BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
Well I have listened to the full audio and read the transcript. Links are:
Audio
Text
It's always dangerous to project the court's opinion, but there are some very telling statements I want to quote below. Now I am only going to quote Justices Kennedy, Roberts, and Scalia because they are the three the liberals and MSM are praying to God will vote to uphold Obamacare. The rest are kind of written in stone: Thomas and Alito will vote to strike it down, while Justices Kagan, Sotomayer, Breyer, and Ginsburg will vote to uphold it.
Based on these quotes I would say that Obamacare is in very, very deep trouble.
Justice Kennedy
Justice Scalia
Chief Justice Roberts
Audio
Text
It's always dangerous to project the court's opinion, but there are some very telling statements I want to quote below. Now I am only going to quote Justices Kennedy, Roberts, and Scalia because they are the three the liberals and MSM are praying to God will vote to uphold Obamacare. The rest are kind of written in stone: Thomas and Alito will vote to strike it down, while Justices Kagan, Sotomayer, Breyer, and Ginsburg will vote to uphold it.
Based on these quotes I would say that Obamacare is in very, very deep trouble.
Justice Kennedy
"Could you help -- help me with this. Assume for the moment -- you may disagree. Assume for the moment that this is unprecedented, this is a step beyond what our cases have allowed, the affirmative duty to act to go into commerce. If that is so, do you not have a heavy burden of justification?I understand that we must presume laws are constitutional, but, even so, when you are changing the relation of the individual to the government in this, what we can stipulate is, I think, a unique way, do you not have a heavy burden of justification to show authorization under the Constitution?"
"But the reason, the reason this is concerning is because it requires the individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of torts, our tradition, our law has been that you don't have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him, absent some relation between you. And there is some severe moral criticisms of that rule, but that's generally the rule. And here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases, and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in a very fundamental way."
Justice Scalia
"Wait. That's -- it's both "Necessary and Proper." What you just said addresses what's necessary. Yes, has to be reasonably adapted. Necessary does not mean essential, just reasonably adapted. But in addition to being necessary, it has to be proper. And we've held in two cases that something that was reasonably adapted was not proper, because it violated the sovereignty of the States, which was implicit in the constitutional structure. The argument here is that this also is -- may be necessary, but it's not proper, because it violates an equally evident principle in the Constitution, which is that the Federal Government is not supposed to be a government that has all powers; that it's supposed to be a government of limited powers. And that's what all this questioning has been about. What -- what is left? If the government can do this, what -- what else can it not do?"
"JUSTICE SCALIA: You're saying that all the discussion we had earlier about how this is one big uniform scheme and the Commerce Clause, blah, blah, blah, it really doesn't matter. This is a tax and the Federal Government could simply have said, without all of the rest of this legislation, could simply have said, everybody who doesn't buy health insurance at a certain age will be taxed so much money, right?
GENERAL VERRILLI: It -- it used its powers together to solve the problem of the market not -
JUSTICE SCALIA: Yes, but you didn't need that.
GENERAL VERRILLI -- providing affordable coverage -
JUSTICE SCALIA: You didn't need that. If it's a tax, it's only -- raising money is enough.
GENERAL VERRILLI: It is justifiable under its tax power.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Okay. Extraordinary."
GENERAL VERRILLI: It -- it used its powers together to solve the problem of the market not -
JUSTICE SCALIA: Yes, but you didn't need that.
GENERAL VERRILLI -- providing affordable coverage -
JUSTICE SCALIA: You didn't need that. If it's a tax, it's only -- raising money is enough.
GENERAL VERRILLI: It is justifiable under its tax power.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Okay. Extraordinary."
"Oh, no, it's not. They all involved commerce. There was no doubt that what was being regulated was commerce. And here you're regulating somebody who isn't covered. By the way, I don't agree with you that the relevant market here is health care. You're not regulating health care. You're regulating insurance. It's the insurance market that you're addressing and you're saying that some people who are not in it must be in it, and that's -- that's different from regulating in any manner commerce that already exists out there."
