# waiting \[for Supreme Court decision on health care law\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 18, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510 "2012-06-18T13:51:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/41 "2012-06-19T00:51:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Boy, is my face red. I’m so embarrassed I didn’t know this. If only I had said something like _“Yes, the reality is that people would be paying those bills anyway. The money to pay for government programs comes from taxes.”_ Way to be sarcastic. Too bad you wasted it on a strawman. I never implied that you did not know how tax & spend works but I criticized your use of “the government paying the bills” in the Republican argument. That is a Democrat argument (We’re paying your bills so vote for us.). The Republican argument is “They’re making you pay the bills so don’t vote for them.” ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/42 "2012-06-19T01:05:51Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > The Republican argument is “They’re making you pay the bills so don’t vote for them.” I didn’t realize that republicans are against paying one’s debts. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/43 "2012-06-19T01:56:08Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Win for all Americans. Win for Republicans. The two are mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/44 "2012-06-19T02:07:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The two are mutually exclusive. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/45 "2012-06-19T02:29:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Lochner? A tough one to call. Yes, Lochner in principle established a broad new precedent (if it had survived unchecked). But realistically, it was a status quo decision - the United States has always been a capitalist country. The Lochner decision essentially just moved it from the de facto column to the de jure column (which was clearly unconstitutional). It would be like a modern justice declaring that the United States is a Christian nation. Officially we’re not but realistically the majority of Americans are Christians. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/46 "2012-06-19T02:33:10Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Way to be sarcastic. Too bad you wasted it on a strawman. > > I never implied that you did not know how tax & spend works but I criticized your use of “the government paying the bills” in the Republican argument. That is a Democrat argument (We’re paying your bills so vote for us.). The Republican argument is “They’re making you pay the bills so don’t vote for them.” Not a straw man. You said I had missed the issue of taxation. And I was correcting your error by pointing out I had addressed that issue. If you disagree with my opinion, fine. But you were wrong when you claimed I was unaware of it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/47 "2012-06-19T02:40:19Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > See, this I don’t believe. Nino Scalia has (or used to have) a judicial philosophy, and from what I can tell it more or less amounts to, “A democracy can vote for stuff if it’s what the people want.” I don’t think he’d strike this down, because an argument striking this down would prove too much; it would jeopardize the ability of the people to govern themselves effectively. The other guys, I don’t know, they may not care; but I don’t really expect Scalia to strike this down, especially not in a “tank the whole bill” kind of way. I don’t know about this. My opinion is that Scalia’s judicial philosophy can be summarized as “The only two people who know what the Constitution means are me and God. And I speak on God’s behalf.” ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/48 "2012-06-19T02:42:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Lochner? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > A tough one to call. Yes, Lochner in principle established a broad new precedent (if it had survived unchecked). But realistically, it was a status quo decision - the United States has always been a capitalist country. The Lochner decision essentially just moved it from the de facto column to the de jure column (which was clearly unconstitutional). It would be like a modern justice declaring that the United States is a Christian nation. Officially we’re not but realistically the majority of Americans are Christians. Er… what? Lochner did establish a broad new precedent, reading a non-existent freedom of contract provision into the Constitution. It had nothing to do with capitalism, except to the extent that capitalists favored the decision. Even today, Lochner-or at least the underlying principle- is a check on the power of the \*federal \*government. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/49 "2012-06-19T02:58:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Er… what? Lochner did establish a broad new precedent, reading a non-existent freedom of contract provision into the Constitution. It had nothing to do with capitalism, except to the extent that capitalists favored the decision. Well, you have one opinion and Oliver Wendell Holmes had another. His dissent in Lochner was based on his belief that “this case is decided upon an economic theory” and he said the Constitution did not give any economic theory special protection over others. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/50 "2012-06-19T03:11:02Z")
_shrug_ Scalia says much the same thing about the liberals on today’s SCOTUS regarding social policy. I give _them_ the benefit of the doubt; why shouldn’t I extend the same courtesy to the Lochner-era majority? Without them, we wouldn’t have the modern conception of substantive due process (though I have yet to figure out why anyone needed to bother with that nonsense when there was a perfectly good Privileges and Immunities Clause just sitting around waiting to be applied). ---
