed, thus giving an equal pay to the scotus, as the congress, on the pretense that the word lobbying makes it a legal activity instead of the criminal act of bribery and influence peddling that it really is.
Let's lose the fantasies.
1) This court is childish, activists and a disgrace to the appointments. They have exceeded all ethic flexibility in their blatant support for their own well being, and they snare while they do it!
"The Supreme Court is so full of it. The entire institution, as well as its sanctimonious judges themselves, reeks of a time-honored hypocrisy steeped in the arrogance that justice is served by unaccountable elitism."
2) And there would be no ACA w/out the mandate, it's that simple, it would not have passed.
It's hysterical that so many Americans think the live under a representative form of government. We do not. We only get to directly elect members of congress. The presidency is protected from the will of the people by the Electoral College. Should the people not elect a president that is acceptable to TPTB, then the College can set things "right" for the men behind the curtain.
Then you have SCOTUS. Non elected, appointed by the Prez for life. They ultimately preside over the other two branches of government to be sure they tow the line for the 1%.
So here we are, whether it is a good thing or not, the Affordable Health Care act was passed by the only branch of government that is directly elected by the people, (putting aside all propaganda, lies, and bribes that get them elected), and may be struck down by the one branch of government that is in no way elected by the people.
I guess that's the "beauty" of the American Constitution. Keep the ultimate power of the government out of the average person's hands...
Read some of the anti-federalist papers. They decried the whole concept of an unelected supreme court and argued it would lead to tyranny because the court would support the 1% (they didn't use 1%, but the idea of it):
An example from Brutus # 15:
http://www.constitution.org/afp/brutus15.htm
Yes, there was debate about whether the Supreme Court should be elected, but the consensus decision was that, since the Supreme Court was to be the weakest of the three branches, to give the Justices independence it was appropriate to give them lifetime appointments.
The founders did not give the Court the power of Judicial Review; that is not a power they have in the Constitution and in fact the Constitution gives the Congress the power to oversee the operation of the Court. In their decision in the 1803 case, Marbury v Madison, the Supreme Court proclaimed for itself the power to determine which laws are Constitutional. This unconstitutional power turned the Supreme Court arguably into the most powerful of the three branches.
In light of this change in conditions, the lifetime appointments of the Justices should be reconsidered. Some have argued for fixed terms of perhaps ten or twelve years. I think a better approach would be to have each Justice face the voters for a vote of confidence every twelve years. Either would take a Constitutional Amendment, but we should be considering such a move in light of how the Court has ignored the welfare of the public in their decisions and sometimes seem to have ignored the commonsense meaning of the Constitution.
Great piece...but I would ask going back even further...where in the "h" were the so-called Democrats when it came time to block appointments like Roberts and Sammy Alito. I know...corporate Dems are no better than Republicans. However, there was not so much as a peep from anyone (other than a few of us hollering don't you know what's at stake here)....and voila...we have what we have because of our silence.
Typical CD post, blame the democrats for the actions of the republicans, brilliant!
typical D party apologist response. It's obviously BOTH parties - the duopoly dictatorship and the puppet-masters behind the curtain. "It's the system stupid". Americans have collective Stockholm Syndrome.
You will never get "constitutional" to see that the D's and R's are both the same corporate party, so don't waste your time. He is one of the biggest and blindest of the Dem-Apologists here on CD. You can point out to him all of the Dems' war crimes, Constitution-shredding, civil-rights-shredding, support of right-wing legislation, on and on and on, statistic after statistic, and he will respond with "they are still better than the Republicans." :) Don't waste your fingers, socialist.
constitutional, why don't you blame them for confirming them? They knew what type of men they were yet voted to confirm them.
Typical Obamabot. Defend the Dems from the bad thugs.
Why did they not block all the bad bills coming from the thugs the way the thugs did when the dems had the majority? HUH? Can you answer that?
They never placed holds, filibustered or did any of the things the thugs did.
The thugs hold all the power even when they are not in power, because both sides have sold out.
Wake up.
Socialist: " Americans have collective Stockholm Syndrome."
Yes, this is the only way I see of making sense of why, at sometime in the past few decades, while what passes for healthcare here became more expensive and less available to so many - why didn't those we now call the 99% get up on their hind legs and demand change? I've only been in the US since 2004 - and remain flabbergasted, gobsmacked and bemused at the way things are here, and the fact that the people have allowed them to continue, with scarcely a whimper .
Indeed, and it is the same in the UK. At least in Spain and Greece they are attempting to put up a fight. Conditions will worsen and more will be spurred into action as they have little or nothing to lose.
At least in the UK they have the National Health Service, flawed as it might be, it's oodles better than what passes for health care for the masses here.
Sorry to burst your bubble, constitutional, but the Democrats do bear responsibility for the fact that the GOP has wrought so much damage, because they've been so complacent and spineless.
I never supported Gore, but when the Supreme Court gave the election to Bush, I lost any respect I had left for the court. So the Citizens United ruling impowering corporations did not surprise me. The Supreme Court should be renamed the Supreme 1% Court!
Over the years there has been a lot of ink spilled over the decision in this case, but somehow I have never seen even a mention of what bothered me most about Bush v. Gore. How did the court even justify taking the case?
