Supreme Court. Individual mandate

[clevergirl]

So liberals now admit that president Obama passed the single largest tax hike on American citizens in US history- that he did so while claiming he was not doing so and that it does not matter that he lied- because he won?


nice~

 

[Intense]

This is a real blow to our freedom. Obama won and Americans lost. Wait till no on is working them we will have no insurance and no taxes. I had hoped that theSC would have some sense but then, they like politicians are above the law.

Universal access to comprehensive and affordable healthcare is a huge win for Americans.

You mean Illegal Immigrants, and those to follow, Someone needs to pay for their Services and Noncompliance.

 

[GHook93]

Big Brother now owns your body. I don't get celebrating that. Freedom & Liberty took another major hit today. How sad.

Now every American has access to affordable and comprehensive healthcare, under law and our Constitution. It's a great day in America.

So so so naive. Every America might have access to insurance free to pre-existing condition riders and that is a GREAT thing, but don't call it affordable. No matter the propaganda people will breach, insurance costs are going to skyrocket for everyone. Even if everyone of these so called "healthy and young" people without insurance get insurance, it won't offset the cost to insurance companies for providing insurance to previously uninsurable people. Not by a long shot.

As one of your friends who works (because I assume you don't work from you posts), ask these questions:
(1) Did your premiums go up the last few years?
(2) Did your deductible increase?
(3) Did your copay increase?
(4) Did you get fewer benefits?

The answer to all these items will be YES!!! The insurance companies have been doing this in preparation for the 2014 Obaminationcare start date! Once 2014 kicks off health insurance will not only be unaffordable to the previously uninsurable, but to the people who previously had insurance.

 

[Skull Pilot]

You would celebrate this. You don't even know what you're celebrating. Big Brother now controls even more of your life. Why are you celebrating that?

All the brainless twats who are incapable of governing themselves, and who desire a government nanny to do so for them, will be celebrating this atrocity.

Atrocities are when a government packs a particular group of people into trains and shovels them into ovens because of their religion.

But enough of that.

Are you against government?

You prefer anarchy?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi_wZMYY_PM]Irtokte Gun market in Mogadishu, Somalia - YouTube[/ame]

Guns and Freedom! Pack your bags!

Here we go the expected looney moonbat red herring.

If you don't want the government to tell you what to buy you must be an anarchist.

Grow the **** up.

 

[Intense]

So liberals now admit that president Obama passed the single largest tax hike on American citizens in US history- that he did so while claiming he was not doing so and that it does not matter that he lied- because he won?


nice~

In a Depression.

 

[Ravi]

Here's the thing..

It's not enforced.

It's almost on the honor system.



And this what was the Conservative crusade.

To undermine the Obama administration.

Well..shot down in flames.

Are you saying we don't have to purchase insurance? Then why have the mandate and why are we calling it a mandate.

The law..as it is written..assesses a tax penalty against you if you don't have insurance.

But get this..

As written..no one can force you to pay that tax. Not the police, not the IRS...nobody.

Grand..ain't it?

It would be treated as not paying any other part of your tax bill, I imagine. The penalties will just keep adding up as you'd be "overdue" and eventually they'd garnish your wages.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

so which is it? does anyone have a link yet? Half of us say the mandate was struck down and half say it was upheld.

It was struck down under the commerce clause, but upheld as a tax. (Bit of creative reading there, but you have to be able to read creatively if you are a lawyer.)

The commerce clause cannot force people to buy insurance, but Congress can tax anyone who doesn't.

So even though the SC says the mandate is unconstitutional the mandate still stands because it's now been defined as a 'tax', which is within the power of congress?

So if you don't have insurance and choose not to buy it you will now be 'taxed' instead of 'fined'?

No, what actually happens is everyone is charged a tax for being alive, Congress will subsidize anyone who buys health insurance by charging them less in taxes, and the progressives, who all hate subsidies and tax breaks, love this way of thinking.

 

[Skull Pilot]

So tell me what else should we be forced to buy whether we want it or not?

 

[Uncensored2008]

A big win for the Democrats, but a big loss for the cause of Freedom & Liberty. Big Brother will soon own your body. You will now become his slave. This really is nothing to celebrate. Those celebrating it now, will regret it later.