**Author:** ![onecut39](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a183cd/32.png) [@onecut39](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/onecut39)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/51 "2012-06-19T03:25:51Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The SCOTUS is presently deciding if A) it has jurisdiction to decide this case and B) IF the bill that CONGRESS wrote is actually “Constitutional”. > > IF the bill, as written and passed by CONGRESS, is unconstitutional. The court will have to decide if the entire bill or just portions of the bill are unconstitutional. > > Depending on the outcome, CONGRESS can then readdress the issues raised and maybe one of the lawyers that infest Congress can write a bill that actually passes constitutional muster. If not, the SCOTUS can strike down that law, if and when, they are presented with the opportunity. > > Just because CONGRESS passes a bill does not make that bill/law Constitutionally legal. That’s just the way the system works. At any given time the constitution is exactly what a majority of nine old people say it is. Decisions have been made reversed and made again. The USSC, an institution that was supposed to be non political, has become the most political of all the branches. The present court has an abysmal record of preserving our “freedoms”. With friends like these… ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/52 "2012-06-19T04:54:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t know about this. My opinion is that Scalia’s judicial philosophy can be summarized as “The only two people who know what the Constitution means are me and God. And I speak on God’s behalf.” I grant that he is very arrogant. But I don’t think he’s completely anti-democratic in theory so much as just ideological and occasionally partisan. But OK, grant that Scalia might think he’s doing us all a favor saving us from a minor tax penalty; would he vote to throw out everything else in the bill because of the penalty for not buying insurance? I just don’t buy it; I don’t see how you get there _as a judicial review question._ And I don’t think the others are really going to go for a total repeal either. I still expect the PPACA gets upheld (or mostly upheld) something like 8-1. Scalia famously dissented on _Kelo_ because thought eminent domain should have limits so it wouldn’t be used to harm private citizens. I don’t think that level of harm can be said to apply due to regulating health insurers. If I’m wrong, and Scalia votes to torpedo the whole thing for some cockamamie reason, I’ll admit that he’s a lying sack of cannoli. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/53 "2012-06-19T05:51:58Z")
[NYT editorial casting this case as the possible first step to undo all of the New Deal.](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/opinion/14tue4.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=scalia+wickard+laugh&st=nyt&pagewanted=all) Obviously, just one case won’t do it, it argues, but with the right overturning of precedent and the right future appointments… ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/54 "2012-06-19T06:26:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not a straw man. You said I had missed the issue of taxation. And I was correcting your error by pointing out I had addressed that issue. If you disagree with my opinion, fine. But you were wrong when you claimed I was unaware of it. Once again, I was quoting your characterization of the Republican argument in that THE REPUBLICANS would never claim that the government was paying the bills. Instead THE REPUBLICANS would argue that it is the taxpayer footing the bill which psychologically has a very different feel when THE REPUBLICANS are campaigning. Yes you missed the issue of taxation when DESCRIBING THE REPUBLICAN TALKING POINTS. Now do you understand? ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/55 "2012-06-19T10:12:16Z")
[An article on how overturning the mandate would amount to a partisan game changer](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/06/clock-ticks-down-whether-weve-entered-new-era-american-politics) _It would mean that the Supreme Court had officially entered an era where they were frankly willing to overturn liberal legislation just because they don’t like it. Pile that on top of Bush v. Gore and Citizens United and you have a Supreme Court that’s pretty explicitly chosen up sides in American electoral politics. This would be, in no uncertain terms, no longer business as usual._ I completely agree with this assessment; as I said earlier, striking down the ACA would amount to nothing more than a partisan political maneuver, fueled by justices who will have unabashedly chosen a side and who will have taken out the law simply because they didn’t like it. It’s precisely because of that statement, though, that I think they’ll uphold everything, as I can’t imagine that the SCOTUS will continue to be seen as an unbiased judge on our laws by ANYBODY in the event of an ACA takedown. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/56 "2012-06-19T12:48:19Z")
