– creates and allocates governmental (state and federal) power

– creates obligations (e.g., the obligation to protect and defend)

– limits the government’s ability to screw with its citizens

It’s not a contract in a legal sense, because no one person or group or entity is a PARTY to the Constitution. We’re all, simply, bound by it.

Right Kathy Hochul?

There’s nuttin’ like The Real Thing…

Thing about the 16th Amendment is that it’s exceedingly NARROW — unlike, for example, the 14th Amendment. The 16th Amendment purely and simply empowers congress to enact a national tax on incomes. Arguing that the mandate is a proper exercise of congressional power under the 16th Amendment is laughable. How is the mandate a true tax on income? It isn’t. It’s coercion, plain and simple. Furthermore, such an argument can be used to justify ANY mandate. Broccoli anyone?

My guess: the Court issues its ruling before the election. True, the ruling will have political implications. But at heart it will be a highly technical exegesis of constitutional law.

The admin has tried to weasel out of it, basically, by throwing a bunch of unrealistic expectations into the mix, but the health care industry isn’t buying it, especially when they know they’re facing cuts starting later this year and into next year.

So the health care industry is saying “if we’re the ones taking all the financial risk, then we can’t do this on your time table. It has to be on our own”.

Thank you, BTW.

That is, blocking Obamacare because it forces people into a contract that they did not freely enter and have no way to exit, does not affect previous decisions regarding the 10th.

I think.

Mew

It’s complicated, and I’ll spare you the minute details. But more or less, the Obama admin said to the health care industry, via the law, “you have to do this and this and this”. The health care industry, knowing that the law would be cutting rates down the road, said “Okay, but you have to help us pay for it”.

Well, the admin gave a pass to a few other buddies (remember the tax on Cadillac plans, mostly Unions plans, that was kicked down the road until 2017?). That was supposed to generate revenues. Since the admin didn’t follow through with it, the revenues don’t exist. And with Repubs holding the purse, the Dems haven’t been able to reach into the till as much as they would like. So, no funds.

Then the Secretary complicates things by attaching requirements in a way that if you fail in one, you fail in another…unrealistic expectations galore while failing to meet financial promises. This left one sector of the health care industry saying “You have to be kidding me? We can’t do that. It isn’t realistic. Give us more time”. And the admin says, “Okay, we’ll think about it”.

For other groups in the health care industry, they’ve already made budget plans and started moving forward in investing capital needed to meet the requirements. When they saw how the admin responded to the first group, they said “Wait just a second. You can’t do that. It defeats the whole purpose. If you let them wait, then we’re sitting this out too until they are ready to move forward”.

It really is a badly constructed piece of legislation. And the way the Secretary is going about implementing things stinks! That’s the honest truth of it, and that’s the reality that started hitting home on them. As for the admin…talk about being hoist in their own petard!! I probably shouldn’t be so happy about it, but anything that slows this monster down a bit, I’m glad for.

Will you spell it out for me? When you say “this doesn’t appear to require any significant changes to past findings”, do you mean that it has a relatively solid historical precedent supporting it as it stands?

That said, I don’t see an obvious problem with the approach. There are many obvious historical excesses using the 10th amendment, but this doesn’t appear to require any significant changes to past finding.

Mew

If, for instance, Gingrich or Santorum win the White House, the repeal of Obamacare is a logical next step, so striking the whole thing to re-emphasize the 10th Amendment may make good sense.

If, on the other paw, Romney wins .. the court may choose to refer the case back to the lower court for a retrial or something while letting Romney push through his proposed “reforms”.

If, on the third paw, Obama wins re-election .. then the courts have a clear statement from We The People endorsing Obamacare … so a selective neutering of some of the more annoying parts – like the mandate – may be needed.

Many folk miss just how much attention the Supremes pay to this stuff, eh?

Mew

If a accounting organization, using traditional accounting methods, projects that the health care industry will consume approximately 25% of our GDP within just a few years, partly due to the excessive measures included in this single piece of legislation…then what happens when government mismanagement of funds is incorporated into the context of that scenario?

And that’s exactly what is already starting to happen!

Just to share something that is purely anecdotal…I went to my clinicals today. Large teaching hospital here in NC. Even people who have been in the past inclined to support the idea of nationalizing our health care system (good intentions and all that) are now beginning to say that O-care is a horrendous piece of legislation, that the implementation methodology of the Secretary is a bunch of hooey, that Obama’s timing in pushing the bill through was an error in judgment (because of our economy). Some of them even said that they are starting to understand what those “right wing extremists” have been so upset about. What’s more, they really REALLY do not like the way Obama and his admin have responded to the contraception mandate situation, Scope. You should hear them talk on that point. They sound like Conservatives!!!

I could come to nothing in the long run, but it inspired me a bit to see that more people could be trending our way!