prisonermonkeys
It's not like the Supreme Court employs people solely for the purposes of interpreting and ruling on the Constitution.
I see we will be having fun today.
Solely? No. But as a sworn job requirement? Yep.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/oath/textoftheoathsofoffice2009.aspx
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are required to take two oaths before they may execute the duties of their appointed office.
The Constitutional Oath
As noted below in Article VI, all federal officials must take an oath in support of the Constitution:
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
The Constitution does not provide the wording for this oath, leaving that to the determination of Congress. From 1789 until 1861, this oath was, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States." During the 1860s, this oath was altered several times before Congress settled on the text used today, which is set out at 5 U. S. C. § 3331. This oath is now taken by all federal employees, other than the President:
"I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
The Judicial Oath
The origin of the second oath is found in the Judiciary Act of 1789, which reads "the justices of the Supreme Court, and the district judges, before they proceed to execute the duties of their respective offices" to take a second oath or affirmation. From 1789 to 1990, the original text used for this oath (1 Stat. 76 § 8) was:
"I, _________, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
In December 1990, the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990 replaced the phrase "according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution" with "under the Constitution." The revised Judicial Oath, found at 28 U. S. C. § 453, reads:
"I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
The Combined Oath
Upon occasion, appointees to the Supreme Court have taken a combined version of the two oaths, which reads:
"I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States; and that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
So help me God, they have to do it twice. Never mind that part of the legal challenge they were ruling in was whether or not the ACA was constitutional, thus being the point of the case.
That said, I can understand resistance to the idea that people are basically obligated to have health care, given that America is perhaps the only country in the world where your health insurer can refuse to pay the costs associated with childbirth because of a pre-existing condition - pregnancy.
1996 called. They want you to meet their friend, HIPAA.
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_hipaa.html
Are there illnesses or injuries that cannot be subject to a preexisting condition exclusion?
Yes, as follows:
Pregnancy, even if the woman had no prior coverage before enrolling in her current employer's plan.
Conditions present in a newborn or a child under 18 who is adopted or placed for adoption (even if the adoption is not yet final), as long as the child is enrolled in health coverage within 30 days of birth, adoption, or placement for adoption. In addition, the child must not have a subsequent, significant break in coverage (defined as 63 days). For instance, a significant break might occur if a parent lost his job and health coverage for himself and his family shortly after a child’s birth.
Genetic information. For example, if a woman is found to have a gene indicating she is at a higher risk for breast cancer, she cannot be denied coverage if there is no diagnosis of the disease.
Let's face it: for one of the most advanced nations on the planet, America's healthcare system is arse-backwards.
ACA doesn't help that. It changes a few things here and there but mainly it forces you to buy into an arse-backwards system, whether you want to or not. ACA is so poorly designed that people on both sides agree it isn't fixing much of anything.
prisonermonkeys
It's my understanding that most of the resistance to Obamacare is coming from the Republicans - and I'm willing to bet that Republican presidents have stacked the deck in their favour when it comes to Supreme Court rulings in the past. I guess it's not a crime if you're the one committing it.
It's politics. Where was your willingness to point out hypocrisy when
Obama thought the Supreme Court would rule against ACA and was making speeches about activist judges, just like Bush used to do before him?
Your statement above describes pretty much every controversial issue in politics, just switch the name of the issue and parties involved. Politicians wouldn't pass laws if they thought it would get shutdown in constitutional review. It makes them look bad. So you definitely have the debate over legality go back and forth.
prisonermonkeys
Of course he wll. Heaven forbid that the bill might actually help people who need it.
But it won't. It looks like it will when you say it gives X number of people insurance that couldn't get it before. But we were notified yesterday that we still expect up to 10% of our state's population to still be uninsured (down from the current rate of 16%), which sounds better except for the fact that we expect to be busier because the funding for any of this has yet to be allocated.
And going even further is the fact that currently we are struggling across the country with the availability of doctors. We get federal grants now in order to try and encourage doctors to work in certain areas with almost none. Ultimately, we don't have enough doctor's now to cover all the people with insurance as it is. To make matters worse, the ACA will take full effect just as baby boomer doctors are expected to retire at significant rates. We expect far more retirements than medical school graduates. Already there is a 15% difference and use programs, such as J-1 Visa Waivers to attempt to bring in immigrant doctors to fill the gaps.
Omnis
The fact is, now that it's a tax, Obama is going to be sued again. Based on the 16th amendment, again.
I'm unsure this can fall under income tax, but if so the idea of having income taxed as a direct penalty for doing, or not doing in this case, something disturbs me. I can't think of any other examples.
I know people defending this are pointing at sin taxes, but that is a point of service tax based on the cost of the product/service, not a percentage proportional to your income, nor are sin taxes a punitive measure.
I fear that this opens a door to punishing crimes by a 1% tax on your income or basically allowing the federal government to force anything on the American people with an income tax as a penalty. What if instead of a bailout you were required to own a Detroit car or pay a tax? We were saving millions of jobs. It probably would have bolstered the Big Three but price controls would need to be implemented and unintended job losses would occur at American factories operated by companies like Toyota and Volkswagen. Or imagine having to have some form of account at one of the giant, too big to fail banks or pay a tax on your income. Millions of jobs saved.
And with all the rhetoric about how without the bailouts the economy would have collapsed it could all be argued as a collective effort to save the economy as a whole and no one gets a free ride.
I can only see one way this could be spun as a positive: you could fund programs without debt spending. Heck, you could even have a military service or tax program to fund wars.
Ultimately, we need to amend the Constitution with language that limits how income tax can be used as punishment or this will need to be challenged to create a legal precedence for its limits.
And imagine how much more convoluted the tax code will be when you have to add proof of insurance to your tax forms or have to keep insurance records for up to seven years in the event of an IRS audit.
I see nothing but trouble from this. This is almost enough to make me vote with the goal of getting Obama out of office. Almost. I'm not sure Romney would overturn anything.
