Biden says Supreme Court will uphold health-care law

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

Days after the Supreme Court wrapped up oral arguments on the constitutionality of the national health-care overhaul, Vice President Biden predicted Sunday that the high court will not throw out the Obama administration’s signature agenda item.

“I’m not going to speculate about something I don’t believe will happen,” Biden said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” when asked by host Bob Schieffer about the possibility that the court will throw out the entire health-care law. “I don’t believe it will happen. And so I think we should focus on what is the law doing for people now, and what would happen if, in fact, the Republicans were able to repeal it?”

The interview, which came as “Face the Nation” kicks off its new, hour-long format, marked Biden’s third appearance on the show as vice president and the 55th of his career, according to Schieffer. Biden weighed in on a wide range of topics.

On the hot-microphone incident — during which President Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more “flexibility” in dealing with missile defense after the November election – Biden said that the president was “stating the obvious. That it’s going to be difficult. . . . We’re not going to have the flexibility to sit down and talk with people in this Congress that are going to be able to listen and be able to work with us, probably between now and Election Day.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-says-supreme-court-will-uphold-health-care-law/2012/04/01/gIQATSbepS_story.html

[BigDemVoter]

1. I certainly hope Biden is right.

I generally believe what he says and respect him.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

4. In one way, I hope he is wrong. It's 7 full months before the election. Don't give

up thinking big and trying to move the agenda forward.

[Alcibiades]

2. He's repeating the party line

The administration keeps saying that the SCOTUS will uphold the PPACA, but surely they must know. The republicans on the SCOTUS are just as bad as the ones in Congress, who have reneged and jerked away the football more times than Lucy van Pelt.

[al bupp]

3. Doing so might open the floodgates to other challenges to the Commerce Clause justifications

This may, in fact, be the conservative wet-dream or judicial activism undermining the endangered species acts and all manner of "Big Government" mandates and control. It could get interesting if the basis for Federal controlled substances laws were also called into question.

[Alcibiades]

5. It's the logical extension of Lopez and Morrison

The groundwork has already been laid for this. It would be another case in the line of cases that began with Lopez, but it would go further to limit the power of the federal government to regulate commerce within states. They would love, love, love to do this. They would get to win a political victory and score yet another restriction on theauthority of Congress.

I've been reading stuff such as "An expected June ruling in an election year will put the court front and center for voters come November. The justices by nature are loathe to get involved in such highly partisan disputes."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/25/politics/scotus-health-care-blockbusters/index.html

This, and the idea that the court defers to the political branches, that it is an impartisan constitutional umpire calling balls and strikes, these ideas are just garbage, sheer and utter garbage unsupported by any empirical evidence whatsoever. There are still three Bush v. Gore majority justices sitting, and they will certainly vote in ideological lockstep.

I know why Biden and others in the administration are saying what they are saying: they are constrained. I just cannot figure out why anyone believes them.

[magical thyme]

6. Probably

and then the next neoliberal or neoconservative prez will use private health insurance mandate as a justification to force all americans to buy into 401Ks to privatize social security. Because putting profits first is just the most efficient, effective and pragmatic way of keeping the 1% the 1%.

[LynneSin]

7. Personally I just think the mandate part will get shot down.

I am starting to think that Obama put the mandate in his healthcare plan because he knew ultimately healthcare reform would end up in front of SCOTUS and he wanted something that could be sacrificed. Obama is such a chess player when it comes to politics that he knew he might have to sacrifice a few pawns in order to win the game.