DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Universal Healthcare Ruling at 10am Today

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He said Vote Republican. To me that's saying, they know the right thing to do.

And that's never 100% accurate..

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If getting rid of this legislation is your objective, then that is the only way to do it. Does it mean they won't screw up something else? Probably not.

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He said Vote Republican. To me that's saying, they know the right thing to do.

And that's never 100% accurate..

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If getting rid of this legislation is your objective, then that is the only way to do it. Does it mean they won't screw up something else? Probably not.

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Damn, I wish I didn't agree with that, but knowing our politicians as I do, it's bound to happen that way

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So, Lawrence Tribe was on tv yesterday, and he said he thought Roberts' decision was a solidly conservative one. He said forcing others to pay for your health care (by not having insurance when you need it) is not a conservative position--individualism and personal responsibility being the key elements of such a position. I had not heard that before, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The tax, or the lack thereof, can be viewed as an incentive to get people to be personally responsible for their own health care. What do you guys think of that?

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My hope was they'd find a way to get the costs down,, but I don't think they are going to succeed at that given the direction they took.

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Because government intervention and regulation has such a long and successful history of keeping prices down and service high.

About the only way government intervention EVER keeps prices down is if they just subsidize things and shift the burden from the purchaser to the tax base at large... which really isn't keeping the price down, unless you are the purchaser.

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I can't speak for another sole,, but I do feel responsible for covering my own healthcare. If I didn't have it through an employer (we do, my wifes) I'd buy it on the open market..

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This was my problem with the system as it was. My hope was they'd find a way to get the costs down,, but I don't think they are going to succeed at that given the direction they took.

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What do they do with people that can't afford health insurance?

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I can't speak for another sole,, but I do feel responsible for covering my own healthcare. If I didn't have it through an employer (we do, my wifes) I'd buy it on the open market..

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It's "soul", not sole. (sorry - not being a jerk there)

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Maybe he's speaking on behalf of all of the loafers out there who want government health insurance....

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I can't speak for another sole,, but I do feel responsible for covering my own healthcare. If I didn't have it through an employer (we do, my wifes) I'd buy it on the open market..


It's "soul", not sole. (sorry - not being a jerk there)

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I'm the son of a shoemaker,, so sue me

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I know they have tax credits and what not to help people buy insurance

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I see this as a brilliant maneuver by Roberts. I like the guy.

This was allowed as a tax, no question Congress has the right to tax and repeal taxes. It really couldn't be ruled any other way.

I love the language in his statement. He talked about it isn't the judiciaries role to rule on how wise this is, it is simply application of the law.

Congress can do what it wants on taxes....here today, gone tomorrow if it so chooses. It doesn't touch the Commerce Clause and even said it has nothing to do with the Commerce Clause.


Roberts just took control of that court. He just allowed a shallow win for the politicos on one side, even though they know with him writing the opinion it won't be a wide open win and will keep it very limited, and he will be able to appease the other side of the court.

To steal a ad line....Brilliant! Folks, we have a very able Chief Justice. I think he is going to be able to bring a lot of consensus over the years he sits as Chief. Now, when a new Prez sits and gets the tax repealed, Roberts can use his clout to not grant cert if it goes that far. Lower courts will really have no authority to call it anything but a tax....and as this gets screwed up, it will be repealed.

If I was the Republicans, I would hammer the fact the Prez just raised taxes on everybody.

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Help me to understand this line of thinking as I've heard quite a bit of it the past 24 hours or so.

Roberts sides with the liberal justices to uphold Obamacare so that he is the one who can write the opinion. He does this in order to reign in the Commerce Clause and ultimately have this decision used as precident for future Commerce Clause cases. It's a long war battle decision...blah blah blah.

What I don't understand is that it seems to me he's broadening the scope of Congress's ability to levy taxes. A citizen who is not engaged in commerce can be taxed because of his inaction? Wouldn't this be not a tax but a fine? And for inaction?

I need help here.

Could Congress tax me because I don't have a gym membership? Just an example of an issue to raise.