Those who embrace and advocate tyranny always believe that they will benefit. People like Dante and Fakey Jake truly believe that they will be granted the power to rule over their neighbors, extracting revenge on those who achieved more than they.

What Dante and Jake cannot grasp is that those at the top will not be pulling losers like them up, they will be pulling the ladder up to keep the peasants down.

Our great tumble has begun. Our lives of relative freedom and prosperity are over. This makes Jake rejoice, but as you said, he will have regret in short order, though he will blame Bush and the bourgeoisie (middle class) for his woes - he will never understand that it is the rulers he promoted, and the loss of the constitution, that led to the misery that is coming.

 

[Liability]

The more I read that convoluted opinion by the Chief Justice, the worse it gets.

Having determined that the Commerce Clause does not authorize this miasma (since it seeks to regulate commercial INactivity) AND having properly dismissed the absurd notion that it could be authorized by the "Necessary and Proper Clause," the Chief Judge and the majority then determined "the individual mandate must be construed as imposing a tax on those who do not have health insurance, if such a construction is reasonable."

The Court then turned its head (ponderously) to that "question:

(a) The Affordable Care Act describes the “hared responsibility payment” as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act. It does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s power to tax. In answering that constitutional question, this Court follows a functional approach,“[d]isregarding the designation of the exaction, and viewing its substance and application.” United States v. Constantine, 296 U. S. 287,
294. Pp. 33–35.
(b)
Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax. The payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not limited to willful violations, as penalties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation. Cf. Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U. S. 20, 36–37. None of this is to say that payment is not intended to induce the purchase of health insurance. But the mandate need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Affordable Care Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. And Congress’s choice of language—stating that individuals “shall” obtain insurance or pay a “penalty”—does not require reading §5000A as punishing unlawful conduct. It may also be read as imposing a tax on those who go without insurance. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 169–174. Pp. 35–40.
(c)
Even if the mandate may reasonably be characterized as a tax, it must still comply with the Direct Tax Clause, which provides:“No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” Art. I, §9, cl. 4. A tax on going without health insurance is not like a capitation or other direct tax under this Court’s precedents. It therefore need not be apportioned so that each State pays in proportion to its population. Pp. 40–41.

from the unofficial headnote of CJ Roberts' opinion found at: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf

A horrifyingly piss-poor unreasonable decision. Shame on the Chief Judge.

All he had to do was side with the dissent (whose views were expressed quite well by JUSTICE SCALIA, JUSTICE KENNEDY, JUSTICE THOMAS, and JUSTICE ALITO and in a very brief but to the point separate dissent by Justice THOMAS).

I think Roberts felt compelled to strain himself to TRY to save the Act out of the basic notions of Constitutional construction of Congressional acts: “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order tosave a statute from unconstitutionality,” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648. But the operative word is "reasonable." And he paid far too little attention to how UNREASONABLE it is to call the "penalty" a tax for that purpose when the ******* legislators saw fit to call it a penalty themselves. And they DID SO FOR A REASON.

The dissent was completely correct. Roberts screwed the pooch.

 

[Ravi]

the funniest thing about all this is that the individual mandate was originally a Republican concept widely embraced by Republicans.

 

[clevergirl]

So liberals now admit that president Obama passed the single largest tax hike on American citizens in US history- that he did so while claiming he was not doing so and that it does not matter that he lied- because he won?


nice~

In a Depression.

This needs to be Romney's bullhorn moment! He needs to drive home the need to repeal this "tax" that was passed by our president. A tax that was lied about.

 

[Dante]

This is a real blow to our freedom. Obama won and Americans lost. Wait till no on is working them we will have no insurance and no taxes. I had hoped that theSC would have some sense but then, they like politicians are above the law.

Universal access to comprehensive and affordable healthcare is a huge win for Americans.

You mean Illegal Immigrants, and those to follow, Someone needs to pay for their Services and Noncompliance.

really?

so far your predictions have been in the toilet. advice: invest in TP

 

[Dante]

the funniest thing about all this is that the individual mandate was originally a Republican concept widely embraced by Republicans.

