Breyer: Health Overhaul Could Come Before Court
Fred B. Brown
By MARK SHERMAN (AP) - 48 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Justice Stephen Breyer predicted Thursday that the Supreme
Court will one day pass judgment on this year's health care overhaul.
Breyer told a congressional panel that the massive health care law, like
most major federal legislation, is a good candidate for high court review.
More than a dozen Republican attorneys general in several states are
determined to challenge the law in federal court, arguing that its
requirement that Americans get health insurance is unconstitutional.
My, My, Imagine that. Healthcare law unconstitutional. Whoda thunkit?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ivc6UgaoGVVAtq7KUUtDFSq_MiwAD9F3KR8G3
James Of Tucson
> Breyer: Health overhaul could come before court
> By MARK SHERMAN (AP) - 48 minutes ago
>
> WASHINGTON - Justice Stephen Breyer predicted Thursday that the Supreme
> Court will one day pass judgment on this year's health care overhaul.
Do let us know when that day comes.
Eddie Haskell
"James Of Tucson" <james0...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1df77336-ccf6-4e52...@q15g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
GM is in trouble. Hussein and the democrats need to pass bill mandating that
you buy one of their cars.
Now, here come the avalanche contradictions brought on by your inability to
think anything through to it's logical conclusion. Good thing for the
democrats that there are plenty of you out there or they'd cease to be a
party.
-Eddie Haskell
Eddie Haskell
"Fred B. Brown" <fredb...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:4bc75a9f$0$311$bb4e...@newscene.com...
But ghee.. I thought that it was Bush that was using the constitution for
shit paper. Oh, that's right. I almost forgot. It's standard MO for them
accuse republicans of what they know they are guilty of. They got the tactic
from Goebbels.
-Eddie Haskell
snakehawk
If making everyone pay into Medicare and Social Security is
constitutional, why would making everyone pay into healthcare
insurance pool be unconstitutional? The only difference is that
private insurance companies will manage the insurance pools rather
than the federal government.
Congress will oversee the insurance companies and limit their
profits. So, healthcare insurance is identical to Social Security and
Medicare insurance, with private insurance companies acting as private
contractors or agents of the federal government in managing the money.
Sounds constitutional to me.
Geo
Everyone is not required to pay in to medicare or SS. Everyone is
required to have insurance under the recent plan. I'm not certain,
but I also don't think the constitutionality of medicare and SS was
ever taken up by the court. It was going to until FDR threatened to
stack the court, whereby the opposition gave up. And, the rest they
say, is history. As will be our country if we keep going the way we
are.
Zardoz
Ever heard of FICA?
>Everyone is
> required to have insurance under the recent plan.
If states can do this, then the feds should be able to, especially
with the 10th Amendment being dead in the water since the Civil War.
> I'm not certain,
> but I also don't think the constitutionality of medicare and SS was
> ever taken up by the court.
It was, but didn't get too far.
>It was going to until FDR threatened to
> stack the court, whereby the opposition gave up. And, the rest they
> say, is history. As will be our country if we keep going the way we
> are.
If you mean on the destructive road of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, then I
agree.
Eddie Haskell
"Zardoz" <thoo...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:afbc26f5-61ff-4558...@y3g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
> Ever heard of FICA?
Ever heard of someone out of work?
-Eddie Haskell
duke
It probably won't be long now.
The Dukester, American-American
*****
"The Mass is the most perfect form of Prayer."
Pope Paul VI
*****
Geo
> "Zardoz" <thoov...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Bingo!