Explain further why this is such a brilliant maneuver.

I mean he could have written the majority opinion all the while striking down the law as an illegitimate use of the Commerce Clause.

Additionally how is this tax going to be repealed if we don't have control of both houses and the presidency?

We're stuck with this legislation and it's not going anywhere for at least a few more years.

Thanks Johnny!

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He said Vote Republican. To me that's saying, they know the right thing to do.

And that's never 100% accurate..

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He said Vote Republican. To me that's saying, they know the right thing to do.

And that's never 100% accurate..

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I did. Again, the topic was the health reform bill.

I know that no one party has all the answers. You aren't expecting that are you??? You have to take the good with the bad, then decide which one or which person is overall going to do the best job.

I have voted for many democrats before, though none on the national level. The further away from local politics it goes, the Right is more along the lines I think. That doesn't mean I agree with everything put on the platform.

Locally, I have voted for Dem. mayors.....local elections are non partisan here, but everybody knows who is the Dem and who is the Rep.. We had a congresswoman who I voted for maybe 4 times. She lives about 10 homes away, I know her and she did a good job for the district. I also voted for Dem Phil Bredeson his second run at the Governors Mansion. He had done a good job and earned my vote for the second term.

The problem we have in politics is moderates don't get much support. You have the hard line factions of each party that won't support them, so they are viewed as weak candidates.

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The topic is health care and its no secret democrats for the most part stand behind their socialist leader and republicans for the most part are against the health care bill, thus, if you don't like the new tax, vote against the party who put it in place.

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You're a really bright guy ... it baffles me that you buy the 'socialist' angle.

The health care bill isn't even remotely socialist. It's almost the textbook definition of fascism.

And Obama doesn't even remotely approach anything resembling 'socialist'. He's a blatant fascist and corporatist.

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(CBS News) Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

"He was relentless," one source said of Kennedy's efforts. "He was very engaged in this."

But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, "You're on your own."

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts' decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.

The inner-workings of the Supreme Court are almost impossible to penetrate. The court's private conferences, when the justices discuss cases and cast their initial votes, include only the nine members - no law clerks or secretaries are permitted. The justices are notoriously close-lipped, and their law clerks must agree to keep matters completely confidential.

But in this closely-watched case, word of Roberts' unusual shift has spread widely within the court, and is known among law clerks, chambers' aides and secretaries. It also has stirred the ire of the conservative justices, who believed Roberts was standing with them.

After the historic oral arguments in March, the two knowledgeable sources said, Roberts and the four conservatives were poised to strike down at least the individual mandate. There were other issues being argued - severability and the Medicaid extension - but the mandate was the ballgame.

It required individuals to buy insurance or pay a penalty. Congress had never before in the history of the nation ordered Americans to buy a product from a private company as part of its broad powers to regulate commerce. Opponents argued that the law exceeded Congress' power under the Constitution, and an Atlanta-based federal appeals court agreed.

The Atlanta-based federal appeals court said Congress didn't have that kind of expansive power, and it struck down the mandate as unconstitutional.

On this point - Congress' commerce power - Roberts agreed. In the court's private conference immediately after the arguments, he was aligned with the four conservatives to strike down the mandate.

Roberts was less clear on whether that also meant the rest of the law must fall, the source said. The other four conservatives believed that the mandate could not be lopped off from the rest of the law and that, since one key part was unconstitutional, the entire law must be struck down.

Because Roberts was the most senior justice in the majority to strike down the mandate, he got to choose which justice would write the court's historic decision. He kept it for himself.

Over the next six weeks, as Roberts began to craft the decision striking down the mandate, the external pressure began to grow. Roberts almost certainly was aware of it.

Some of the conservatives, such as Justice Clarence Thomas, deliberately avoid news articles on the court when issues are pending (and avoid some publications altogether, such as The New York Times). They've explained that they don't want to be influenced by outside opinion or feel pressure from outlets that are perceived as liberal.

But Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As chief justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the court, and he also is sensitive to how the court is perceived by the public.

