Will the Federal judge striking down the Affordable Care Act really change anything or will a work around be found to save Obamacare?
I’m going to borrow from another answer I made: the Republicans getting the ACA struck down is a little like a dog chasing a car. If the dog manages to catch the car, now what? The car is a lot bigger than the biggest dogs and mostly made out of metal.The GOP has been promising to “repeal and replace” the ACA for 8 years. They’ve controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency for nearly 2 years. And the result? Only to nullify (without quite repealing) the Individual Mandate.Well, that was the least popular part of the law. Nothing surprising here. The big problem with democracies is that people like to receive benefits from the government, but they don’t want to pay for them. Usually that’s in the form of taxes; in the case of the ACA the price was requiring the young and healthy to subsidize the older and sick by buying insurance they were unlikely to need any time soon.So now what? Most of the rest of the law is popular*, so they’re going to need to find a replacement. I suspect the net result is going to be some form of Single Payer, which is the only thing the Republicans hate worse than Obamacare. Or maybe they hate the ACA more because they hung the “Obamacare” label on it. If they now enact some form of single-payer — whether “Medicare for all” or something else — they can claim credit (via President Trump) and take away Obama’s “signature achievement.”If you really hate the idea of a “single payer” plan, my prediction is that you’re going to be very unhappy with the net result from the end of the ACA, whether because the Judge O’Conner’s ruling stands on appeal, or because the Republicans finally manage to repeal the ACA. (THey’ll have to bargain with a Democratic house next year to do that, and simply going back to 2008 is simply not going to be an option any more.)Like I said above: they caught the car. Now what?* That doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea. I just note that if you explain what “community rating” means and ask people their opinion, they like it. SO there’s going to be enormous pressure from the voters to actually replace the ACA.
What is the purpose of an executive order if federal judges can just strike it down?
The usual purpose of EOs (in the US) is to provide instruction to various executive agencies on how they are to carry out their functions. EOs cannot override laws passed by Congress, much less provisions of the Constitution. All EOs (like all laws) must conform with the Constitution. Federal Judges may order that the way in which EOs are administered be modified if violations of a statute or the Constitution are found, or may even strike down an EO completely if it is found to be totally un constitutional.In the case of the recent order by Trump not to admit people from certain countries for a period of time, the Judges have not struck down the EO, although some of the people affected have asked for that. They have ordered the Customs and Border officials not to deport anyone under this EO, until full hearings on the matter can be held, and have further ordered that people being held under the EO be permitted access to their lawyers. (As the EO does not specify withholding access to lawyers, and as this does not generally pose any security threat, i don’t know why the CBP forbade the lawyers access in the first place.)As for “the constitution does not apply to non-citizens” this is simply incorrect. The constitution applies to anyone present in the US, or under US authority. It also applies to the actions of officials and employees of the US government anywhere in the world.An interesting book relating to this topic is Judgement in Berlin by Herbert J. Stern. Back in the late 1970s, a man “hi-jacked” a Polish airliner (with a toy gun) to land in West Berlin rather than East Berlin, so that he and the woman and child traveling with them could escape almost certain arrest by the East German police. The Americans arrested him and tried him for the hijacking. They asserted that no US Constitutional rights applied in the special US Court for Berlin. However, Judge Stern ruled that the Constitution did apply, and that the man was entitled to a jury trial and various other rights. He (the judge) was outraged by the positions taken by the prosecution and the State Department that he wrote and published this book about the case. It is well worth reading, in my view.
What is your opinion of a federal judge ruling that Obamacare (ACA) is unconstitutional?
A federal judge that knows the law. How refreshing. Obamacare is unconstitutional. We were forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money for make believe health care. If you can't ever meet the deductable then you can't use your insurance. You pay everything out of pocket. You tell me. Where is the health care in that? AND we did not get to keep our doctors. It was a sham from the get go. If you're young, healthy and never get sick and never have an accident or develop any disease then it's all groovy. However, if the situation arose that pushed you into the realm of needing serious diagnostic tests, treatment, surgery or chemo or whatever, then you had to fork it over. Hundreds, in some cases thousands which the average person does not have. Come on! What we had before Obama care wasnt great but it was better than that. Now it's time to come up with a workable plan.
Why do people say that Obamacare is unconstitutional?