Of course it was....then came the TP

The Tea Party will cost the GOP more than this. Because of the TP, the GOP has run away from a few issues that would have won them independents

 

[Intense]

The more I read that convoluted opinion by the Chief Justice, the worse it gets.

Having determined that the Commerce Clause does not authorize this miasma (since it seeks to regulate commercial INactivity) AND having properly dismissed the absurd notion that it could be authorized by the "Necessary and Proper Clause," the Chief Judge and the majority then determined "the individual mandate must be construed as imposing a tax on those who do not have health insurance, if such a construction is reasonable."

The Court then turned its head (ponderously) to that "question:

(a) The Affordable Care Act describes the “hared responsibility payment” as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act. It does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s power to tax. In answering that constitutional question, this Court follows a functional approach,“[d]isregarding the designation of the exaction, and viewing its substance and application.” United States v. Constantine, 296 U. S. 287,
294. Pp. 33–35.
(b)
Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax. The payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not limited to willful violations, as penalties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation. Cf. Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U. S. 20, 36–37. None of this is to say that payment is not intended to induce the purchase of health insurance. But the mandate need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Affordable Care Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. And Congress’s choice of language—stating that individuals “shall” obtain insurance or pay a “penalty”—does not require reading §5000A as punishing unlawful conduct. It may also be read as imposing a tax on those who go without insurance. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 169–174. Pp. 35–40.
(c)
Even if the mandate may reasonably be characterized as a tax, it must still comply with the Direct Tax Clause, which provides:“No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” Art. I, §9, cl. 4. A tax on going without health insurance is not like a capitation or other direct tax under this Court’s precedents. It therefore need not be apportioned so that each State pays in proportion to its population. Pp. 40–41.

from the unofficial headnote of CJ Roberts' opinion found at: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf

A horrifyingly piss-poor unreasonable decision. Shame on the Chief Judge.

All he had to do was side with the dissent (whose views were expressed quite well by JUSTICE SCALIA, JUSTICE KENNEDY, JUSTICE THOMAS, and JUSTICE ALITO and in a very brief but to the point separate dissent by Justice THOMAS).

I think Roberts felt compelled to strain himself to TRY to save the Act out of the basic notions of Constitutional construction of Congressional acts: “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order tosave a statute from unconstitutionality,” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648. But the operative word is "reasonable." And he paid far too little attention to how UNREASONABLE it is to call the "penalty" a tax for that purpose when the ******* legislators saw fit to call it a penalty themselves. And they DID SO FOR A REASON.

The dissent was completely correct. Roberts screwed the pooch.

Very disappointing.

 

[Liability]

The best part (in my view) of the actual dissent is found in THESE words:

II
The Taxing Power
As far as §5000A is concerned, we would stop there. Congress has attempted to regulate beyond the scope of its Commerce Clause authority,4 and §5000A is therefore invalid. The Government contends, however, as expressed in the caption to Part II of its brief, that “THE MINIMUM COVERAGE PROVISION IS INDEPENDENTLY AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS’S TAXING POWER.” Petitioners’ Minimum Coverage Brief 52. The phrase “independently authorized” suggests the existence of a creature never hitherto seen in the United States Reports: A penalty for constitutional purposes that is also a tax for constitutional purposes. In all our cases the two are mutually exclusive. The provision challenged under the Constitution is either a penalty or else a tax. Of course in many cases what was a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty could have been imposed as a tax upon permissible action; or what was im- posed as a tax upon permissible action could have been a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty. But we know of no case, and the Government cites none, in which the imposition was, for constitutional purposes, both.5 The two are mutually exclusive. Thus, what the Government’s caption should have read was “ALTERNATIVELY, THE MINIMUM COVERAGE PROVISION IS NOT A MANDATE-WITH-PENALTY BUT A TAX.” It is important to bear this in mind in evaluating the tax argument of the Government and of those who support it: The issue is not whether Congress had the power to frame the minimum-coverage provision as a tax, but whether it did so.
In answering that question we must, if “fairly possible,” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932), construe the provision to be a tax rather than a mandate-with-penalty, since that would render it constitutional rather than un- constitutional (ut res magis valeat quam pereat). But we cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not. “‘“[A]l- though this Court will often strain to construe legis- lation so as to save it against constitutional attack, it must not and will not carry this to the point of perverting the purpose of a statute . . .” or judicially rewriting it.’” Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833, 841 (1986) (quoting Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 515 (1964), in turn quoting Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203, 211 (1961)). In this case, there is simply no way, “without doing violence to the fair meaning of the words used,” Grenada County Supervisors v. Brogden, 112 U. S. 261, 269 (1884), to escape what Congress enacted: a mandate that individuals maintain minimum essential coverage, enforced by a penalty.

