What SCOTUS and the GOP are really out to destroy with ACA: Dismantle Medicaid, all Social Programs

[Katashi_itto]

Beginning Monday of last week, the US Supreme Court held three consecutive days of oral arguments on a number of issues related to the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s 2010 health care legislation (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), including the “individual mandate” provision requiring citizens to purchase heath insurance from private corporations.

To the apparent surprise of many legal commentators and the nominally liberal justices on the court, the right-wing faction used the opportunity to launch a political offensive not just against the Obama health care legislation, but also against federal social programs in general.

The four-justice right-wing bloc on the Supreme Court, consisting of Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, represents the most reactionary sections of the ruling elite. Wednesday’s arguments, in particular, revealed that this bloc is seeking to exploit the regressive and unpopular Obama health care “reform” to lay a pseudo-legal basis for far-reaching attacks on all federal entitlement programs, beginning with Medicaid.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been the subject of intense litigation involving more than two dozen federal lawsuits since it was passed in March 2010. The principal challengers have been 26 of 50 state governments and the National Federation of Independent Business, as well as numerous private individuals. Over the past two years, judges in the lower federal courts around the country have issued conflicting and contradictory decisions, which the Supreme Court is tasked with resolving in the present case, Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services.

It now seems clear that Chief Justice John Roberts made the decision to schedule three days of arguments, an extraordinary step, precisely to create an opportunity to lay out the case for going back to the days before the Great Depression and Roosevelt’s New Deal when the Court routinely blocked social legislation. In this case as in all others, the right-wing bloc on the court proceeds from a political goal, not legal precedent or principle, and improvises its legalistic arguments to achieve that goal. In the three days of arguments last week, the justices, particularly Scalia, barely sought to conceal their political motives.

More: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/cour-a02.shtml

[mmonk]

1. Yes, many want to legislate from the bench.

The reason they put ideologues on the court is so they can still have some control when they are not in control of other branches. The gang of 14 gave this abomination to America.

[HockeyMom]

2. Don't trust Opus Dei

If you understand what I mean.

[Katashi_itto]

4. Heres a link to a host of articles about Opus Dei

http://parasearcher.blogspot.com/search/label/Opus%20Dei

[bigtree]

3. I like this article

thanks for posting, Katashi_itto.

[freshwest]

5. They've tried to destroy each of those programs from the start. Poverty is good for biz.

As Biden said, it's good they aren't hiding it anymore. Now the American people can decide if they want to live in a mixed economic model or a fascist theocracy.

[Lionessa]

6. It depends on how they dismantle it. If only the

mandate is dismantled from it, we will survive perhaps better by being forced to fund it differently.

Even if it is decided to be entirely out, it doesn't effect the idea of taxes vs forced insurance. Taxes have been upheld for quite a long time to think that tax-funded programs would somehow become unconstitutional.

[Katashi_itto]

8. from the article

In a subsequent article on Thursday, Bravin elaborated on this point, writing: “In the run-up to the court argument, the Medicaid expansion received less attention. But the issue emerged as perhaps the most revelatory of the Roberts court’s view of American federalism, with conservative justices suggesting a deep unease over the dominant role in domestic policy Washington has played since the New Deal.”

The powers of the federal government to enact and maintain social programs such as Medicaid, long thought to be a settled constitutional issue, are now subject to challenge along the lines of legal doctrines that were rejected in the 1930s.

The court’s decision on the health care law, due in June, is not a foregone conclusion. During the arguments, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito expressed concern that striking down the individual mandate could be “unfair” to insurance companies. None of the other justices pointed out that whether or not the insurance companies would be able to continue raking in massive profits had nothing to do with the constitutionality of the law.

[Lionessa]

10. I think we are agreeing.

Essentially it depends on how they rule and deep they cut and how it's all worded.

I think it's a pretty big stretch to think that this one alone will lead to the dismantling of social programs paid for through taxes. If you want to panic, go ahead. You may turn out to be correct; I don't think so, I think this is all hysteria.

I am actually hoping for the mandate to be struck and the rest to remain, then it becomes a requirement for other funding to occur, and it gives Dems something really strong to run on, . . . remember almost 70% of citizens wanted the public option, they can run on that as the solution to the courts' decision. . . . just my thoughts.

[Katashi_itto]

12. I worry about if ACA goes down we will see nothing in our lifetimes for ant healthcare...

[socialindependocrat]

7. The SCOTUS was formed as a branch of governmental power...

now that we are seeing that the SCOTUS has basically been absorbed into the congress
we now esentially have two branches of government. Isn't there something in the constitution
that tells us what to do when this happens or is this something the founding fathers
forgot to put in there?

We have one branch that has been bought out by big business and the wealthy and
a little tiny bud we call the president. I'm so happy we are such a shining example for
the rest of the world!

[doc03]

9. I think if they strike down Obamacare soon after someone

will bring up a simalar case on SS, Medicare or Medicade. If the case makes it to the SCOTUS they will rule them
unconstitutional too.

[Prophet 451]

11. Of course

The GOP is now a completely owned subsidiary of the corporate class. The SCOTUS is now an entirely politicised body that judges issues on the politics without giving a fuck about the law (Scalia barely even pretends anymore). The dream of the corporate class has always been to have a large body of labour so desperate that they will work for pennies and be hired and fired at will. They don't want slavery only because then they'd have to feed the slaves, so they go for wage-slavery instead and the more desperate you can be made to be, the cheaper those wages become. As far as the corporate class is concerned, imposing a societal duty of care like Medicaid is a disruption in the proper ordering of the universe, a disturbance in the way things are meant to be.

[undergroundpanther]

13. If they destroy

My means of survival,my pain issues,my therapy,my ability to get food,shelter etc.
I will have nothing to lose. And with the loss of ability to live one finds a peculiar kind of "freedom".A freedom not acted on,but remains in my anger fantasies.

If the GOP wants me to suffer and die....