United Liberty

When you look at polls, it’s not a surprise to see that ObamaCare is still unpopular with Ameicans. In fact, it’s so unpopular that Democrats admit that it’s a political liability, though one that may be off-the-table in the fall campaign thanks to the Supreme Court (though healthcare will still be around as a broader issue).

But perhaps the most important group on the issue is independent voters, who, according to a Kaiser Family poll, want ObamaCare overturned by the Supreme Court:

A growing number of Americans, 59 percent, believe the Supreme Court will find President Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment unconstitutional, and a majority of independents, 52 percent, would be happy if that happened.

The Kaiser Family Foundation released their monthly Health Tracking Poll yesterday, finding that 51 percent of Americans believe the Supreme Court should rule that Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional. Only 30 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Obama’s individual mandate.

As Ron noted on Monday, independent voters are a crucial part of the vote. And while they may agree that ObamaCare is a bad deal for them, Republicans need to put forward a workable plan to deal with the issue to show that they are committed to tackling it head-on.

If the Supreme Court decides to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, they may make President Barack Obama angry, but according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, Americans will be happy.

While the White House and Democrats continuing to claim that the public will benefit from ObamaCare, the poll, which is heavily skewed towards Democrats, shows that a majority of Americans oppose the law and two-thirds believing that the Supreme Court should throw out at least the individual mandate:

Fifty-three percent of Americans now oppose the law overall, while just 39 percent support it – the latter the lowest in more than a dozen ABC/Post polls since August 2009. “Strong” critics, at 40 percent, outnumber strong supporters by nearly a 2-1 margin in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates.

Two-thirds continue to say the high court should throw out either the entire law (38 percent) or at least the part that requires most individuals to obtain coverage (29 percent) or face a penalty; just a quarter want the court to uphold the law as is. Those numbers, like views on the law overall, are essentially unchanged from a month ago.

Again, this is a poll that is tilted toward Democrats and they still can’t find substantial support for ObamaCare, which is the most touted domestic achievement of the administration. Here’s hoping the Supreme Court does the right thing in overturning the law, regardless of the empty threats from Obama.

While I don’t like to engage in conspiracy theories or anything like that, I do find it odd that President Barack Obama has been targeting the Supreme Court so heavily the last couple of days over ObamaCare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). Some conservatives have suggested that he knows how members of the High Court cast their initial ballots on Friday and what we’re seeing is a reaction to that.

Obama may really just be trying to sway Justice Anthony Kennedy, but it’s hard to see how this will play well with him or even Chief Justice John Roberts, who was believed to be more sympathetic (though that’s quite a stretch) to the administration’s argument. Obama has already spurned Kennedy once thanks to his 2010 State of the Union address in which he blasted the decision in Citizens United, an opinion written by Kennedy.

But thinking about the motivation for Obama to do this, here are a few scenarios that I’ve been thinking about today.

Obama has no idea where the Supreme Court is going: As mentioned above, he’s desparate to see his signature domestic initiative survive this legal challenge and he’s is making an odd plea for them to rule on his side. Again, the way he has handled this, if this is truly the case — and it may very well be, is odd and probably not the best move.

Obama knows the PPACA is going down: Then what we’ve seen the last couple of days is indeed Obama lashing out at the Supreme Court. This is what opponents of ObamaCare want to believe, myself included. He knows it’s coming and we can call this part of the “five states of grief.”

For someone that was a “constitutional law professor,” President Barack Obama doesn’t seem to have a very good grasp of constitutional law. While appearing yesterday before a group of newspaper executives, Obama once again launched a preemptive attack on the Supreme Court over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — also known as ObamaCare:

President Obama elaborated on his claim that a Supreme Court ruling against Obamacare would be “unprecedented,” as he suggested today that the court does not take its responsibilities “seriously” if they do.

“We have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress, on a economic issue, like healthcare — like I think most people would clearly consider commerce — a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner [vs New York, 1905],” Obama told reporters during the question-and-answer session of the Associated Press luncheon.

Of course members of the Supreme Court take the task given to them seriously, even if we don’t always agree with their conclusions on issues that come before them. They play an important role in our system of checks-and-balances — striking down several dozen acts of Congress from 1981 to 2005. Thi is a role that some on the Left have apparently forgotten, including Obama himself.

With the future of ObamaCare up in the air, President Barack Obama took a divisive tone yesterday in discussing the pending Supreme Court ruling on his signature domestic, albeit blatantly unconstitutional law:

President Barack Obama took an opening shot at conservative justices on the Supreme Court on Monday, warning that a rejection of his sweeping healthcare law would be an act of “judicial activism” that Republicans say they abhor.