According to the Constitution, each state decides on the representatives it will send to the Electoral College. According to the Constitution, the issue was entirely an issue for the state of Florida to decide. Moreover, the Supreme Court has always had a tradition of staying out of political decisions.
So tell me again, how did the Supreme Court justify even taking this case?
You've made a good point, Paul Revere. It was the U. S. Supreme Court that gave G. W. Bush the Presidential Election back in 2000, NOT Ralph Nader, as so many people believe(d), and still believe!
Causality is always a difficult thing to judge. We had record heat in New England a week ago, in some places a dozen degrees above the previous record. We had a bad wind storm a few days later. Are these caused by global warming? It is tempting to say so but hard to really justify the claim. What you can say is that there is a strong probability that global warming contributed to the events.
The same thing can be said about the 2000 election. Did Nader's run cause Gore to lose? Or perhaps that Bush's cousin worked for a network and was in a position to prematurely announce his win. Or was it the butterfly ballots? Or maybe that crowd of Congressional staffers sent down to Miami to riot. Or maybe it was the stripping of so many blacks from the voting rolls or perhaps the misplacement of voting machines.
The fact is that there were many different events around that election that seemed to contribute and it can be argued that if any one of them had not happened then Gore might have become President. The fact is that each is a contributing cause in that each made it more likely that Bush would be the winner. There just is no way to pick out just one and say that was it.
The Supreme Court is one of the main institutions of corporate America to ensure servitude oft he 99%. This is obvious by the unconditional praise it receives from the MSM unless a ruling can be slightly deemed progressive. As for single payer health insurance, you can guarantee that the Supreme Court would rule that 'unconstitutional' as well if it ever made it that far regardless of the public opposition. The SC is an enemy of the people and therefore brings into question the whole legitimacy of the Constitution and the three branches of government.
The Supreme Court is one of the main institutions of corporate America to ensure servitude oft he 99%. This is obvious by the unconditional praise it receives from the MSM unless a ruling can be slightly deemed progressive. As for single payer health insurance, you can guarantee that the Supreme Court would rule that 'unconstitutional' as well if it ever made it that far regardless of the public opposition. The SC is an enemy of the people and therefore brings into question the whole legitimacy of the Constitution and the three branches of government.
Constitutional is certainly and completely correct. We can have all the revered parchment we want, but without noble souls to uphold the principles we degenerate into the morass Scheer so cogently describes.
Our Overlords will do whatever it takes--no matter how convoluted the justifications--to extract the last drop from their serfs, whilst chuckling to themselves in their marble halls and secure residences.
ARE WE GETTING IT YET?
Thank you.
Actually, the framers wrote the constitution to protect the property of the 1% from the rest of us. They made a senate of 100 rich people as a check on the house. They made the supreme court as a check on all laws that displeased the 1%. They didn't allow the people to vote for president or the senate (that changed over time, but by then it didn't matter because the robber barons owned the country).
Then in 1911 (undoubtedly one of the most important years in American history) the 1% forced congress to limit its membership permanently to 435, to make it easier to buy them. Today we have 435 members of the house, just like in 1911, but with 3 times the population.
Also in 1911, JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller forced President Taft to overrule solicitor general Lehmann and allowed "bank securities affiliates" to continue to operate, despite the clear violation of 1864 US National Banks Act. These "bank securities affiliates" were companies set up by investment banks -- barred by law from engaging in securities speculation -- to engage in the exact speculation the law forbade. This led to the 1929 crash, just like the same type of speculation led to the 2008 crash.
If you want to cure yourself of starry eyed views of the the constitution and the "framers," read "The American Counter Revolution," by Larry E. Tise. A real history book, not a puff piece for mass circulation.
I still don't see why there needs to be a mandated pay of tribute to a private company on this. Sure, you cannot have any kind of free healthcare, but being essential for everybody for a supposedly functional society, then taxes are the answer. Everybody and every business pays which, theoretically, would mean the tax rate would necessarily be low. Problem with that is it creates another huge public pool of money for the elite or 1% to rob from until nothing is left. But I guess that is as good as howling at the moon because there are the elite to consider who will never give up their wealth for such a reason, only steal what they think they have rights to claim as theirs and not those who pay.
I can only think that this upcoming decision will be what is intended. I, myself, feel that since I have paid into medicare that I have paid for medical care and that would be my tax which, NOT theoretically, is what I did when I worked, pay my s.s. and medicare tax. But from the first when o's slick healthcare dream became a bill and there was proviso for forcing mandated tribute to a private insurance company, I want no part of such a crap of a piece of corporate welfare. It stinks to high heaven.
In the mean time, I have found and practice my own healthcare via diet, supplementation, exercise to keep my medical bills down. My only recourse is to not worry about it and stop going to my doctors as what they charge is more than enough to make me ill. And I have not a bit of health insurance except medicare I paid for that I will be eligible for in another year and a half. But if I am mandated and don't and am fined, that is just exactly one of the reasons for the fast growing industry(hard to accept this)private contractor prisons are for when me and thee cannot pay. So intended.
"I have found and practice my own healthcare via diet, supplementation, exercise to keep my medical bills down."
That works great until you get surprise biopsy results some day. You can't always out-exercise the big C.