There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the court - and to Roberts' reputation - if the court were to strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the president himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be upheld.

Some even suggested that if Roberts struck down the mandate, it would prove he had been deceitful during his confirmation hearings, when he explained a philosophy of judicial restraint.

It was around this time that it also became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, "wobbly," the sources said.

It is not known why Roberts changed his view on the mandate and decided to uphold the law. At least one conservative justice tried to get him to explain it, but was unsatisfied with the response, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation.

Some informed observers outside the court flatly reject the idea that Roberts buckled to liberal pressure, or was stared down by the president. They instead believe that Roberts realized the historical consequences of a ruling striking down the landmark health care law. There was no doctrinal background for the Court to fall back on - nothing in prior Supreme Court cases - to say the individual mandate crossed a constitutional line.

The case raised entirely new issues of power. Never before had Congress tried to force Americans to buy a private product; as a result, never before had the court ruled Congress lacked that power. It was completely uncharted waters.

To strike down the mandate as exceeding the Commerce Clause, the court would have to craft a new theory, which could have opened it up to criticism that it reached out to declare the president' health care law unconstitutional.

Roberts was willing to draw that line, but in a way that decided future cases, and not the massive health care case.

Moreover, there are passages in Roberts' opinion that are consistent with his views that unelected judges have assumed too much power over American life, and that courts generally should take a back seat to elected officials, who are closer to the people and can be voted out of office if the people don't like what they're doing.

As Roberts explained in his opinion:

"The framers created a federal government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today. But the Court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people."

Regardless of his thinking, it was clear to the conservatives that Roberts wanted the court out of the red-hot dispute.

Roberts had begun to focus on a different argument to uphold the law and the mandate's penalty by defining it as a tax. That strained argument had received almost no attention in the lower courts, which had uniformly rejected it. It was seen as a long-shot by the law's supporters.

It would have been far easier, legally, for Roberts to have followed the rationale of two conservatives who voted to uphold the law in the lower courts: Appeals Court Judges Laurence Silberman and Jeffrey Sutton.

In separate opinions for the D.C.- and Cincinnati-based federal courts, Silberman and Sutton wrote that the mandate had not exceeded Congress' commerce power.

Roberts surely could have gotten the liberals to join a decision that the mandate was similar to a 1942 Commerce Clause case involving a farmer who was producing wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it. In that seminal case, the Court ruled the farmer's wheat production nonetheless affected Commerce, and Congress therefore could regulate it.

In the health care case, since no one was urging the court to overturn that precedent (Wickard v Filburn), the court could have issued a narrow opinion. It could have ruled that since it wasn't being asked to depart from settled law, the health care act would stand, based on prior precedents.

Instead, Roberts focused the majority opinion on a much more difficult legal proposition: The tax power.

But Roberts also would limit Congress' authority in future cases under the commerce power.

Roberts then engaged in his own lobbying effort - trying to persuade at least Justice Kennedy to join his decision so the Court would appear more united in the case. There was a fair amount of give-and-take with Kennedy and other justices, the sources said. One justice, a source said, described it as "arm-twisting."

Even in Roberts' opinion, which was circulated among the justices in early June, there are phrases that appear tailored to get Kennedy's vote. Roberts even used some of the same language that Kennedy used during oral arguments.

During the arguments in March, Kennedy told Solicitor General Donald Verrilli:

"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."
Roberts wrote in the section of his opinion analyzing the Commerce Clause:

"Accepting the government's theory would give Congress the same license to regulate what we do not do, fundamentally changing the relation between the citizen and the federal government."
On the surface, Kennedy would appear to have been Roberts' best shot to persuade. The other three justices - Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito - are seen as more solidly conservative and much less susceptible to pressure.

After all, it was Kennedy who "betrayed" conservatives in 1992, when he flipped his vote in a key abortion case that could have overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that guaranteed a woman's right to abortion.

In the 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Kennedy initially was with conservatives, but then forged a last-minute alliance with Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter to put Roe v. Wade on more solid ground than even the original decision itself.

