Kinda sorta good news from SCOTUS on the health care hearings:
They turned away the Obamaite procedural trick to get SCOTUS to delay these hearings until 2015. The trick was that the Obama crowd wanted SCOTUS to think that the individual mandate isn’t a mandate, but merely a specific dollar amount per person per year tax on people who both have at least a certain income level and don’t have an approved insurance plan. Because an 1867 Federal law prohibits the Judiciary from hearing the constitutionality of tax issues until the tax is law and has been collected, the Obama gang hoped that SCOTUS would buy the “individual mandate as tax” bullshit. They didn’t, so the hearings begin now.
Why is this good news?
I highly doubt the same SCOTUS which didn’t buy “individual mandate as tax” in March 2012 as part of a procedural maneuver will turn around and buy it in June 2012 if/when they ultimately rule. This is important because “individual mandate as tax” was the sharpest arrow the Obamaites had in their quiver to defend the individual mandate. SCOTUS has already tipped over their hand that they don’t buy it. And if the individual mandate falls, ObamaCare falls.
Remember, the only reason the individual mandate exists is that the Obama White House needed to make nice with Karen Ignagni, the chief lobbyist for the health care industry, in order to keep the industry from running Harry & Louise TV spots like they did in 1993, which helped to kill ClintonCare. The economic and fiscal and financial rationale for the individual mandate might be true, but they’re not germane to the politics of the matter.
