1) Congress, of course, has the power to regulate interstate commerce. But people who opt out of purchasing health care are not keeping to themselves. Many of them are taking a free ride on government-run hospital emergency rooms. Taxpayers foot the bill for that kind of care, so it's impossible to make a legal argument that some people can be legally exempt.
2) The Court's decision on Social Security in 1982 is a good litmus test. Justices said, in effect, that it'd be nice to offer the people a chance to opt out of a burly national system, but if you do, the entire system collapses. The same is true with the health care law.
3) If you think Justice Anthony Kennedy is the swing vote, think again. He may sit at the ideological center of the Court, but he's come down on both sides on issues of personal freedoms, like gun rights, and the 14th Amendment for equal protection. But he's never been up in the air on issues that have such substantial economic implications, like health care does.
4) This is the Supreme Court we're talking about, not Congress. The Supremes occasionally appear partisan, but they're not bound by the party of the president who appointed them. Political arguments don't always pan out on strictly partisan lines the way they did in 2000 in Bush v. Gore. In fact, they almost never do.
No comments:
Post a Comment