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Before everyone slams the "partisan court"

PhDeac said:
Oh noes!! Romney's going to raise more money than Obama!!!
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Meh. Just thought I'd point it out. Seems to belie the argument that Romney won't be able to harness the unpopularity of Obamacare because of the Massachusetts healthcare law.
 
Solid opinion. Good for Roberts, though I don't agree with his take on the CC. Law beats politics for once.
 
If you don't want to buy insurance you can pay the penalty. It's your choice.
 
TR1982 said:
Meh. Just thought I'd point it out. Seems to belie the argument that Romney won't be able to harness the unpopularity of Obamacare because of the Massachusetts healthcare law.
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Among his base who is going to vote for him anyway and has already sold themselves on Romney as the answer despite RomneyCare? Sure.

In a debate among Independents? No.
 
TR1982 said:
Meh. Just thought I'd point it out. Seems to belie the argument that Romney won't be able to harness the unpopularity of Obamacare because of the Massachusetts healthcare law.
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Interesting point. The Romney camp (and more likely, its surrogates) will be able to raise money from the base on the issue. But Romney himself won't really be able to use the issue to swing independents, and certainly won't be able to use the issue during the debates.
 
ArlingtonDeac said:
Solid opinion. Good for Roberts, though I don't agree with his take on the CC. Law beats politics for once.
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Someone said Roberts has stated that his job on the Court is not to overturn acts of Congress but rather to find a reason to allow their laws to stand. It appears this happened here.

It's a double edged sword.
 
PhDeac said:
Among his base who is going to vote for him anyway and has already sold themselves on Romney as the answer despite RomneyCare? Sure.

In a debate among Independents? No.
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Geez, Ph. Get out of my head.
 
TR1982 said:
This actually turned out pretty well for Republicans. The expansion of the power of the Commerce Clause is halted, and now Republicans can say that Congressional Democrats and Obama instituted a trillion dollar new tax.
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Republicans win in terms of the Commerce Clause precedent.

Democrats win in terms of practical effect.

Rhetoric probably favors the Pubs.
 
RJKarl said:
If you don't want to buy insurance you can pay the penalty. It's your choice.
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If you don't want to pay income tax, don't make any money. If you don't want to pay sales tax, don't buy anything. Easy enough
 
Republicans have to energize the base and get out the vote to have any chance at all this fall. This gives them a rallying cry: "Vote for us and we will repeal* the trillion dollar tax upheld by the Supreme Court on a legal technicality**!"

*no they won't
**not actually a legal technicality
 
RJKarl said:
Someone said Roberts has stated that his job on the Court is not to overturn acts of Congress but rather to find a reason to allow their laws to stand. It appears this happened here.

It's a double edged sword.
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That's basically in the opinion, yes. It's not really his job so much as it's a canon of statutory construction though. It's a really uncontroversial statement.
 
So how on earth does this work?

Pete the young healthy landscape worker has no insurance.

How much is he "taxed" for this and how does said tax compare to the price of insurance on the open market?

I presume the tax will be set somewhere a bit north of the open market cost. Does the amount of the tax fluctuate from year to year? If the tax is lower than the cost of insurance by a significant amount then won't people still elect not to be insured? And if it is a lot higher than the cost of insurance, won't the insurance companies move the cost of insurance upwards towards the cost of the tax?
 
This sets a very dangerous precedent IMO. Basically, any mandate which government wants to establish with a penalty attached can be considered "constitutional" because it would be adjudged merely to be a tax. Government now can establish a mandate on about anything (as long as it is applied uniformly) which you can only opt out of by agreeing to pay a tax. Now government will be the decider in what you must buy or you pay a tax if you choose not to.
 
DeacMan said:
So how on earth does this work?

Pete the young healthy landscape worker has no insurance.

How much is he "taxed" for this and how does said tax compare to the price of insurance on the open market?

I presume the tax will be set somewhere a bit north of the open market cost. Does the amount of the tax fluctuate from year to year? If the tax is lower than the cost of insurance by a significant amount then won't people still elect not to be insured? And if it is a lot higher than the cost of insurance, won't the insurance companies move the cost of insurance upwards towards the cost of the tax?
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You can see a potential for market manipulation. If Congress wants insurance companies to lower their premiums they could lower the penalty rates to just above whatever desired price.
 
demondeacfreak said:
You can see a potential for market manipulation. If Congress wants insurance companies to lower their premiums they could lower the penalty rates to just above whatever desired price.
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I'm not sure they can manipulate the insurance companies into losing money. Their actuarial tables will only let that game go so far. The game for Congress is to make sure Pete buys insurance.

So the larger risk, and the one likely to come true, is that the tax will get set as a true penalty. i.e. Pete can buy insurance for $150 today. The tax not to buy gets set at $190. And suddenly Pete can buy insurance for $165 instead of $150. And because Pete's premium went up $15, your premium Mr. 55 year old smoker goes up $50.

In short, there's a big risk the consumer get's squeezed on this.
 
demondeacfreak said:
You can see a potential for market manipulation. If Congress wants insurance companies to lower their premiums they could lower the penalty rates to just above whatever desired price.
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Right. Basically what it will amount to is insurance price controls. We'll see how that works out, but I have a hunch it will end poorly. The good thing for John Q. Taxpayer, though, is that massive insurance company losses will lead to huge popular pressure to repeal the bill, whereas if we had a single payer system, the costs would simply be absorbed by the government and the debt would explode.
 
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