DJP Update 3-27-2012 U.S. Supreme Court & PPACA hearing re INDIVIDUAL MANDATE – audio & transcript
I strongly recommend you download the audio and the transcript each day of the Supreme Court’s hearing of PPACA. This is a very important case that deals with more than just the individual mandate for health insurance. It is about Liberty.
Save the transcript and the audio. It will be a collector’s item.
Here is the link for today at the U.S. Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio_detail.aspx?argument=11-398-Tuesday
I put a couple of excerpts from the transcript below. You need to listen or read all of the hearing to put everything in context.
Following the excerpts are samples of some tweets I did today. I encourage you to go to the YouTube playback of the audio of this portion placed at the Washington Post. Also nice artwork! It is in the link in my tweet here: http://sns.mx/quk7y8
Excellent excerpt & art RT @iSupremeCourt: Antonin Scalia: ‘It’s supposed to be a government of limited powers’ (1:13)
Lots of opinions changed today including the oddsmakers in the betting world.
CNN legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, who has repeatedly stated the law would be upheld as constitutional changed his mind today.
“This was a train wreck for the Obama Administration. This law looks like it’s going to be struck down. I am telling you all of the predictions, including mine, that the Justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong.” … (Not all the predictions!)
Watch the video from CNN at: http://t.co/bQ7JRi1q
My opinion remains the same as stated in interviews and in my writings ever since the law was passed 2 years ago.
I repeated that today in a tweet: My prediction as to constitutionality remains the same as I have written since #PPACA passed: #SCOTUS = 5-4 unconstitutional. Could be 6-3.
In addition, I did a radio show this morning in Columbus, Ohio, prior to the hearing, and predicted the the Constitution does not support upholding this law on the Commerce Clause. Listen to interview at: http://t.co/iinfuEEK Remember, the “Necessary and Proper Clause” requires one of the “enumerated powers” in the Constitution be applicable. If Commerce Clause not applicable, then you can’t make the law valid with the “Necessary and Proper Clause”. Think of the Necessary and Proper Clause as a helper clause. It can’t stand alone. That is my view. Also, I believe that is the view put forth in the Federalist Papers. See Madison #44. See essay by Paul Antinori at: http://amendusconstitution.com/blog/?author=2
We will find out in June what the Supremes say!
EXCERPTS FROM TRANSCRIPT SCOTUS 3-27-2012
—-
MR. CLEMENT: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it
please the Court. The mandate represents an
unprecedented effort by Congress to compel individuals
to enter commerce in order to better regulate commerce.
The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power
to regulate existing commerce. It does not give
Congress the far greater power to compel people to enter
commerce, to create commerce essentially in the first
place.
Now, Congress when it passed the statute did
make findings about why it thought it could regulate the
commerce here, and it justified the mandate as a
regulation of the economic decision to forgo the
purchase of health insurance. That is a theory without
any limiting principle.
—-
(Note: Donald Verrilli is U.S. Solicitor General)
GENERAL VERRILLI: No. That’s not our
position at all, Justice Scalia. In the health care
market — the health care market is characterized by the
fact that aside from the few groups that Congress chose
to exempt from the minimum coverage requirement — those
who for religious reasons don’t participate, those who
are incarcerated, Indian tribes — virtually everybody
else is either in that market or will be in that market,
and the distinguishing feature of that is that they
cannot — people cannot generally control when they
enter that market or what they need when they enter that
market.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, the same, it
seems to me, would be true, say, for the market in
emergency services: police, fire, ambulance, roadside
assistance, whatever.
You don’t know when you’re going to need it;
you’re not sure that you will. But the same is true for
health care. You don’t know if you’re going to need a
heart transplant or if you ever will. So, there’s a
market there. In some extent, we all participate in it.
So, can the government require you to buy a
cell phone because that would facilitate responding when
you need emergency services? You can just dial 911 no
matter where you are?
