Some people, mostly constitutional lawyers, have already figured it out. In this Supreme Court ruling the court did not actually uphold Obamacare. What they did was rule on two specific challenges to Obamacare. If you think about it, everyone was focused on winning based on the individual mandate being unconstitutional because they felt there was little chance to win on either the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper cause. This is why so many where shocked and disappointed when it appeared that the individual mandate was upheld. But the reality is that the court was not asked to review the constitutionality of the entire law, just two specific provisions of the law. The court could not opine on things not even challenged. The Supreme Court can only rule in response to questions raised in actual lawsuits. For example the Supreme Court couldn’t on its own just review this law and issue an opinion as to whether it was a good idea or even whether it was constitutional. It had to wait until a lawsuit reached the court and then rule on the issues in that lawsuit.
Putting that in perspective, the Supreme Court actually struck down the individual mandate in both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. They only upheld the tax provision of the individual mandate. The only thing they upheld was the authority of congress to pass a tax. They specifically ruled that congress cannot force anyone to buy anything. This will turn out to be a landmark Supreme Court decision reversing decades of abuse of the Commerce Clause by the federal government. It is a huge States Rights victory.
Second, the Supreme Court gave all those states who argued against having to implement expensive Medicaid expansions that are not funded. Instead of funding them, the federal government threatened to cut off existing funding, which is inadequate, to force the states to implement new programs, which are not funded at all. The bottom line is that the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot force the states to adopt entitlement programs for which it has provided no funding. I expect bright constitutional attorneys to start challenging a lot of other federal laws based on this decision.
For decades, the Supreme Court has allowed the government more and more intrusion into our laws based on an absurd reading of the Commerce Clause. The Roberts decision reversed all of that. The new standard is that the Federal Government can only regulate interstate Commerce that already exists. Here is why that really matters, even with regard to health care. There is already legislation that restricts regulation of insurance to states. Insurance is not sold across state lines. This was done specifically to avoid an abusive federal government from dominating our lives by making federal regulations of insurance. This is the reason I cringe when Republicans propose allowing people to buy insurance across state lines. That, in my opinion, would do more damage than Obamacare because it would ultimately result in the federal government regulating all insurance.
When Republicans and conservatives take a breath and they start listening to people who actually understand constitutional law, they are going to realize that Justice Roberts gave us our constitution back. The following article from American Thinker confirms my own obviously shallow, and admittedly amatheur, interpretation of this ruling:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/the_chief_justice_done_good.html
Good Morning.
TDM
We need to strike while the iron is hot! With this laestt corporate personhood Supreme Court decision in the public arena, and with many in Congress speaking out against the decision , we should immediately campaign for a federal law to declare that corporations are not persons and have no claim to obtain human rights under the U. S. Constitution. Now is the time. The President and many members of both parties in congress have spoken against it. Lets ask all our members to send a letter to the President NOW before the state of union address if possible and ask him to support a bill merely to state the obvious, that a corporation is not a person entitled to Human Rights under the U. S. Constitution. At least that will be a start. If a Constitutional amendment is needed it can be done in time, but lets try this [a bill or executive order] for a start! I have been fighting corporate personhood for over 4 years and got it in the Maine Democratic platform, where there was absolutely no opposition to it. The people when they find out about it tend to be outraged that you need to define the English language in law to get your rights. It passed unanimously in the Maine Democratic Convention in 2004 and some Maine towns have passed ordinances as well. Everyone understands the issue fairly easily. Here is what I sent to the President via whitehouse.org, and my 2 senators and my congress woman, all 3 of whom have made public statements against this laestt court decision. I request that you send a letter or petition on overturning this to your membership. Also lets partner with other groups and get them to start letter writing to their members to contact their congress reps and the president. We need to strike while the iron is hot!Unlike the way it was reported, the [Citizen United]] Supreme Court decision, which allows unlimited corporate political donations, is not just one free speech case, but one of a long train of decisions that allow corporations to escape nearly any government regulation under the century old false court doctrine that corporations are entitled to human constitutional rights because corporations are people [the so-called “corporate personhood” doctrine]. This case is being reported [by news corporations] as though it is an isolated incident, but it has been happening for a century. The personhood doctrine is far more damaging than just freedom of speech. If corporations are human, they are not only entitled to freedom of speech, but freedom from search and seizure, freedom of assembly, equal protection under the law and other human rights. The 22nd amendment, allowing equal protection under the law, was created for southern blacks to free them from Jim Crow justice in the south. After the corporate personhood doctrine it has been used over 200 times by corporations under this false corporate personhood doctrine and less than 10 times by real living human beings according to the book Unequal Protection by Thom Hartman. The original case, which hundreds of succeeding decisions used as a precedent, was never actually decided by the court, according to Hartman, but only in a footnote. Some have stated that the footnote itself was added by a clerk and was never actually part of the 1886 decision Santa Clara railroad decision. [Court records being poorly kept at that time.]Legislation supposedly trumps court precedent. Courts are supposed to consider the intent of the Congress when deciding a case. This is one of a series of cases where the court is legislating from the bench.A law passed by Congress stating that corporations are not persons entitled to human rights under the Constitution would extinguish the use of this false precedent again in the future. According to their statements the President and all 4 members of the Maine congressional delegation oppose this decision. I suggest one of them sponsor a bill that would state that no corporation is a person or can be considered to be a person for purposes of obtaining human rights under the United States constitution. This could be used in court to refute future the corporation argument that human rights are being violated by whatever law is being challenged.A Presidential executive order stating that corporations are not people may even be enough to prevent another use of this false doctrine by the Supreme Court.If the government acts on this matter alone it would have made the greatest contribution to human justice since women were given the right to vote.As a friend once said, If a corporation is a person, then a monkey is a hippopotamus.
Sabrina.
I won’t get into the legal argument. However for years unions could spend massive funding on political campaigns, which buisness owners could not. That is why every elected Democratic position in California owes a significant amount of his or her success to union contributions. That created a situation where public union call the shots in Sacramento and the results have been obvious and devastating. I think we all would prefer less money spent on political campaigns by both parties. I am no more interested in big business dominating elections than I was in big unions dominating elections.
TDM