Exactly right. Roberts' called the penalty a "tax" DESPITE what Congress itself called that penalty.

And accordingly, it was not a valid exercise of Congressional TAXING power for two reasons. It wasn't a tax at all and it certainly was NEVER properly apportioned.

 

[Dante]

So liberals now admit that president Obama passed the single largest tax hike on American citizens in US history- that he did so while claiming he was not doing so and that it does not matter that he lied- because he won?


nice~

In a Depression.

This needs to be Romney's bullhorn moment! He needs to drive home the need to repeal this "tax" that was passed by our president. A tax that was lied about.

except ROmney passed the same tax on Massachusetts residents. ANd there is copy/tape of him taking credit for it

 

[Uncensored2008]

No massive disobedience. The minority in the GOP will be pissed, but that is all.

Expect the real Tea Parties to resume. I don't know if Dear Leader is emboldened enough by this to send in the tanks, but that is a possibility.

 

[Dante]

The best part (in my view) of the actual dissent is found in THESE words:

II
The Taxing Power
As far as §5000A is concerned, we would stop there. Congress has attempted to regulate beyond the scope of its Commerce Clause authority,4 and §5000A is therefore invalid. The Government contends, however, as expressed in the caption to Part II of its brief, that “THE MINIMUM COVERAGE PROVISION IS INDEPENDENTLY AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS’S TAXING POWER.” Petitioners’ Minimum Coverage Brief 52. The phrase “independently authorized” suggests the existence of a creature never hitherto seen in the United States Reports: A penalty for constitutional purposes that is also a tax for constitutional purposes. In all our cases the two are mutually exclusive. The provision challenged under the Constitution is either a penalty or else a tax. Of course in many cases what was a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty could have been imposed as a tax upon permissible action; or what was im- posed as a tax upon permissible action could have been a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty. But we know of no case, and the Government cites none, in which the imposition was, for constitutional purposes, both.5 The two are mutually exclusive. Thus, what the Government’s caption should have read was “ALTERNATIVELY, THE MINIMUM COVERAGE PROVISION IS NOT A MANDATE-WITH-PENALTY BUT A TAX.” It is important to bear this in mind in evaluating the tax argument of the Government and of those who support it: The issue is not whether Congress had the power to frame the minimum-coverage provision as a tax, but whether it did so.
In answering that question we must, if “fairly possible,” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932), construe the provision to be a tax rather than a mandate-with-penalty, since that would render it constitutional rather than un- constitutional (ut res magis valeat quam pereat). But we cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not. “‘“[A]l- though this Court will often strain to construe legis- lation so as to save it against constitutional attack, it must not and will not carry this to the point of perverting the purpose of a statute . . .” or judicially rewriting it.’” Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833, 841 (1986) (quoting Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 515 (1964), in turn quoting Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203, 211 (1961)). In this case, there is simply no way, “without doing violence to the fair meaning of the words used,” Grenada County Supervisors v. Brogden, 112 U. S. 261, 269 (1884), to escape what Congress enacted: a mandate that individuals maintain minimum essential coverage, enforced by a penalty.

Exactly right. Roberts' called the penalty a "tax" DESPITE what Congress itself called that penalty.

And accordingly, it was not a valid exercise of Congressional TAXING power for two reasons. It wasn't a tax at all and it certainly was NEVER properly apportioned.

maybe you should just march down to Washington and straighten all the Justices out with your brilliant analysis?

 

[American Horse]

FNC - the whole ACA has been upheld as constitutional. It is not a mandate and in that capacity it falls under the commerce clause but it is upheld as a tax or by "congress's power to tax"

There is where the debate will center, leading up to the election.

yeah right.

Obamacare vs Romneycare: no difference.

I understand; you don't recognize the difference between state action (which can be changed) and federal dominance (which cannot).