GENERAL VERRILLI: No, Mr. Chief Justice.
think that’s different. It’s — we — I don’t think we
think of that as a market. This is a market. This is
market regulation. And, in addition, you have a
situation in this market not only where people enter
involuntarily as to when they enter and won’t be able to
control what they need when they enter, but when they –
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: It seems to me
that’s the same as in my hypothetical. You don’t know
when you’re going to need police assistance. You can’t
predict the extent to emergency response that you’ll
need, but when you do — and the government provides it.
I thought that was an important part of your argument,
that when you need health care, the government will make
sure you get it.
Well, when you need police assistance or
fire assistance or ambulance assistance, the government
is going to make sure to the best extent it can that you
get it.
GENERAL VERRILLI: I think the fundamental
difference, Mr. Chief Justice, is that that’s not an
issue of market regulation. This is an issue of market
regulation, and that’s how Congress — that’s how
Congress looked at this problem. There is a market.
Insurance is provided through a market system –
JUSTICE ALITO: Do you think there is a
market for burial services?
GENERAL VERRILLI: For burial services?
JUSTICE ALITO: Yes.
GENERAL VERRILLI: Yes, Justice Alito, I
think there is.
JUSTICE ALITO: All right. Suppose that you
and I walked around downtown Washington at lunch hour
and we found a couple of healthy young people and we
stopped them and we said: You know what you’re doing?
You are financing your burial services right now because
eventually you’re going to die, and somebody is going to
have to pay for it, and if you don’t have burial
insurance and you haven’t saved money for it, you’re
going to shift the cost to somebody else.
Isn’t that a very artificial way of talking
about what somebody is doing?
GENERAL VERRILLI: No –
JUSTICE ALITO: And if that’s true, why
isn’t it equally artificial to say that somebody who is
doing absolutely nothing about health care is financing
health care services.
GENERAL VERRILLI: It’s — I think it’s
completely different. The — and the reason is that the
burial example is not — the difference is here you are
regulating the method by which you are paying for
something else — health care — and the insurance
requirement I think — I mean, the key thing here is my
friends on the other side acknowledge that it is within
the authority of Congress under Article I under the
commerce power to impose guaranteed-issue and
community-rating reforms, to end — to impose a minimum
coverage provision. Their argument is just that it has
to occur at the point of sale, and –
JUSTICE ALITO: I don’t see the difference.
You can get burial insurance. You can get health
insurance. Most people are going to need health care,
almost everybody. Everybody is going to be buried or
cremated at some point.
GENERAL VERRILLI: Well, one big
difference –
JUSTICE ALITO: What’s the difference?
GENERAL VERRILLI: One big difference,
Justice Alito, is the — you don’t have the cost
shifting to other market participants. Here –
JUSTICE ALITO: Sure you do, because if you
don’t have money, then the State is going to pay for it
or some –
GENERAL VERRILLI: But that’s different.
JUSTICE ALITO: A family member is going to
pay for it.
————
EXAMPLES OF MY TWEETS TODAY
www.twitter.com/DJPNEWS
58m Donald Palmisano @DJPNEWS
Excellent excerpt & art RT @iSupremeCourt: Antonin Scalia: ‘It’s supposed to be a government of limited powers’ (1:13) http://sns.mx/quk7y8
1h Donald Palmisano @DJPNEWS
With #SCOTUS decisions on #Constitution it is impt to know some say fixed document & others believe it evolves & has “penumbras”. #PPACA
1h Donald Palmisano @DJPNEWS
My prediction as to constitutionality remains the same as I have written since #PPACA passed: #SCOTUS = 5-4 unconstitutional. Could be 6-3.
1h Donald Palmisano @DJPNEWS
Comments of Donald Verrilli, remind me of emotional pleas used when facts & law not on one’s side. #SCOTUS #PPACA
1h Donald Palmisano @DJPNEWS
Michael Carvin not intimidated or hesitant with Justice Breyer questions; strong answers. Same confidence with other Justices. #SCOTUS
——–
Stay well.
Donald
Some past selected DJP Updates can be found at: http://djpupdate.com/
Donald J. Palmisano, MD, JD
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