US Supreme Court to hear challenge to Obama health care law
16 November 2011The US Supreme Court announced Monday that it would take up several legal challenges to the constitutionality of the health care legislation enacted by a Democratic Congress in 2010 and signed into law by President Obama. The justices set aside an unprecedented five-and-a-half hours for oral arguments, spread over two days next spring, with the final decision expected in June of 2012, in the midst of the US presidential election campaign.
From a legal and constitutional standpoint, Supreme Court intervention has been the predictable end of the controversy over the health care law since its passage in March 2010. Five federal district courts split 3-2 in favor of the law in legal challenges brought in Florida, Michigan, Washington DC and two districts in Virginia. Four appeals courts also produced a fractured result, with two upholding the law, one striking it down as unconstitutional, and the fourth ruling that no decision was required until 2014, when the bulk of the law takes effect.
The timing of the high court’s intervention was determined largely by the Obama administration, which decided to appeal an unfavorable ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11 Circuit, a move that would have delayed Supreme Court consideration until after the 2012 elections.
White House spokesmen said they were confident that the Supreme Court would find the health care law constitutional, citing the balance of opinion among the appeals court justices who have issued rulings this year.
Nine of the twelve appeals court justices who have heard the legal challenges to the health care law voted to reject them, with several conservative judges, appointed by Republican presidents, upholding the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the single most contentious provision. All twelve appeals court justices rejected the claim that scrapping the individual mandate would require striking down the entire law.
Nonetheless, the outcome at the Supreme Court is very much in question. The nine justices surprised legal observers by deciding on a very broad review of the issues raised by the health care law rather than considering only the issues that have sparked conflicting rulings by the regionally-based courts of appeal.
Republican Health Insurance Lies - News
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Since Democrat Dan Malloy's election, we have seen how closely Malloy's views match the GOP's. He raised taxes on the middle class, broke the public unions and killed proposed legislation for universal health care. Instead of spending on infrastructure
However, respondents opposed restraints on public-employee unions, including a ban on strikes and limits on collective bargaining over health benefits. As many as one out of every five Republicans opposed Mr. Kasich's reforms, perhaps because police
GOP Want's Dirtier Air | Barack Obama Lies
So let’s do a little comparison here. The Republican plan says that what’s been standing in the way between us and full employment are laws that keep companies from polluting as much as they want. On the other hand, our plan puts teachers, construction workers, firefighters and police officers back on the job. (Applause.)
Their plan says the big problem we have is that we helped to get 30 million Americans health insurance. They figure we should throw those folks off the health insurance rolls; somehow that’s going to help people find jobs.
Our plan says we’re better off if every small business and worker in America gets a tax cut, and that’s what’s in my jobs bill. (Applause.) Their plan says we should go back to the good old days before the financial crisis when Wall Street was writing its own rules. They want to roll back all the reforms that we’ve put into place.
Our plan says we need to make it easier for small businesses to grow and hire and push this economy forward. (Applause.)
All right, so you’ve gotten a sense — you got their plan, and then we got my plan. My plan says we’re going to put teachers back in the classroom; construction workers back to work rebuilding America, rebuilding our schools — (applause) — tax cuts for small businesses; tax cuts for hiring veterans; tax cuts if you give your worker a raise. (Applause.) That’s my plan.
And then you got their plan, which is let’s have dirtier air, dirtier water.
Less people with health insurance.
All right so, so far at least, I feel better about my plan. But let’s admit I’m a little biased. So remember those independent economists who said our plan would create jobs, maybe as many as almost 2 million jobs, grow the economy by as much as 2 percent? So one of the same economists that took a look at our plan took a look at the Republican plan, and they said, well, this won’t do much to help the economy in the short term — it could actually cost us jobs. We could actually lose jobs with their plan.