{"id":213,"date":"2012-03-29T19:34:02","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T23:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=213"},"modified":"2012-03-29T19:34:02","modified_gmt":"2012-03-29T23:34:02","slug":"213","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=213","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

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,\u00a0 it would have been nice if we could have at least seen<\/em><\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

Cameras are prohibited in the US Supreme Court.\u00a0 A few television reporters are allowed to sit in red benches on the left side of the courtroom but their news organizations can\u2019t show pictures of what goes on inside.\u00a0 That\u2019s because Chief Justice John Roberts and the conservative majority says so.\u00a0 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\u2019s business with the public.<\/p>\n

The person at home who wanted to learn how the landmark health care case was argued was limited to same-day audio access.\u00a0 C-SPAN ran the delayed tape on three successive nights.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I watched C-SPAN\u2019s presentation of Tuesday night\u2019s replay of day two\u2019s hearing.\u00a0 The focus that day was on the individual mandate contained in the law.\u00a0 It\u2019s not slated to kick in for a couple years, but it\u2019s the key mechanism of the \u201cAffordable Care Act.\u201d\u00a0 Without it, most of the rest of the law goes under.<\/p>\n

As it is now, those with health insurance bear substantial medical costs of the 40 million who don\u2019t have coverage.\u00a0 The Act gently forces the uninsured to get a policy.\u00a0 Risk would be spread.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really see how the mandate would be enforced for the millions living paycheck to paycheck, but let\u2019s just assume that component of the law worked effectively.\u00a0 That requirement seems like a concept Republicans would totally embrace.\u00a0 It\u2019s cutting out the freebie.\u00a0 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?\u00a0 I don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t get the role reversal but that\u2019s what this whole thing has become.\u00a0 Opponents call the law \u201cObamacare\u201d when in fact it was molded, watered-down and ultimately adopted by both chambers of Congress.<\/p>\n

When Justice Anthony Kennedy (considered to be the swing vote) trumpeted the High Court\u2019s long tradition of barring the government from telling individual citizens that they must perform \u201can affirmative act,\u201d you got the sense this case was all over.<\/p>\n

Scalia, Roberts and Alito all were downright hostile to the reasoning of the US government\u2019s top legal representative.\u00a0 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\u2019s acting out along party lines.<\/p>\n

Personally, I can\u2019t 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m way beyond burning about everything coming down to blue and red.\u00a0 I just want to see it on TV.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Justice Thomas hasn\u2019t asked a single question during oral arguments in seven years!\u00a0 He has said outside court he doesn\u2019t want to get in the way of the lawyers making their cases.\u00a0 But if you listen to oral arguments at all, you\u2019d know participation by the bench is crucial.\u00a0 It\u2019s how right and wrong is sorted out and it\u2019s the only way lawyer-speak gets cut through in favor of substantive exploration and application of relevant case law.\u00a0 Justice Ginsberg is especially engaged without being overbearing in this respect.<\/p>\n

For Thomas to never – ever – say a thing – during oral arguments is something I would like to see on TV.\u00a0 A Jeff Toobin profile on Thomas<\/a> last year is helpful understanding what it most look like.\u00a0 Said Toobin:\u00a0 \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

I want to see that on TV.\u00a0 It\u2019s 2012 and the American public can\u2019t watch the highest court in the land go to work on the most important issues of the day?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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,\u00a0 it would have been nice if … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[39,40],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s28tEv-213","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}