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Individual Mandate Survives a 5-4 Vote with Roberts Writing Majority Opinion
The result upended speculation after hostile-seeming oral arguments in March that the justices would overturn the law.
And at least 26 million citizens are still uninsured.
And I'm one of them.
If you are not covered by an employer (past or present) or independently wealthy, you are out of luck if you need any type of health insurance, including dental and vision coverage, in the grand ole USofA.
And the United States of America is the only developed country (fairly well developed until recently) without the promise of health care for all its citizens through a nationally funded insurance system, although in its place, the US does guarantee unwarranted riches to a BIG PHARMA superstructure in the name of a fictional "free" market. And now it looks like people with tiny incomes (and those living on charity) will be compelled to buy insurance from BIG PHARMA that will never meet their needs in order to make sure that people with money to burn who aren't covered won't expect a handout (and that the billionaires feeding at the public BIG PHARMA trough don't starve).
Welcome to the new order USA.
Has Scalia's cover finally been blown?
Justice Scalia Must Resign
E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post
"So often, Scalia has chosen to ignore the obligation of a Supreme Court justice to be, and appear to be, impartial. He's turned 'judicial restraint' into an oxymoronic phrase. But what he did this week, when the court announced its decision on the Arizona immigration law, should be the end of the line."
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Was Scalia’s Dissent Originally a Majority Opinion?
• June 28, 2012
Scalia’s dissent, at least on first quick perusal, reads like it was originally written as a majority opinion (http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2012/06/evidence-that-the-votes-shifted-after-conference-initial-vote-to-declare-mandate-unconstitutional.html) in particular, he consistently refers to Justice Ginsburg’s opinion as “The Dissent”.
Back in May, there were rumors floating around relevant legal circles that a key vote was taking place, and that Roberts was feeling tremendous pressure from unidentified circles to vote to uphold the mandate.
Did Roberts originally vote to invalidate the mandate on commerce clause grounds, and to invalidate the Medicaid expansion, and then decide later to accept the tax argument and essentially rewrite the Medicaid expansion (which, as I noted, citing Jonathan Cohn, was the sleeper issue in this case) to preserve it? If so, was he responding to the heat from President Obama and others, preemptively threatening to delegitimize the Court if it invalidated the ACA? The dissent, along with the surprising way that Roberts chose to uphold both the mandate and the Medicaid expansion, will inevitably feed the rumor mill.
And for some past history . . . .
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