While it seems certain the US Supreme Court will vote 5-4 or even 6-3 in favor of killing the key provision of the only modern-day US effort to broaden national access to health insurance,  it would have been nice if we could have at least seen the nine men and women in black robes deliberate whether Congress owns the power to enact a law that compels a portion of the populace to buy basic coverage.

Cameras are prohibited in the US Supreme Court.  A few television reporters are allowed to sit in red benches on the left side of the courtroom but their news organizations can’t show pictures of what goes on inside.  That’s because Chief Justice John Roberts and the conservative majority says so.  If and when the current partisan split shifts left by one, the highest court in the land will join a majority of courtrooms in this country that allow broadcasters to share the public’s business with the public.

The person at home who wanted to learn how the landmark health care case was argued was limited to same-day audio access.  C-SPAN ran the delayed tape on three successive nights.  The public affairs network super-imposed head shots of the principals as they spoke to give it the most realistic look it could with what it had.

I watched C-SPAN’s presentation of Tuesday night’s replay of day two’s hearing.  The focus that day was on the individual mandate contained in the law.  It’s not slated to kick in for a couple years, but it’s the key mechanism of the “Affordable Care Act.”  Without it, most of the rest of the law goes under.

As it is now, those with health insurance bear substantial medical costs of the 40 million who don’t have coverage.  The Act gently forces the uninsured to get a policy.  Risk would be spread.  Skyrocketing insurance premium costs would get reined in for everybody and the country would move toward a healthier, more-balanced overall approach to consumption/timing of medical care.  I don’t really see how the mandate would be enforced for the millions living paycheck to paycheck, but let’s just assume that component of the law worked effectively.  That requirement seems like a concept Republicans would totally embrace.  It’s cutting out the freebie.  Why would the right side of the political divide want to scuttle the new law when the main thrust of it is to ask the down and out to pay their freight?  I don’t get it.  I don’t get the role reversal but that’s what this whole thing has become.  Opponents call the law “Obamacare” when in fact it was molded, watered-down and ultimately adopted by both chambers of Congress.

When Justice Anthony Kennedy (considered to be the swing vote) trumpeted the High Court’s long tradition of barring the government from telling individual citizens that they must perform “an affirmative act,” you got the sense this case was all over.

Scalia, Roberts and Alito all were downright hostile to the reasoning of the US government’s top legal representative.  I thought Solicitor General Donald Verrilli did a fine job explaining why the law was proper from a legal perspective but this court is stacked and it’s acting out along party lines.

Personally, I can’t get riled up that a final-say court controlled by conservatives will nullify a program that would have kept delivery of expanded health-care coverage in the for-profit realm.  The only way this country ever advances to a stage that treats health care access as a basic human right is if we eliminate outright the myriad of corporations that make huge money off the sale on insurance.  It needs to be under a single non-profit roof guided by a mission statement that everybody is covered and we all share in its success and failures.

I’m way beyond burning about everything coming down to blue and red.  I just want to see it on TV.

I want to see Clarence Thomas sit there and say nothing and act bored even though his wife is openly anti-Obama and is up to her ears in the Tea Party.

Justice Thomas hasn’t asked a single question during oral arguments in seven years!  He has said outside court he doesn’t want to get in the way of the lawyers making their cases.  But if you listen to oral arguments at all, you’d know participation by the bench is crucial.  It’s how right and wrong is sorted out and it’s the only way lawyer-speak gets cut through in favor of substantive exploration and application of relevant case law.  Justice Ginsberg is especially engaged without being overbearing in this respect.

For Thomas to never – ever – say a thing – during oral arguments is something I would like to see on TV.  A Jeff Toobin profile on Thomas last year is helpful understanding what it most look like.  Said Toobin:  “The Justices all sit in high-backed leather swivel chairs, and Thomas has set his so that he can recline so far that he appears almost to be lying down. He stares at the ceiling. He rubs his face. He does not appear to be listening. He closes his eyes and sometimes appears to be asleep. The over-all effect is rude, if not contemptuous.”

I want to see that on TV.  It’s 2012 and the American public can’t watch the highest court in the land go to work on the most important issues of the day?