Chief Justice Roberts
"The key in Lochner is that we were talking about regulation of the States, right, and the States are not limited to enumerated powers. The Federal Government is. And it seems to me it's an entirely different question when you ask yourself whether or not there are going to be limits on the Federal power, as opposed to limits on the States, which was the issue in Lochner."
"Right. Right. That's exactly right, but it doesn't seem responsive to my concern that there's no reason -- once we say this is within Congress's commerce power, there's no reason other than our own arbitrary judgment to say all they can regulate is the method of payment. They can regulate other things that affect this now-conceded interstate market in health care in which everybody participates."
"But what I'm concerned about is, once we accept the principle that everybody is in this market, I don't see why Congress's power is limited to regulating the method of payment and doesn't include as it does in any other area. What other area have we said Congress can regulate this market but only with respect to prices, but only with respect to means of travel? No. Once you're -- once you're in the interstate commerce and can regulate it, pretty much all bets are off."
"CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Is your argument limited to insurance or means of paying for health care?
GENERAL VERRILLI: Yes. It's limited to insurance.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, now, why is that? Congress could -- once you -- once you establish that you have a market for health care, I would suppose Congress's power under the Commerce Clause meant they had a broad scope in terms of how they regulate that market. And it would be -- it would be going back to Lochner if we were put in the position of saying, no, you can use your commerce power to regulate insurance, but you can't use your commerce power to regulate this market in other ways. I think that would be a very significant intrusion by the Court into Congress's power. So, I don't see how we can accept your -*it's good for you in this case to say, oh, it's just insurance. But once we say that there is a market and Congress can require people to participate in it, as some would say, or as you would say, that people are already participating in it, it seems to me that we can't say there are limitations on what Congress can do under its commerce power, just like in any other area -*given significant deference that we accord to Congress in this area, all bets are off, and you could regulate that market in any rational way.
GENERAL VERRILLI: But this is insurance as a method of payment for health care services. And that
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Exactly. You're worried -
GENERAL VERRILLI: And that's -
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: That's the area that Congress has chosen to regulate. There's this health care market. Everybody's in it. So, we can regulate it, and we're going to look at a particular serious problem, which is how people pay for it. But next year, they can decide everybody's in this market; we're going to look at a different problem now, and this is how we're going to regulate it. And we can compel people to do things -- purchase insurance, in this case; something else in the next case -- because you've -- we've accepted the argument that this is a market in which everybody participates."
GENERAL VERRILLI: Yes. It's limited to insurance.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, now, why is that? Congress could -- once you -- once you establish that you have a market for health care, I would suppose Congress's power under the Commerce Clause meant they had a broad scope in terms of how they regulate that market. And it would be -- it would be going back to Lochner if we were put in the position of saying, no, you can use your commerce power to regulate insurance, but you can't use your commerce power to regulate this market in other ways. I think that would be a very significant intrusion by the Court into Congress's power. So, I don't see how we can accept your -*it's good for you in this case to say, oh, it's just insurance. But once we say that there is a market and Congress can require people to participate in it, as some would say, or as you would say, that people are already participating in it, it seems to me that we can't say there are limitations on what Congress can do under its commerce power, just like in any other area -*given significant deference that we accord to Congress in this area, all bets are off, and you could regulate that market in any rational way.
GENERAL VERRILLI: But this is insurance as a method of payment for health care services. And that
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Exactly. You're worried -
GENERAL VERRILLI: And that's -
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: That's the area that Congress has chosen to regulate. There's this health care market. Everybody's in it. So, we can regulate it, and we're going to look at a particular serious problem, which is how people pay for it. But next year, they can decide everybody's in this market; we're going to look at a different problem now, and this is how we're going to regulate it. And we can compel people to do things -- purchase insurance, in this case; something else in the next case -- because you've -- we've accepted the argument that this is a market in which everybody participates."
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