The US Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional. Specifically, it upheld the individual mandate, a requirement that everybody buy health insurance or pay a penalty. The Court said that the penalty was constitutional because it was a tax, and Congress under the Constitution has the power to levy taxes.Then Congress amended the ACA and set the penalty for not having health insurance to $0.The challenge to the ACA now is that a $0 tax is no tax at all. The argument then goes on that if the individual mandate is not a tax, it’s unconstitutional. (Then some magic happens.) If the mandate is unconstitutional, the whole act must be constitutional since they are inseparable for some reason. (I’m trying to write that in such a way that it makes sense, but I’m really having a hard time doing it.)I tried to find a little bit on this judge, Reed O’Connor, whether he was mainstream or not. He certainly has a habit of finding things unconstitutionalO’Connor also declared recently portions of the Indian Child Welfare Act unconstitutional in the case of Brackeen v. Zinke, a decision that has been stayed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.[1]O’Connor was in the news in 2016 when he ordered a nationwide injunction against the Obama Administration’s transgender bathroom policy for schools Under Title IX anti discrimination law. The case under which this order was issued was dismissed, and the injunction subsequently dissolved after the US Department of Education withdrew their guidance letters.[2]In 2015 O’Connor ruled that a federal ban on certain interstate gun sales was unconstitutional in Mance v. Holder (later Mance v. Sessions). O’Connor was reversed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.[3]In 2013 O’Connor ruled that Obama administration orders relative to immigration were unconstitutional in Crane v. Napolitano.[4] That case was ultimately dismissed.Footnotes[1] Brackeen et al v. Zinke et al[2] Gender identity under Title IX - Wikipedia[3] Mance v. Sessions, No. 15-10311 (5th Cir. 2018)[4] Federal Judge Rules that ICE Agents have Standing in Lawsuit Against Federal Government
What do you think of my argument on federal judges tenure?
I started getting into politics about a month ago and I made this little argument over the issue of should judges have life time tenure, and what could be done to replace it if taken out, heres what I just thought of I believe that life tenure in federal judges is a bad thing. It keeps good judges who are ******* up on the bench, bad judges on the bench, self explanatory, and good judges who get cocky and exert too much dominance on the people and standards around them. I believe the idealogy is also a bad thing. Because, obviously, not everyone thinks alike. What the government has forgotten is that we, as Americans, are a diverse people. And this one way thinking is dividing us into a deep casm of indifference and biased thinking. I believe that if we set 18-20 years for a state judge, with an apprentice persay, just to teach him the ropes, not on the basis of governmental ideaology, but on the peoples wants and needs from the law & whose better for the job and teach him how to do his job, that way theres more and more voices being heard in the courts. Same goes for the Supreme Court, if we made an even amount of people, no longer 9 judges, 10 judges. With the 2 popular political parties on the helm, with interideals that could cover a wide array of people in this country. 5 republicans and 5 democrats. An 18-20 year term, while teaching successors from the same parties, obviously. And this diversity in the courts would have a far reach and be able to carry the winds out of the throats of Americans to be carried into the Court System, and that would better determine how their duties would be upheld. All for the American people, because not one group(Congress), or one person(President), can decide what is all best for the UNITED Staes of America.
What will happen now that Obamacare was just struck down by a judge?
Not much, really. The judge struck down the mandate (which had already been removed) from the statute and somehow leapfrogged that one thing into finding the whole statute unconstitutional. I imagine by now the chief judge has had a brisk discussion about careless drafting and proper judicial behavior, but done is done.There will be an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has among its judges some top-flight minds. I imagine the trial court will be reversed, but that could come with anything from a remand to the trial court to consider its decision in light of the Fifth’s ruling, to (if the circuit is really annoyed by the resulting circus, instructions on what to do next). But whatever the Fifth does, it is likely in this highly political case (where there is already some suggestion of judge-shopping) that there will be a petition for a writ of certiorari. Given Chief Justice Roberts’ recent public statement that federal courts are not made up of “Obama judges or Bush judges”, the Court could just refuse the writ and let whatever the Fifth does stand. The Supremes already have visited the constitutionality of that statute twice and upheld it, so it would be a bit on the awkward side to change their minds now. But it is a different court now than it was then. We’ll just have to wait and see.But it really was a badly made decision by a judge suspected of being partisan, so if it does go back, there might be a much more restrained decision in the offing. After all, he could just point out the provision at issue is already gone and dismiss the case as not providing a basis for any further relief.
Obama Signs NDAA Martial Law Bill?
Americans MUST know about this if we are going to STOP it. Urgently spread this petition as widely as possible. Write or call the White House to tell the President you won't sit by and watch NDAA Section 1031 and the dangerously misleading Feinstein Amendment 1031(e) become law. http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments The Obama administration officially states he is signing the NDAA - Click for news article. Both the House and Senate have finalized it and submitted it for his signature. (4:39pm ET 12/15) In the final bill, they renamed Section 1031 to Section 1021, but it is otherwise unchanged. The President will promptly sign NDAA Section 1031 into law, codifying who is eligible for "Detention under the law of war without trial." Without a trial, there is no chance to tell a judge that the government has no evidence. The worst thing about this law is that it originally exempted U.S. citizens, but now it dangerously does not specify either way.. The bottom line is that the NDAA bill contains language that will codify, or make into law, the much debated act of defining U.S. citizens as enemy combatants. It will leave that discretionary power to the executive branch. While many readers have contended that nothing in this bill applies to U.S. citizens, Senator Carl Levin, the bill's sponsor, explicitly disagrees. Even more alarming, it was Senator Levin who announced in Senate chambers that it was Barack Obama himself who demanded the verbiage that includes U.S. citizens as fair game by our own military on U.S. soil. This followed Senator Lindsey Graham's gleeful announcement that through the passage of this draconian legislation, the whole of America is now a battlefield and a venue in which the U.S. military may operate against its own. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Etw3Sbsuo