This is the week. After 2 years of challenges, it all comes down to this week.
What will the Supreme Court do with Obamacare and what will it mean?
I thought it best to have everyone officially log their opinions so that we can make fun of the 75% of us that will inevitably be wrong.
Of course, I wouldn’t ask you to do something that I am unwilling to do.
So here goes.
SCOTUS will find the individual mandate unconstitutional and as a consequence that they will also have to throw out the preexisting conditions part of the bill. Leaving that in would cause chaos that nobody wants. I think that the mandate will go down 6-3.
All that said, they will leave the rest of it in tact and leave it up to congress how to fix the damn mess they created.
What say you?
Update: Thursday is the day.
June 25, 2012 at 5:11 am
Let it never be said that I skipped out on an opportunity to show how much I suck at predicting things.
I think the mandate will be struck down by a majority of more than 5; it'll be like 6-3 or 7-2.
I think that the entire law will be ruled unseverable from the mandate and therefore thrown out by 5-4, and it'll be highly contentious.
Ginsburg will read her stinging dissent aloud from the bench, at the end of which she will declare that she no longer recognizes the authority of the court. She will then attempt a citizen's arrest of Clarence Thomas for violation of obscure Belgian farming regulations. Shortly thereafter she'll be hospitalized for "exhaustion."
June 25, 2012 at 5:12 am
The individual mandate will be ruled unconstitutional and the whole law will be invalidated because it has no severability provision. Without a severability provision, the unconstitutionality of part of the law must be applied by the court to the whole law.
June 25, 2012 at 5:23 am
Sigh…. I think, if the justices do their job, they will find the individual mandate unconstitutional.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the commerce clause, the supreme court seems to think its job is "more, more, more."
I think it will be a 5-4 decision, but I'm afraid it will uphold the ever-expanding tower of the feds.
Dear Lord, please let me be wrong.
June 25, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Obama will not stop until he gets what he wants
June 25, 2012 at 12:55 pm
I think Obamacare will be thrown out entirely because there is no severability clause.
June 25, 2012 at 1:38 pm
6-3 ruling in favor of Obamacare. Because I'm just that cynical.
June 25, 2012 at 1:51 pm
For the first and only time, I agree with Nancy Pelosi; it will be a 6-3 decision. To overthrow the mandate. And I think the justices that vote to overthrow it will be:
Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, and (not Ginsburg, not Breyer, not Kagan) Sotomayor, which would be awesome.
June 25, 2012 at 2:51 pm
5-4, Overturn due to lack of severability.
June 25, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Doug Kmeic predicts that the SCOTUS will support Obamacare, so I predict that the Court will crush Obamacare.
June 25, 2012 at 3:28 pm
I'd pay good money to see Cynical Christian's prediction come to fruition!
June 25, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Individual mandate doomed, but I'm not a lawyer.
Enough bragging from me, right? (rim shot)
June 25, 2012 at 5:44 pm
I also think that the mandate will go down….BUT… I also think Obama, Sebelius, etc. have some nasty alternative plans in the works. Obama is no longer hiding his radical ideology.
KM
June 25, 2012 at 5:46 pm
What worries me is the possibility that the Court might decide they can overlook the lack of the severability clause, and toss out only the mandate. That would demonstrate a corruption in the Courst as deep as in the Executive.
June 25, 2012 at 7:28 pm
I think 4 will vote to overturn the entire law on the grounds that the individual mandate is unconstitutional; 1 will concur that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, but will write a separate opinion concurring in declaring the mandate unconstitutional, but leaving the rest intact; 4 will vote that it's constitutional. The law will be overturned and Congress will have to start over. I'm sure my reading of the Supremes will be wrong — I never could guess them when I was an active lawyer.
June 26, 2012 at 3:41 am
The whole thing goes down 6 – 3.
The Bishops and the institutional church catch a break as they should have opposed the whole thing from the beginning on the principle of subsidiarity, instead of merely hoping for an exception from something that is intrisically evil. Hopefully they've learned their lesson about advocating for increasing the levethian state's power at the expense of the liberty and dignity of the individual
June 28, 2012 at 8:34 pm
The decision was today,and obviously I was completely wrong.