Yesterday, President Barack Obama made the surprising prediction that the Supreme Court would uphold the health care law and further labeled those who would vote against it as judicial activists. I am not sure what he is basing his prediction on, but the comment on judicial activism is both unfounded and unwise.
With most observers saying that five justices, including Justice Anthony Kennedy, appeared to be opposed to the law on federalism grounds, the prediction of victory lead some to allege “insider information.” Fingers were pointed at Justice Kagan who some (including myself) felt should have recused herself because she was Obama’s Solicitor General at the start of litigation to defend the act and received emails on that effort. However, there is no basis to make such an accusation against Kagan who I believe would not commit such an egregiously unethical act in telling Administration officials what the initial vote was in the conference last Friday. Obama may simply be engaging in hopeful thinking (it is after the Administration that ran on “Hope”) or his continuing belief that the cases favor the Administration. It also seemed to set up his next (and much more disturbing statement) on judicial activism.
Obama stated that:
“Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress . . . And I’d just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example, and I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”
Of course, all acts found to be unconstitutional were generally the product of democratic process. The point of an independent judiciary is to serve as a bulwark against abuses by the majority. Obama’s statement about judicial activism is equally wrong. There are good faith arguments on both sides of this question and one does not have to be a judicial activist to vote to strike down the law on federalism grounds. I support national health care but raised the same federalism concern before Congress passed the law. I do believe that the law violates federalism guarantees while I respect my friends with opposing views. It is simply unfair to characterize a vote against the law in advance as judicial activism — a term that is often used by people whenever a court rules against their view of the law. To put it simply, it was a cheap shot and beneath a president.
Moreover, it was unwise at this time. This comment is not going to appeal to any of the justices, particularly not Justice Kennedy. The Administration needs Kennedy’s vote and he previously voted to strike down two federal laws on the federalism grounds — the very judicial activism described by the President. Additionally, the Administration is trying to convince Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia to moderate aspects of any ruling. They are likely to view this comment as directed at them. Roberts was ticked by Obama’s statement during his State of the Union address where he criticized the Court. While I felt Roberts failed to condemn the actions of Justice Alito at that address and felt that Alito’s actions were far more problematic, Roberts felt the President was irresponsible. Now, he is condemning any vote against the law in advance as activism. Even if Roberts and Scalia (or Kennedy) were inclined to vote against the individual mandate, they may be on the fence on questions like severability.
The message can easily be taken by justices as a threat that, if you vote against my law, I will denounce you publicly as judicial activists. I realize that this is an election year, but I believe a president should transcend such petty attacks. In this case, it is not just petty but inimical to the Administration’s case.
Source: Yahoo
@Idealist: Short of Medicare for All, which is the route I advocate, I would go for the regulations that treat insurance companies (of all stripes) as we treat our privately owned public utilities. Basically, you force a business model on them and they run it that way, for a modest profit (like up to 10% of their premiums; or more specifically, that they are required to pay out 85% of all premiums in benefits, as measured by the year, and can do as they wish with the remaining 15%).
The reason we do that with a utility is that something like providing electricity or water or sewer service or garbage collection are all large enterprises demanding lots of infrastructure and are not typically open to “little guy” competition. So they end up natural monopolies; and to prevent monopolistic pricing, we control the business model and profit margin. Some think that this is better than the govt running it, because there is still a profit incentive to keep costs down and efficiency up. There perhaps is not as much incentive to innovate, but that isn’t a deal breaker in the utility field.
Our culture has developed to the point that insurance is much like a utility, you could live without it but very few people are willing.
So that is the halfway step, and investors used to love utilities precisely because they were monopolies with a steady 5%-8% profit margin.
rafflaw, The sirens went off three different times. It was close. We don’t have basements so I took the dogs into the downstairs bathroom. Had some hail but that’s all..
Swarthmmore,
I hope you are nowhere near the tornadoes in Dallas!
Tony C, One has to look at the voter identifications in a district to see if it is possible and viable. In any case there are several progressive democrats running in primaries this year. Greenwald endorsed a few the other day. One lost in Illinois a few weeks ago. I think the debate needs to be framed in a positivel way instead of using the word “punishing”.
While I agree that justices should recuse themselves when even the appearance of conflict of interest rears it’s head, I don’t see why Justice Kagan should have if Justice Thomas wasn’t going to. In the end, their ‘votes’ would just cancel each other out.
I think the Justices may think twice about how far they want to take this. They caused their own heartburn by going too far with Citizen’s United.
@Swarthmore: I do not think Democrats punished Democrats in 2010; except perhaps through apathy. What percentage got primary challenged?
health-care providers——–hospitals, doctors, etc OR insurance companies?
OT
Kaiser, the friendly company who brought you the Kaiser HenryJ, the worst car that ever hit the market. Under sold even the Edsel.
Of course their hospital was just across the road from my hotel, just at the Oahu side of Waikiki Beach. Great reassurance for a man of 28 years.
I gota tell you Jonathan, that I am really suprised that Chief Justice Scalia MIGHT not vote in favor of the health care bill.
It was just a few short weeks ago that many of those giant corporations for FOR this health care bill simple because of all buzz going on about how those corps could drop that particular benefit from their hire package.
This bill is one of those “why are corporations footing the cost, when all us stupid, average Americans can do it instead”. Be careful what you wish for, because this bill is an act of fraud, just exactly like everything else the Obama Bush twin pushs over on all us very stupid American citizens.