C.Tudor
Only a about a third of the population is going to be involved in the
individual mandate. If *everyone* were required to purchase basic
health care, as is done in Switzerland, then it would have a better
chance of being considered Constitutional and a better chance of being
considered fair. Right now, any self-employed person and any person
working as an employee of a small business is currently paying taxes to
fund Medicare for people over 65 and disabled, is currently paying taxes
to fund Medicaid for families with dependent children (and will pay
taxes to extend Medicaid to any adult male who reports income under
$20k, regardless of how much he actually makes), is currently paying
taxes to fund health care for tens of millions of government employees,
is currently paying taxes to fund the tax benefit paid to large
corporations who arrange group policies for their employees and is
currently paying taxes to cover the tax exemption granted to the
employees of large corporations because their health coverage, which is
actually a form of income, is exempt from income tax. Now, in addition
to paying all those taxes to provide health care for all those people,
the self-employed and the employees of small businesses are going to be
forced to pay %15 of their income to participate in the the new health
care "reform." (And we're talking about tens of millions of people who
make between $25k and $50k individually.) This is roughly THREE times
the amount paid in Switzerland, which is the most expensive plan in the
rest of the world and costs about 5% of the individual's income.
Additionally, the taxes are being handed over to private corporations
whose claims of price control are a joke. Not only is it transparently
unfair, not only is it utterly unprecedented in US history, not only
does it have the distinct appearance of unconstitutionality, it is
additionally an example of the Democratic Party cutting its own throat.
The only reason they don't realize this is that the Democrats are
currently being run by the Nutty Left, who make a point of only talking
to people who agree with them. Palin's idiocy notwithstanding, the
Democrats are going to be slaughtered in November.
Email your elected officials and ask them how much money they've
accepted from the Pharmaceutical and Insurance Industries during the
last five years:
-- Anyone can make their opinion known:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml
Bret Cahill
> By MARK SHERMAN (AP) - 48 minutes ago
>
> WASHINGTON - Justice Stephen Breyer predicted Thursday that the Supreme
> Court will one day pass judgment on this year's health care overhaul.
He didn't say it should be.
Just that it would be.
Bret Cahill
Fred B. Brown
"Geo" <geot...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f204c1d3-4115-4f6b...@u32g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
Social Security was challenged in the courts. The lower courts found
it unconstitutional. President Roosevelt was having a problem enacting
his New Deal legislation, the lower courts where striking it down and
so was the Supreme Court. Roosevelt even tried to pack the courts
by demanding Congress give him permission to appoint some 45
new lower court judges and either 6 or 7 additional Supreme Court
Justices. At that time SCOTUS was 4 liberals and 5 conservatives.
When SS was heard by SCOTUS one conservative judge switched
his vote at the last minute and SS was declared Constitutional by a
vote of 5 to 4.
snakehawk
> On Apr 15, 3:47 pm,snakehawk<snakeh...@MailAndNews.com> wrote:
>
> > If making everyone pay into Medicare and Social Security is
> > constitutional, why would making everyone pay into healthcare
> > insurance pool be unconstitutional? The only difference is that
> > private insurance companies will manage the insurance pools rather
> > than the federal government.
>
> > Congress will oversee the insurance companies and limit their
> > profits. So, healthcare insurance is identical to Social Security and
> > Medicare insurance, with private insurance companies acting as private
> > contractors or agents of the federal government in managing the money.
> > Sounds constitutional to me.
>
> Everyone is not required to pay in to medicare or SS. Everyone is
> required to have insurance under the recent plan. I'm not certain,
> but I also don't think the constitutionality of medicare and SS was
> ever taken up by the court. It was going to until FDR threatened to
> stack the court, whereby the opposition gave up. And, the rest they
> say, is history. As will be our country if we keep going the way we
> are.
>
You bring up an interesting point. In deciding the constitutionality
of the healthcare reform bill, the Supreme Court will necessarily use
language that will apply with equal force to both Social Security and
Medicare.
If the government is constitutionally prohibited from enforcing the
healthcare legislation, then a fairly strong argument might be made
for the unconstitutionality of both Social Security and Medicare. The
programs have enough in common that strong judicial language could
apply to all of them.
One has to wonder if the teabaggers would approve of abolishing Social
Security and Medicare. And one has to wonder just how popular those
Republicans would be, those rabid Republicans who are busy filing
lawsuits to abolish a social program, if their constituents suddenly
realized that those lawsuits are placing Social Security and Medicare
in jeopardy.
