Scalia is a Scoundrel

Yes, and as I pointed out the bill originated in the House and is therefore constitutional.

So the senate or the president or the boy scouts can write revenue raising bills if SCOTUS says its constitutional?

He's confused; if te mandate is not there the ACA is toast because only sick people will sign up for insurance (no pre-existing conditions, remember).of course it's not quite that bad but it will skew the distribution far towards the elderly and ill.

Link?

Perhaps, although the question has not arisen. Seems unlikely.But you are missing the fact that the ACA originated in the House. "Unconstitutional because it stared in the Senate" is false and SCOTUS has not been asked to rule on that. If the Republicans thought they had a chance of killing it by suing on "started in the Senate" grounds they'd lose at the first level and it'd never get to the Supremes. That's why they haven't tried it.

Affordable Care Act - Wikipedia (see under Legislative History). The Right Strikes Back: A New Legal Challenge for Obamacare:

quote:

---

Well, there are a few problems. The PLF press release emphasizes the first part of the Origination Clause but not the last part, which says that "the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills." That language is the very reason why the Senate uses shell bills. In fact, the Senate has used shell bills on a number of occasions for major tax legislation. An example is the 1986 tax act, signed by Ronald Reagan.

​

The House has the power to enforce the Origination Clause if it wants to. If the House doesn't like what the Senate has done, it can return a bill to the Senate with a "blue slip" -- a memorandum that was traditionally printed on blue paper -- to indicate to the Senate that it thinks that the Senate has violated the Origination Clause. Or it can simply refuse to take up the Senate bill. The health care bill was not blue-slipped; the House leadership raised no objections.

​

...

​

But the PLF has to prove more than this to win its case. It has to show that the Senate can't amend a House bill that raises revenue and substitute a different bill on a different subject. The Supreme Court's cases, however, say that the Senate can do precisely that.

​

In Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. in 1911, the Senate took a House tariff bill with an inheritance tax, jettisoned the inheritance tax, and substituted the nation's first corporate income tax. The Court said that was perfectly fine: "The bill having properly originated in the House, we perceive no reason in the constitutional provision relied upon why it may not be amended in the Senate in the manner which it was in this case. The amendment was germane to the subject-matter of the bill, and not beyond the power of the Senate to propose." The Court didn't explain why the addition of a corporate income tax was germane to a tariff bill or to an inheritance tax, other than the fact that all three were provisions "for raising Revenue" under the meaning of the Constitution.

---

But it went nowhere. They lost, appealed, lost to a three judge panel, appealed for an en banc hearing which was denied.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

If the SCOTUS says something is Constitutional then by definition it is Constitutional.But that of course is totally irrelevant in this case since the bill originated in the House.

It's hardly likely, is it?But, you know, someone has to decide what's constitutional. The Constitution puts that power, ultimately, in the hands of the Supreme Court. Where else would you like it to reside in this case? In the hands of the President --- who signed the ACA into law? In the hands of Congress --- which voted for it? No, that doesn't work. Hey, how about if we leave the final decision to talking heads on Fox News? Well, that might give you the result you want, but you'll have to amend the Constitution first.

As Dr. Adequate pointed out, the technicality regarding origination was accommodated during the enactment process.But more to the point, your claim was that the bill was passed based on mere politics versus law. My rebuttal is that the liberal justices did not call the penalty a tax and that your remarks and reasoning are inapplicable to them. On the other hand, Roberts did not rely on the Commerce Clause, but on General Welfare Clause. I agree that Roberts reasoning is weaker than that of the 4 other Justices who voted for the bill. On the other hand, accusations of more reasonable leveled at those Justices who did not see the connection to Interstate Commerce. What's up with that?

That particular ship sailed over 200 years ago. Sorry if I cannot whip on any sympathy for your point of view. Let me suggest that a situation in which disputes continue endlessly with no possible resolution is certainly worse. Perhaps it is the concentration on just a few recent cases in which conservatives did not get their way despite having a 5-4 home field advantage on the Court indicates that conservative expectations are unreasonable.

It was introduced by Charles Range as a housing bill. The Republicans didn't know it was a bait and switch? It was imported into the ACA and passed by the Senate? When sold to the house, the mandate was bought by the gullible as a penalty and not a tax? Who are the scoundrels now?

Lol! This is pure hate speaking. Of course it was well known that some bill would be used for this purpose.There is nothing wrong with the tactic of working around the formality of having the bill introduced by the House. It has been used before to pass Republican initiated bills. Only the idea that you don't like the ACA and would like some way to invalidate the act makes the workaround appear nefarious to you.

Huh? What's the difference? They were told: to enforce the mandate, people who don't have health insurance will have to pay such-and-such an amount of money. No, they weren't told that Justice Roberts would call it a tax four years later, possibly because the people who drafted the bill weren't clairvoyant. They did, however, know exactly the effect the bill would have. They would have known that if Roberts had subsequently called it a cantaloupe or a walrus. Here's the section of the ACA in question. It seems clear enough. Also, it contains 48 instances of such words as "tax", "taxpayer", "taxable", etc.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

It wasn't bait and switch. There was no plot to hijack that particular bill. They just looked for a convenient bill already filed that wasn't going anywhere and replaced its contents with the Air.This is SOP and common.Since the bill was not the same as what the House passed, the House could have done any of several things to block it and force a conference or new House vote.They did not.That's how the system works.This is not at all unusual. It's been used by both sides for well over a century. It is in accordance with the Constitution.

Hate? Where do you get that? I am simply calling it as I see it and understand it. I'm not the one calling Scalia scoundrel. The shenanigans that were used to get a tax passed under the guise of a mandate smells to high heavens to me. If this kind of game is routine and done by both sides.....well no wonder people don't trust Washington. Who exactly do I hate? I must have missed something.Edited by foreveryoung, : No reason given.