The Facts
First of all, under the health care bill, Medicare spending continues to go up year after year. The health care bill tries to identify ways to save money, and so the $500 billion figure comes from the difference over 10 years between anticipated Medicare spending (what is known as “the baseline”) and the changes the law makes to reduce spending. (Look at slide 15 of this nifty tutorial on the law’s impact on Medicare by the Kaiser Family Foundation to see a chart of the year by year savings.)
The savings actually are wrung from health-care providers, not Medicare beneficiaries. These spending reductions presumably would be a good thing, since virtually everyone agrees that Medicare spending is out of control. In the House Republican budget, lawmakers repealed the Obama health care law but retained all but $10 billion of the nearly $500 billion in Medicare savings, suggesting the actual policies enacted to achieve these spending reductions were not that objectionable to GOP lawmakers.
The Obama health care law also raised Medicare payroll taxes by $113 billion over 10 years, further strengthening the program’s financial condition, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Since about half of the $500 billion stems from reduced outlays for Medicare hospitalization expenses, the payroll taxes and those reductions would add about $358 billion to Medicare trust fund balances. Washington Post
These are said by GAO to result in restraining the rise of health costs.
If that simply means less care, then how do we win healthwise with that?
A better regulation of insurance premiums is my choice. And a national drug purchase to hold down drug costs.
Other ideas?
The reading given here of the GAO report leads to the a BIG question.
What cuts in Medicare, mentioned but not explained, are contained in ACA as it now stande?
Anyone know?
Tony C.,
you are being too kind to the Supremes. This Roberts Court is so politicized that corporations are now the king. At least of the majority. You are right that Roberts was let off the hook in his confirmation hearings, but the Dems actually believed that a filibuster should only be used in dire circumstances. Something the Republicans do not believe in.
anon nurse,
I hope the Supreme Court is reading the GAO report!
Tony C, The democrats were punished in 2010. Boehner took over the House. The republicans captured many state governments. Punishing the democrats really didn’t turn out so well especially for women.
@Idealist: There won’t be an Armageddon; the vast majority of us Americans are pretty docile, apathetic couch potatoes for the most part. I presume we will let the rich take enough out of this country to cast it into a full scale depression before we actually start to demand any kind of real solutions from politics. At least, that is what we did in the 1920’s, and I see us letting the same bankster frauds proceed again without resistance.
There won’t be a liberal miracle, either, Liberals are too frightened to stand their ground. They will vote for the Democratic Party no matter how non-liberal it gets, no matter how much it betrays them, no matter how often it lies to their face, no matter how criminally it acts, even if it commits outright murders, because they mistakenly think that somehow they should be able to get Democrats to do the right thing without ever punishing them at the polls for doing the wrong thing. So they will wait for a knight in shining armor to save them, until they are driven into financial ruin, and even then will insist they did the right thing.
All my cynical opinion, of course. Liberalism, the New Deal, the Great Society are all doomed. The rich will win, and oppress the rest of us. Again.
GAO Obamacare Report: National Debt Would Skyrocket If Plan Not Implemented
Posted: 04/ 3/2012 3:14 pm Updated: 04/ 3/2012 3:25 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/gao-obamacare-national-debt_n_1399895.html
“The Government Accountability Office, which audits federal spending, has concluded that the national debt would rise precipitously if President Obama’s health care legislation doesn’t go into effect.
A report titled “The Federal Government’s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook” states that several parts of the health plan “were designed to control the growth of health care costs. The full implementation and effectiveness of these cost-control provisions… would slow the growth in federal health care spending over the long term.”
If the legislation were thrown out, though, the forecast becomes considerably more gloomy. The report does not go into detail about the consequences of an invalidated law — but as TPM reports, it clearly implies that “if key cost-control measures in the law, and other automatic cuts to Medicare spending baked into current law, are ignored, or overridden by Congress, the implications for the national debt are vast.”
Or, in the dry language of the GAO:
These concerns are reflected in our Alternative simulation, which, consistent with CBO’s and the CMS Actuary’s alternative scenarios, assumes that certain cost-containment mechanisms are not sustained over the long term. Spending on health care grows much more rapidly under this more pessimistic set of assumptions. Absent changes to these programs, spending on Medicare and Medicaid under the Alternative simulation grows to over 8 percent of GDP by 2030.
The health care bill’s fate rests in the hands of the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on its constitutionality in June. On Tuesday, President Obama expressed confidence that the court would uphold his signature legislative achievement.” (end of article)
TonyC
I thought you were going to offer me another 3rd choice.
Like Armageddon or the second coming or something supported by other groups, like a liberal miracle. Smile.
Isn’t that an oxymoron: liberal miracle, or something they dream about all the time?
@Idealist: You have no choice, that is what has been engineered. 95% of those that vote will vote for a corporate puppet. 99.99% of us will be robbed by those corporate puppets, on behalf of their 0.01% masters, both economically and politically.
This court leaning to the right is the fault of the dems. I recall when Roberts was before the senate hearing dems say that they know his political leanings but they thought he was and would be a fair man. Our stupidity, once again we fell for a conservative’s protestations of ‘I can be objective and leave my leanings at the door’. (And yes I am aware of the irony the right would be saying the same thing if Roberts had been a liberal instead .)
TonyC,
All true, but what other choices can we vote for?
GeneH named Salt Marchs, or modern adaptiations.
But, they have planned for that.
I will risk an overthetop thing here and say that mass drugging for populace control (secret of course) can be considered and has been tested in secret.
A true story: Ingmar Bergman left Sweden (another story) and did a film about the 20-30s in Germany. One episode entailed experiments in populace control through drugs. It is called (translation) The Snake’s Egg.