Kennedy has long frustrated conservatives, because he occasionally joins with liberals to provide the key swing vote in cases involving social issues. They openly mock his writing style as grandiose and his jurisprudence as squishy - in other words, changeable and too moderate.

That's not entirely fair to Kennedy. In fact, there are underlying and consistent themes in his jurisprudence, much more so than in the jurisprudence of O'Connor. Kennedy has a libertarian streak, and he is skeptical of expansive government power over individuals. In fact, if there's an issue of an individual versus invasive government, Kennedy sides with the individual.

As a result, Kennedy supports the right to possess a firearm for self-defense AND a woman's right in the context of abortion. He opposes certain laws that discriminate against homosexuals or restrict a person's freedom of speech.

Kennedy also is strong on issues of federalism - and is remarkably consistent. His opinion in a 1999 case, Alden v. Maine, is considered one of the Court's finest in that area. Ruling that states were immune from private lawsuits in state courts, Kennedy wrote: "Sovereign immunity derives not from the Eleventh Amendment but from the federal structure of the original Constitution itself."

And in a 1995 term limits case, when the Court rejected state efforts to impose term limits on Members of Congress, Kennedy wrote a separate, concurring opinion to make a point about federalism:

"Federalism was our nation's own discovery. The framers split the atom of sovereignty . . . It was the genius of their idea that our citizens would have two political capacities, one state and one federal, each protected from incursion by the other."
Those structural boundaries, Kennedy believes, help protect the individual from runaway government power, and are key components to protecting liberty.

All of that dovetails with Kennedy's position on the individual mandate in the health care law. Close associates of Kennedy never thought he would waver in the case once he recognized the federal mandate as an encroachment on individual liberty (points Kennedy later would make in his sections of the joint dissent).

In fact, Kennedy was the most forceful and engaged of all the conservatives in trying to persuade Roberts to stand firm to strike down the mandate. Two sources confirm that he didn't give up until the very end.

But Roberts didn't focus entirely on Kennedy, the sources said. He tried to persuade the conservatives to join at least the parts of his opinion with which they agreed, such as his Commerce Clause analysis.

"People, for good reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society. Those failures - joined with the similar failures of others - can readily have a substantial effect on interstate commerce," Roberts wrote in his opinion. "Under the government's logic, that authorizes Congress to use its commerce power to compel citizens to act as the government would have them act.

"That is not the country the framers of our Constitution envision," Roberts wrote.

But despite Roberts' strong language on the Commerce Clause, the conservatives would have none of it, the two sources said, even though there was no significant difference in their reasoning on that issue.

Indeed, since the four conservatives agreed the mandate went beyond the commerce power, the Court now has five Justices who would constrain what Congress can do going forward - imposing significant limits on federal power.

The majority decisions were due on June 1, and the dissenters set about writing a response, due on June 15. The sources say they divided up parts of the opinion, with Kennedy and Scalia doing the bulk of the writing.

The two sources say suggestions that parts of the dissent were originally Roberts' actual majority decision for the court are inaccurate, and that the dissent was a true joint effort.

The fact that the joint dissent doesn't mention Roberts' majority was not a sign of sloppiness, the sources said, but instead was a signal the conservatives no longer wished to engage in debate with him.

The language in the dissent was sweeping, arguing the court was overreaching in the name of restraint and ignoring key structural protections in the Constitution. There are clear elements of Scalia - and then, there is Justice Kennedy.

"The fragmentation of power produced by the structure of our government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty in peril," the dissent said. "Today's decision should have vindicated, should have taught, this truth; instead our judgment today has disregarded it."

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This is just the beginning...wait until the details of "enforcement" come out. Not only is Obamacare a bad law...it is bad policy.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/0...wallet-in-2013/

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Obamacare still seems more conservative than Romneycare was?

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Obamacare still seems more conservative than Romneycare was?

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Is there a candidate in this election who promises to implement Romneycare throught the entire country?

