The Roberts poll.

[bakerjw]

When I heard about the SCOTUS ruling, I was taken back quite a bit.

But after reading some pundits and other commentary, a couple of things came to light. Mind you this is just things that Ive gleaned from forums and articles. I may have some of it wrong.
The penalty for not carrying insurance is not covered under the commerce clause but is instead listed as a tax.
By a 7-2 vote, states are not required to put people on medicaid. This is touted as the killer of Obamacare.
With the new tax, and states not covering people under medicaid, this is the largest tax on the middle class in history.
And the #1 thing. It invigorates the TEA party and conservatives.

So, in looking at the big picture, I believe that Roberts calculated his vote to give conservatives something to build upon.

[johndoe3]

That's just major spin. After all, as Justice Kennedy stated in the dissent, Kennedy, Alito, Scalia and Thomas wanted to overturn the entire Obamacare law as unconstitutional. The government represented Obamacare in their presentation as not a tax. Roberts could just have decided to side with the 4 dissenters and then we would have been freed of all of Obamacare. Upholding the Obamacare mandate as a tax is just ranging far afield to find some reason not to strike down the law.

[silencertalk]

I voted no.

The court job (this should be obvious but it is not to most people) is only to decide if the law is legal or not, not to decide if it is a desirable law or not.

Robert's decided that it was legal as a tax, even though the government did not sell it as a tax.

So he did not vote to strike down the law as illegal.

It would seem to me that he is correct to not strike it down if it qualifies as a tax, and to then let people decide if it is good or bad based on how they vote in the next election.

[jupiterdraft]

I think that Robert's referring to it as a tax is the key. The White House is already up in arms and insisting this is not a tax. The more the blow that horn, the weaker they become (IMHO)

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/whi ... -3hKvWJ790

If the WH admits it is a tax, they risk a future administration simply reducing the tax amount to zero and effectively de-toothing the mandate.

If the WH refuses to acknowledge it as a tax, I suspect that can then be another case brought to the Supreme Court to reevaluate it as a penalty rather than a tax, which might no longer be governed under interstate commerce.

[CThomas]

But like someone said on another ST thread, what is to stop Obama from saying "hey we argued this as a penalty and it was the SC that made it a tax not I so blame them. Do you not think the liberal spin machine will run with that 24/7 to save their boy.

[johndoe3]

If the WH refuses to acknowledge it as a tax, I suspect that can then be another case brought to the Supreme Court to reevaluate it as a penalty rather than a tax, which might no longer be governed under interstate commerce.

I finished reading Roberts' entire Majority Opinion, along with the jointly signed Dissent by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito. I also read the 2-page separate Dissent by Clarence Thomas where he pounds the table that the SCOTUS abandon the "substantial effects" interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

The above issues (penalty versus tax) were already thoroughly covered in the written Opinions. The Dissenters point out that ALL previous SCOTUS cases and precedents define a penalty as the payment for a violation of a regulation or statute. It doesn't matter whether the IRS collects the penalty. Therefore, the Obamacare penalty is a penalty and not a tax, since the penalty for not buying insurance from a private company is to pay the penalty for violation of the regulation (stated clearly that way in the Obamacare bill). Roberts and the 4 liberals created a new meaning out of thin air that has no precedent, which is to redefine the long-held meaning of a penalty and a tax where for court consideration a penalty can be called a tax solely to uphold the mandate. It makes mincemeat out of long held precedence and affects other laws and regulations relying on the normal meaning for a penalty and a tax. The Court rewrote the Obamacare law as a tax to uphold the mandate. Courts are supposed to interpret the law and consider constitutionality, and not rewrite the law in order to avoid striking it down (by saying as Roberts wrote, "if Congress had done this instead, then it would be OK".)

In other words, the Obamacare decision is a legal abomination in the category of the Dred Scot decision and many other "wrong" decisions by past courts.

Besides that, although one can consider the good part, that they partially overturned the Medicare provision, saying that States cannot lose previous level Medicare payments from the Feds if they refuse to massively expand Medicare, the majority was totally wrong on that too. The interlocking effects and monetary offsets in Obamacare are now screwed up. The Majority rewrote the Medicare section instead of doing their duty and striking it down (7 Justices agreed that the Medicare portion was coercion of the States and unconstitutional as written). It ends up not being the bill that Congress passed.

Thirdly, the SCOTUS majority rewriting the bill in the area of the mandate (penalty) and Medicare sections creates "huge" monetary costs that were not what Congress voted on and it will greatly increase the costs of implementation. For example, the $200 billion costs in hospital reimbursements for the indigent, illegal aliens, etc. is being phased out because the bill assumes everyone will be covered by insurance. If States opt out of the Medicare expansion, then people will not be covered and hospitals will still have the same costs, but not get the required money to pay for it as they had gotten in the past. Congress will have to pass a new bill to reimburse costs for the indigent and aliens to pay for it in States opting out of Medicare expansion. If they don't then hospitals will go broke and millions now receiving medical care will not get it (even if they couldn't pay).

jupiterdraft, the area which the SCOTUS did not consider adequately is whether the "a penalty that we can call a tax" is whether it is a "Direct tax" that is directly prohibited by the Constitution to the Federal government in Article I, Section 9.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid [unless in proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken].

The Dissent barely mentioned the issue that a "direct tax is prohibited" except to say that it is also an issue, and Roberts in the Majority Opinion just whiffed at the whole issue of the (penalty we are calling a tax) being a prohibited direct tax.

I am not a lawyer, but this Scotus Obamacare decision is just a plain "bad legal decision" on the face of it with poor logic and unintended monetary consequences resulting from the Court rewriting the law. It opens the door as precedent that can speed Fascism by the Feds over every area of life. We all here have every right to be outraged at this bad outcome and demand that Congress overturn it in its entirety and start over.