The debate over health care remains far from over, with Republicans vowing to carry on their fight against the law, which they see as an unaffordable infringement on the rights of individuals. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, has promised to undo it if elected.
But the court ruling is a crucial victory for the law that will allow its introduction to continue in the coming years. Passed in 2010, the law is intended to end the United States’ status as the only rich country with large numbers of uninsured people, by expanding both the private market and Medicaid. ...NYT
However, the Court ducked a clear response to the question of mandate.
It remained unclear whether the court officially upheld the mandate or chose a more technical path that effectively allowed it to stand. ...NYT
All along the challenge to the mandate has been acknowledged by a large part of the legal profession as spurious. Groundless. The Court has yet to redeem itself. My reading of the Court's decision to sneak around the mandate issue is that it still has a long way to go before getting its reputation back in any kind of useful condition.
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Jack Balkin had fun with the pre-decision jitterings. Here's what he posted yesterday:
Associated Press, Wednesday, Jun 27th
WASHINGTON (AP)-- In a suprising announcement, the United States Supreme Court assembled one day earlier than expected and announced their decision in the highly contested health care litigation.
In a 5-4 decision, the Justices struck down not only the entire Affordable Care Act, but all legislation signed by Barack Obama since he became president.
Having held that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, we next consider whether the mandate is severable or is inextricably related to the rest of the Affordable Care Act. Upon further reflection, it appears to us that all of President Obama's efforts since his election have been part of an elaborate scheme to foist European-style socialism on an unsuspecting public. See generally, Fox and Friends (collecting examples of Obama's socialist agenda); The Rush Limbaugh Show (same). Like the ACA itself, none of these acts contains an explicit severability clause stating that if one law is held unconstitutional the others should remain standing. We therefore conclude that all laws signed by President Obama during his term in office are void.
Departing from Supreme Court tradition, Justice Antonin Scalia published his concurring opinion on his new blog, It's Nino's Law: Get Used to It. In his opening post, Justice Scalia explained:
Since my recent opinion in Arizona v. United States I've finally realized that what I've really always wanted to be is a conservative pundit. Therefore from now on all my opinions will appear as blog posts. Oh, and by the way, why does Barack Obama hate America?
Not to be outdone, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg published her dissenting opinion on Twitter:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg @ruthiebg
OMG! WTF!
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The decision is major, analysts say, not just because it's so politically volatile, but because it gives us our best insight into the philosophy of a Court that's likely to stick around for a long time. "Chief Justice Roberts is just 57, and he will probably lead the Supreme Court for an additional two decades or more," wrote The New York Times's Adam Liptak in March. "But clashes like the one over the health care law come around only a few times in a century, and he may well complete his service without encountering another case posing such fundamental questions about the structure of American government."
This one, in other words, is the big daddy -- important not just for its impact on health policy, but for providing us our chance to understand how the Court will act on issues ranging from the role of a chief justice to the ability of Congress to intervene in national affairs. ...The Atlantic