Zardoz
Ever heard of Unemployment Benefits being taxed?
John Galt
Yea, I was thinking that the other day. The only difference is that SS
is simply a forced savings account (not a commercial product) and
Medicare is a defined benefit for fee program. The difference is the
idea that in the health care bill, the government is saying "go buy this
product from a private company -- or else."
>
> One has to wonder if the teabaggers would approve of abolishing Social
> Security and Medicare. And one has to wonder just how popular those
> Republicans would be, those rabid Republicans who are busy filing
> lawsuits to abolish a social program, if their constituents suddenly
> realized that those lawsuits are placing Social Security and Medicare
> in jeopardy.
Well, that last sentence is getting out ahead of the issue a bit.
There's certainly room to say "the new bill doesn't make Constitutional
muster, but the other two do."
However, I think there's a strong case to be made that for the first
time, America's desire for fiscal prudency is becoming a higher priority
than the desire for governmental services.
JG
snakehawk
> snakehawkwrote:
> > On Apr 16, 9:51 am, "Fred B. Brown" <fredbbr...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> >> Everyone is not required to pay in to medicare or SS. Everyone is
> >> required to have insurance under the recent plan. I'm not certain,
> >> but I also don't think the constitutionality of medicare and SS was
> >> ever taken up by the court. It was going to until FDR threatened to
> >> stack the court, whereby the opposition gave up. And, the rest they
> >> say, is history. As will be our country if we keep going the way we
> >> are.
>
> > You bring up an interesting point. In deciding the constitutionality
> > of the healthcare reform bill, the Supreme Court will necessarily use
> > language that will apply with equal force to both Social Security and
> > Medicare.
>
> > If the government is constitutionally prohibited from enforcing the
> > healthcare legislation, then a fairly strong argument might be made
> > for the unconstitutionality of both Social Security and Medicare. The
> > programs have enough in common that strong judicial language could
> > apply to all of them.
>
> Yea, I was thinking that the other day. The only difference is that SS
> is simply a forced savings account (not a commercial product) and
> Medicare is a defined benefit for fee program. The difference is the
> idea that in the health care bill, the government is saying "go buy this
> product from a private company -- or else."
The difference is significant. But since the healthcare legislation
limits the profits and dictates the contents of the contracts, the end
result is simply that the private companies take the place of a
government agency in managing the pool of money. That bears a
striking resemblance to the long-standing Republican desire to
privatize Social Security.
The mandate--the "or else" factor--and the fact that the IRS will be
the enforcer, simply converts the mandatory contribution into a tax
similar to the Social Security tax, except that the tax is paid to
directly to the government contractor (the insurance company) without
passing through the government account.
>
>
>
> > One has to wonder if the teabaggers would approve of abolishing Social
> > Security and Medicare. And one has to wonder just how popular those
> > Republicans would be, those rabid Republicans who are busy filing
> > lawsuits to abolish a social program, if their constituents suddenly
> > realized that those lawsuits are placing Social Security and Medicare
> > in jeopardy.
>
> Well, that last sentence is getting out ahead of the issue a bit.
> There's certainly room to say "the new bill doesn't make Constitutional
> muster, but the other two do."
I don't think the Supreme Court would rule on the constitutionality of
Social Security and Medicare in a lawsuit dealing exclusively with the
healthcare legislation. I don't think they can rule on it.
But the Supreme Court could use strong language that would open the
door to a consitutional challenge to Social Security and Medicare.
Once the language becomes precedence, subsequent cases would have to
follow the precedent. Personally, I don't have that much confidence
in the present Supreme Court to think they could skillfully maneuver
around Social Security and Medicare while striking down a similar
social program without using language that a few determined Wall
Street lawyers couldn't use in
a subsequent challenge to Social Security.
>
> However, I think there's a strong case to be made that for the first
> time, America's desire for fiscal prudency is becoming a higher priority
> than the desire for governmental services.
