Obamacare, Day 1

This morning the Supreme Court heard the first of what will be three days of oral argument concerning Obamacare. Today’s argument dealt solely with the issue of whether the Court has jurisdiction to consider the case at this time because the penalty for failure to have minimum coverage is, in fact a tax, and under the Anti-Injunction Act, suits contesting taxes can only be brought after the tax has to be paid.

Based upon the questions from the Court, it appears that the Court will decide that it can hear the merits of the case now.  There are two approaches the Court could take.  First, they could find that the penalty is not a tax at all.  Or, they could decide that even if it is a tax and subject to the Anti-Injunction Act, the federal government can waive that defense, as it has done, and thus the matter can proceed.

Thanks to CSpan, you can read the full transcript of the arguments here, or you can go to CSpan.org and listen to the entire argument.

A few questions from the bench “caught my ear”, all of them occurring during the argument presented by the Solicitor General. 

JUSTICE ALITO: General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow you are going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax.

Has the Court ever held that something that is a tax for purposes of the taxing power under the Constitution is not a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act?

GENERAL VERRILLI: No, Justice Alito… [See page 31]

In discussing the penalty for failure to have minimum coverage, the Solicitor General stated that if you are exempt from paying the penalty, then you are exempt from the minimum coverage provisions.  That may seem obvious, but the section requiring minimum coverage lists certain groups of people who are exempt from that requirement.  The section that enacts the penalty also lists certain groups who are exempt from the penalty, but, the groups exempted in these two sections are different.  In other words, according to the Solicitor General, as long as you are exempt from the penalty, you are not violating the law for failure to have minimum coverage.

Justice Roberts then interrupted and said,

Suppose it makes it easy for the government to drop the other shoe in the future, right? You have been under the law subject to this mandate all along. You have been exempt from the penalty, so all they have to do is take away the penalty. [See page 48]

But, the morning’s moment of levity was brought to us by Justice Bryer.  The Solicitor General would occasionally refer to the penalty as a tax.  So Justice Bryer interrupted and asked,

Why do you keep saying tax?

To which the Solicitor General responded,

If they pay the tax penalty, they’re in compliance with the law. [See page 49]

I am certainly not being critical of the Solicitor General here.  Anyone who can stand up before the Supreme Court has nothing but my deepest admiration.

If anyone is interested, you can go here and get a link to all of the Briefs filed in the Supreme Court on this Anti- Injunction Act issue.

 

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SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

10 Comments

  1. johnboy111 on March 26, 2012 at 7:08 pm

    legalize pot? and no one will care…oh wait they are??



  2. Dimsdale on March 27, 2012 at 8:29 am

    I do believe that the ?bamaroids are bamboozling us, hoodwinking us, flummoxing us, leading us astray, running amok.



  3. Coffee Mug on March 27, 2012 at 8:57 am

    Thanks so much to SoundOffSister for simplifying, making sense of, and occasionally bringing a bit of humor to all the grandiloquent trash we are led into by Obama and his cohorts. ?



  4. Dimsdale on March 27, 2012 at 10:11 am

    I wonder if the question of the validity of all of the special waivers for FOOs (friends of ?) will have any bearing on this?



  5. TomTGRWolcott on March 27, 2012 at 3:47 pm

    I just listned to day two of arguments while reading the transcript …

    Some life eh?

    My quick analysis is that the Court was not to happy over the mandate of all people being covered, and seemed to keep going to several issues
    1: the 10th amendment …
    2: The question of when does commerce begin
    3: How is the government’s roll of the mandate effect or not effect commerce

    Can’t wait to see what the SOS has to say?



  6. JBS on March 27, 2012 at 6:10 pm

    Soooo, the SCOTUS and the Regime are going to overturn hundreds of years of internationally recognized contract law and rule that a COMPULSORY contract is legal and binding? That is basically what ?bamaCare is. We, you and me, will have to buy expensive, more than today’s prices, health insurance, gubmint approved, in order to avoid a tax for not buying the wildly expensive health insurance.
    Already have insurance? Buying your own? The Regime will mandate just which policy is acceptable. Got insurance through your work? Your workplace will drop the coverage and you will be forced to buy your own on the open market. Can’t? Regime.com, will sell you government insurance, ergo, single payer. YOU. (Remember, ?bamaCare is targeted toward individuals, you and me.)



    • PatRiot on March 27, 2012 at 6:34 pm

      Like Henry Ford said about his vehicles: “You can have any color you want as long as it is black.”?
      If the goverment is in charge of health care, isn’t that a monopoly?? Aren’t there laws against that? And for all of the right reasons.



    • Lynn on March 27, 2012 at 7:41 pm

      JBS, well said.



  7. PatRiot on March 27, 2012 at 6:41 pm

    Justice Bryer got to the truth.??
    Some of us see this in the workplace.? A problem is a pile of ‘horse manure’ to those of us who deal with reality.? By the time upper management hears about it, it is white washed as fertilizer.



    • PatRiot on March 27, 2012 at 6:42 pm

      Thank God someone in upper management is seeing this as is really is.



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