So if we assume that the conservative justices will vote to overturn for purely partisan reasons, then should we assume the liberal justices will vote to uphold the law because of their political leanings? Or is it just a given that the liberal justices decide cases based on the Constitution and conservative justices do not? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/57 "2012-06-19T13:27:20Z")
> [@2ManyTacos](#): > > [An article on how overturning the mandate would amount to a partisan game changer](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/06/clock-ticks-down-whether-weve-entered-new-era-american-politics) > > _It would mean that the Supreme Court had officially entered an era where they were frankly willing to overturn liberal legislation just because they don’t like it. Pile that on top of Bush v. Gore and Citizens United and you have a Supreme Court that’s pretty explicitly chosen up sides in American electoral politics. This would be, in no uncertain terms, no longer business as usual._ > > I completely agree with this assessment; I completely disagree with that assessment. Well, that was easy! ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/58 "2012-06-19T13:35:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The two are mutually exclusive. Gee, I wish I’d said that. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/59 "2012-06-19T13:38:48Z")
> [@Saint Cad](#): > > Now do you understand? Fair play, Little Nemo did say the government was paying for healthcare. The only issue is that in every country with socialist medicine, the taxpayer pays less than the US. In most industrial countries with socialist medicine, the taxpayer lives longer than the US taxpayer too. The two coherent arguments I’ve heard against this (I don’t consider “the third man” to be a coherent argument) are: The Free Market™ in its beneficent glory will provide (if we remove insurance too, costs will deflate). Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m an advocate of a political theory that hasn’t survived unimpeded to any great degree in any region (anarchosyndicalism - worker run and managed factories, essentially, with no central government control. Competition would exist [between industries](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-3VmF-bWKU), given a safety net). However, I don’t think that the majority of Americans will buy my argument and the Free Market argument is compounded by the problem that Congress members have typically not been the ones to lose out in free markets, so their arguments are made a tad suspect. The second argument is outright rejection of Utilitarianism. Principles (usually property, sometimes Deontological ethics) are held as more important than civilian life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Again, hard to sell people on this point. In a simple cost/benefit analysis, I’d take 8 years from my life if it increased 8 American’s lives by 10 years. I wouldn’t take 8 years from my life because taxation is immoral and Rothbard wants his second summer home. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510/60 "2012-06-19T13:39:31Z")
We expect conservative and liberal justices to vote differently, and not because of their adherence to particular outcomes. In general, conservative justices see their role as that of an umpire, applying the rules in a reasonably mechanical fashion. It doesn’t matter if one batter has a really compelling life story, or one fielder’s success is what the game of baseball needs to really prosper. If the rules say the batter is out, he’s out. If the rules say the fielder made an error, he made an error. In general, liberal justices are themselves as having a role and a responsibility to shape the law and the land – to be a part of the living Constitution. They want to make a difference, to leave the state of the law better than they found it, to help the country’s social policy grow and mature, to be a voice for the evolving standards of decency that are the mark of every civilization. There is nothing objectively in error about either belief. In my opinion, the proper role of judges (shocker!) is more correctly described by the first paragraph than by the second. But it means that, in good faith, Justice Ginsburg and Justice Alito can reach different results on questions like the ACA. Justice Ginsburg can say, “Look, it’s the mark of a decent society to provide a basic level of health care to all its members, and the role of the federal government has expanded enough over the years that an individual mandate simply passes the common sense test of Congress’ powers.” And Justice Alito can say, in equally good faith, “Look, the federal government’s powers have a limit, and this extends that limit. The way for our nation to extend the powers of the federal government is not by action of the courts; those are not the rules. The rules require an amendment, or absent that, they require fidelity to the words of the Constitution.” Which Justice is _objectively_ wrong? Neither one. Both are hewing to their judicial philosophies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/waiting-for-supreme-court-decision-on-health-care-law/625510.md?page=4)