>
> JG
It's a warped sense of fiscal prudency that objects to government
managing a social program designed to benefit all American citizens,
paid for mostly out of the incomes of citizens, while at the same time
throwing away trillions on useless wars, bribing foreign governments
to cooperate, bailing out high-rolling gamblers on Wall Street,
favoring international corporations like Exxon and GE who pay no US
income taxes, purchasing new experimental weapons of mass destruction,
lavishing billions on foreign countries like Israel for no good
reason, and cutting taxes for the superwealthy.
When--oh when--will fiscal prudency become a reality in the United
States? To the hopelessly misled cattle in the United States, money
spent in the United States is "pork," while money squandered on
multinational corporations, foreign wars, and in fostering foreign
trade that builds factories and creates jobs overseas is thought of as
good for the nation.
Eddie Haskell
Ever heard of unemployment running out? Oh, no. Wait. Unemployment benefits
are perpetual under democrats.
-Eddie Haskell
John Galt
Hm. Interesting thought.
>
> The mandate--the "or else" factor--and the fact that the IRS will be
> the enforcer, simply converts the mandatory contribution into a tax
> similar to the Social Security tax, except that the tax is paid to
> directly to the government contractor (the insurance company) without
> passing through the government account.
>
>
>>
>>
>>> One has to wonder if the teabaggers would approve of abolishing Social
>>> Security and Medicare. And one has to wonder just how popular those
>>> Republicans would be, those rabid Republicans who are busy filing
>>> lawsuits to abolish a social program, if their constituents suddenly
>>> realized that those lawsuits are placing Social Security and Medicare
>>> in jeopardy.
>> Well, that last sentence is getting out ahead of the issue a bit.
>> There's certainly room to say "the new bill doesn't make Constitutional
>> muster, but the other two do."
>
> I don't think the Supreme Court would rule on the constitutionality of
> Social Security and Medicare in a lawsuit dealing exclusively with the
> healthcare legislation. I don't think they can rule on it.
>
> But the Supreme Court could use strong language that would open the
> door to a consitutional challenge to Social Security and Medicare.
Yea, but boy, I doubt it. In most cases, this Court tends to rule
narrowly; the corporate campaign decision was an exception.
> Once the language becomes precedence, subsequent cases would have to
> follow the precedent. Personally, I don't have that much confidence
> in the present Supreme Court to think they could skillfully maneuver
> around Social Security and Medicare while striking down a similar
> social program without using language that a few determined Wall
> Street lawyers couldn't use in
> a subsequent challenge to Social Security.
Well, one can never control wha future lawyers might do.
>> However, I think there's a strong case to be made that for the first
>> time, America's desire for fiscal prudency is becoming a higher priority
>> than the desire for governmental services.
>>
>> JG
>
> It's a warped sense of fiscal prudency that objects to government
> managing a social program designed to benefit all American citizens,
> paid for mostly out of the incomes of citizens, while at the same time
> throwing away trillions on useless wars, bribing foreign governments
> to cooperate, bailing out high-rolling gamblers on Wall Street,
> favoring international corporations like Exxon and GE who pay no US
> income taxes, purchasing new experimental weapons of mass destruction,
> lavishing billions on foreign countries like Israel for no good
> reason, and cutting taxes for the superwealthy.
Hey, I'm a conservative, not a GOPer. Make me king for a day, and I'd
design a SS scheme that was fully funded, stop fighting wars, pull back
on foreign aid, give nothing to Wall Street, stop the practice of
corporate welfare, lower corporate taxes but end the loopholes, cut the
military, and balance the budget.
See how much stuff conservatives and liberals can agree on? :-)
>
> When--oh when--will fiscal prudency become a reality in the United
> States? To the hopelessly misled cattle in the United States, money
> spent in the United States is "pork," while money squandered on
> multinational corporations, foreign wars, and in fostering foreign
> trade that builds factories and creates jobs overseas is thought of as
> good for the nation.
Yep.
JG