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While the individual mandate tax gets most of the attention, the ObamaCare law actually contains 20 new or higher taxes on the American people. These taxes are gradually phased in over the years 2010 (with its 10 percent “tanning tax”) to 2018 (when the tax on comprehensive health insurance plans kicks in.)
Six months from now, in January 2013, five major ObamaCare taxes will come into force:
1. The ObamaCare Medical Device Manufacturing Tax
This 2.3 percent tax on medical device makers will raise the price of (for example) every pacemaker, prosthetic limb, stent, and operating table. Can you remind us, Mr. President, how taxing medical devices will reduce the cost of health care? The tax is particularly destructive because it is levied on gross sales and even targets companies who haven’t turned a profit yet.
These are often small, scrappy companies with less than 20 employees who pioneer the next generation of life-prolonging devices. Zero percent of a companies receipts are considered for this tax unless their receipts total above $5 million. 50% of receipts from $5 million to $25 million are considered for tax. 100% of receipts above $25 million are considered for this tax. http://www.healthcare.gov/law/resources/authorities/title/ix-revenue-provisions.pdf
In addition to raising the cost of health care, this $20 billion tax over the next ten years will not help the country’s jobs outlook, as the industry employs nearly 400,000 Americans. Several companies have already responded to the looming tax by cutting research and development budgets and laying off workers. Examples would have been helpful here.
2. The ObamaCare High Medical Bills Tax
This onerous tax provision will hit Americans facing the highest out-of-pocket medical bills. Currently, Americans are allowed to deduct medical expenses on their 1040 form to the extent the costs exceed 7.5 percent of one’s adjusted gross income.
The new ObamaCare provision will raise that threshold to 10 percent, subjecting patients to a higher tax bill. This tax will hit pre-retirement seniors the hardest. Over the next ten years, affected Americans will pony up a minimum total of $15 billion in taxes thanks to this provision.
3. The ObamaCare Flexible Spending Account Cap
The 24 million Americans who have Flexible Spending Accounts will face a new federally imposed $2,500 annual cap. These pre-tax accounts, which currently have no federal limit, are used to purchase everything from contact lenses to children’s braces. With the cost of braces being as high as $7,200, this tax provision will play an unwelcome role in everyday kitchen-table health care decisions.
The cap will also affect families with special-needs children, whose tuition can be covered using FSA funds. Special-needs tuition can cost up to $14,000 per child per year. This cruel tax provision will limit the options available to such families, all so that the federal government can squeeze an additional $13 billion out of taxpayer pockets over the next ten years.
The targeting of FSAs by President Obama and congressional Democrats is no accident. The progressive left has never been fond of the consumer-driven accounts, which serve as a small roadblock in their long-term drive for a one-size-fits-all government health care bureaucracy.
For further proof, note the ObamaCare “medicine cabinet tax” which since 2011 has barred the 13.5 million Americans with Health Savings Accounts from purchasing over-the-counter medicines with pre-tax funds.
4. The ObamaCare Surtax on Investment Income
Under current law, the capital gains tax rate for all Americans rises from 15 to 20 percent in 2013, while the top dividend rate rises from 15 to 39.6 percent. Capital gains (read: unearned income) tax going from 15% to 20%. Dividends becoming ordinary income. Not related to AHCA. The new ObamaCare surtax takes the top capital gains rate to 23.8 percent and top dividend rate to 43.4 percent. The tax will take a minimum of $123 billion out of taxpayer pockets over the next ten years. I can't find where the 3.8% comes from. It would have been nice had the author explicitly said under what scenario this "top" tax rate comes into play.
And, last but not least...
5. The ObamaCare Medicare Payroll Tax increase
This tax soaks employers to the tune of $86 billion over the next ten years.
As you can understand, there is a reason why the authors of ObamaCare wrote the law in such a way that the most brutal tax increases take effect conveniently after the 2012 election. It’s the same reason President Obama, congressional Democrats, and the mainstream media conveniently neglect to mention these taxes and prefer that you simply “move on” after the Supreme Court ruling.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/05/five-major-obamacare-taxes-that-will-hit-your-wallet-in-2013/#ixzz1zrwIN65f />

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