Obama, a Democrat, had not commented publicly on the Supreme Court’s deliberations since it heard arguments for and against the healthcare law last week.

Known as the “Affordable Care Act” or “Obamacare,” the measure to expand health insurance for millions of Americans is considered Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.
[…]
“Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” Obama said at a news conference with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Conservative leaders say the law, which once fully implemented will require Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty, was an overreach by Obama and the Congress that passed it.

The president sought to turn that argument around, calling a potential rejection by the court an overreach of its own.

“And I’d just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” Obama said.

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably very happy about how the Supreme Court hearings last week went. Justice Kennedy asked very sharp and pointed questions that seem to indicate he would vote against the individual mandate and perhaps put the entire law in jeopardy. That’s something anyone who is concerned about liberty should be pleased about.

But it’s important to see the stories that the other side will bring up in favor of it. Stories such as Violet McManus’:

When health care reform passed Congress more than two years ago, Julie Walters yelled for her husband to come into the living room where she was watching the vote live on television.

“I was so happy,” Walters remembers. “I yelled for Matt. I said, ‘Do you know what this means? Do you know what this means?’”

The historic vote meant their 18-month-old daughter, Violet McManus, would be able to keep her health insurance. Without health care reform, she would have gotten kicked off her parents’ insurance, perhaps as early as her 5th birthday, because her care is so expensive.
[…]
Violet McManus was born healthy, but when she was 11 months old her parents woke up in the middle of the night in their Novato, California, home to find her having a seizure.

“She was completely blue in her crib and shaking,” Walters remembers.

It was to be the first of hundreds of seizures — sometimes thirty in one day.

Violet has been hospitalized about six times and each hospitalization cost more than $50,000.

The Supreme Court finished out the third and final day of oral arguments yesterday on ObamaCare with severability being the first issue the of the day. The question before the the Justices is if the individual mandate is indeed unconstitutional, does that mean the rest of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) have to be thrown out? The second issue before the court yesterday was whether or not Medicaid expansion would be coercive to the states and therefore unconstitutional.

In case you missed it, you can listen to the oral arguments and read the transcript on the severability issue here. The Medicaid arguments and transcript by be downloaded here.

Philip Klein, who has been covering oral arguments before Supreme Court on the PPACA for the last three days, provides a recap of the severability arguments:

ustices on the U.S. Supreme Court this morning considered what to do with the rest of President Obama’s national health care law if its individual health insurance mandate is struck down. Though it was difficult to get a clear read on their thinking as they asked tough questions of all sides, the Court seemed open to the possibility of overturning the entire law.

Paul Clement, arguing for the 26 states challenging the law along with the National Federation of Independent Business, started off the arguments by suggesting the Court look at whether Congress would have passed the law without the individual mandate.

The more liberal justices argued that there were plenty of elements of the law that had nothing to do with the mandate.

Zach posted video yesterday of Tim Sandefur, who in a press conference at the Cato Institute last week, discussed the constitutionality of ObamaCare and the impact Medicaid expansion would have on the states.

Sandefur also sat down with Nick Gillespie and Reason TV to further discuss ObamaCare, the individual mandate, the Commerce Clause, and the scope of limited government if the law is upheld by the Supreme Court:

Yesterday was an interesting day at the Supreme Court. Justices heard the case on the individual mandate from both sides, with Solicitor General Donald Verrilli arguing the case for central part of ObamaCare and Paul Clement and Michael Carvin presenting the case against it. If you support the individual mandate, then it wasn’t a good day. If you oppose ObamaCare, there was reason for optimism that it will be struck down.

In case you missed it, you can listen to the oral arguments below and read the transcript from the Supreme Court’s website:

If you’ve been following the news at all, you know that today marks the beginning of Supreme Court arguments over ObamaCare. In my write-up yesterday, I explained what issues the nation’s High Court will look at over the next three days and what exactly is at stake. In my opinion, the question is, what limitations, if any, are on Congress? If they can mandate that we all purchase health insurance, essentially saying that economic inactivity can be regulated via the Commerce Clause, then what can’t they legislate?

But Jay Bookman, a columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, writes that not agreeing with the Obama Administration’s argument in favor of the individual mandsate is an affront to court precedent (emphasis mine):

Given the case law and precedents, if the Supreme Court decides to overturn significant portions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it will also be forced to overturn at least 70 years of its own jurisprudence on the Commerce Clause. The entire balance of power between the states and the federal government and the federal government and business would change, with repercussions that would echo for decades.

Um, no. With all due respect to Jay, who I read on a regular basis despite only agreeing with him occasionally, shooting down the individual mandate would not overturn prior court precedent dealing with the Commerce Clause, rather it would place actual limitations on federal power.