Educate Yourself – by Ken Adachi
Keith Howe sent me a link to a short comment posted to Rumor Mill News on Oct. 8 from a reader named ‘Maryhrt’ who provided a link to the (193 page) June 28, 2012, Supreme Court Ruling on the constitutionality of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare. The ruling is cited as 567 U.S.__2012. People should take the time to download this ruling and read it in its entirety.
There is a 6 page “Syllabus” (reproduced at the bottom of this article) that precedes the ruling which summarizes the Supreme Court’s ruling on the two most contested sections of the Affordable Care Act: the Medicaid ‘expansion’ provision and the individual mandate. The Supreme Court was responding to an earlier decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled that the Medicaid expansion requirement was constitutional, but the individual mandate was not. Oddly, the Supreme Court reversed each of those findings:
1. They ruled the Medicaid ‘expansion’ requirement was unconstitutional and could only be entered into by each individual state on a voluntary basis, and
2. the individual mandate, which requires non exempt Americans to either have health insurance coverage or pay a ‘shared responsibility payment,’ was ruled constitutional, but only if the shared responsibility payment is viewed as a “tax” and not as a penalty. Page 4 of the Syllabus:
“… the individual mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power under the Taxing Clause. “
Naturally, the commie, sellout rats who voted for Obamacare, led by Pelosi and Reid, labeled the shared responsibility payment a “penalty” in the Affordable Care Act, and not a “tax.”
Whenever the Supreme Court errs in its decisions and violates the constraints of the U.S. Constitution, as it had done in 1847 in the Dred Scott case, or more recently in the Bush/Gore 2000 election decision, they will explain away their unsupportable decisions with the most elegant of contrived language (more commonly identified in saloons across America as “Pure Buls…”). The Chief Justice’s reasoning for ruling that the individual mandate requirement was constitutional, is such an example of erudite-sounding, but wholly vacuous and specious judgment. You can read Chief Justice Roberts contrived and elegant reasoning in Part III-B and Part III-C, found on pages 3 and 4 of the Syllabus (of course, the real reason for the Chief Justice arriving at the moronic conclusion that the individual mandate requirement was ‘constitutional’ was because Rockefeller wanted Obamacare passed, no matter what. And whatever Rockefeller wants in America, Rockefeller gets in America. But shhhh.., that ‘s a secret. We are expected to accept without question the unassailable character, the high ethical standing, and unimpeachable honor of the blacked robed Titans of the American Judicial system).
However, there are some redeeming elements in Chief Justice Roberts comments in Part III-B and Part III-C that I would like to draw your attention to.
Since contorted logic forced Justice Roberts to identify the shared responsibility payment as a constitutional “tax”, then
“...the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation.” (pg. 4 Syllabus).
A Feb. 3, 2012 article posted at Henry Makow’s web site described federal income tax collection as
“…a voluntary contractual process used in merchant law and not common law. The result is that IRS taxation is a voluntary contractual process between consenting parties and cannot be compelled on an individual. “ End quote.
(While the wording does say the process is voluntary, the government often goes out of its way to railroad into prison any guru who gets up on a national soapbox to inform the public of that fact. Elderly Irwin Schiff was convicted in Las Vegas federal court a few years ago and is still languishing in prison. Larkin Rose also spent about a year in prison for daring to speak the truth about the nature of income tax collection.
But there are also success stories in confronting the IRS in court on the voluntary issue — and winning. According to Peymon Mottahedeh of the Freedom Law School in Phelan, California(http://www.livefreenow.org/), you have a 400% greater chance of going to prison as a result of filing a 1040 Income Tax “confession”, versus those who do not file a 1040 income tax “confession.” )
In the June 28, 2012 ruling, Chief Justice Roberts also states that those who choose not to pay for private insurance coverage or the shared responsibility payment cannot be viewed as lawbreakers.
Page 4 of the Syllabus, Part III-C, subsection (b) reads:
“None of this is to say that [the shared responsibility] payment is not intended to induce the purchase of health insurance. But the mandate need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Affordable Care Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. And Congress’s choice of language—stating that individuals “shall” obtain insurance or pay a “penalty”—does not require reading §5000A as punishing unlawful conduct. “
Justice Roberts ruling seems to affirm in the same breath about ” …requiring a payment to the IRS,” but simultaneously tells you that you cannot be found guilty of “… punishing unlawful conduct” if you fail to buy health insurance or pay the shared responsibility payment. Therefore, it doesn’t look like there are any “negative legal consequences” for NOT signing up for Obamacare.
This discovery doesn’t mean that we should forget about defunding Obamacare. The unconstitutional CommieCare Act needs to be repealed entirely, just like the Patriot Act needs to be repealed, but defunding CommieCare is a good start.
Ken Adachi
© Copyright 2013 Educate-Yourself.org All Rights Reserved.
Syllabus
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as isbeing done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has beenprepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT
BUSINESS ET AL. v. SEBELIUS, SECRETARY OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 11–393. Argued March 26, 27, 28, 2012—Decided June 28, 2012*
In 2010, Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable CareAct in order to increase the number of Americans covered by health insurance and decrease the cost of health care. One key provision isthe individual mandate, which requires most Americans to maintain“minimum essential” health insurance coverage. 26 U. S. C. §5000A.For individuals who are not exempt, and who do not receive health insurance through an employer or government program, the means of satisfying the requirement is to purchase insurance from a private company. Beginning in 2014, those who do not comply with the mandate must make a “[s]hared responsibility payment” to the Fed eral Government. §5000A(b)(1). The Act provides that this “penalty”will be paid to the Internal Revenue Service with an individual’s tax es, and “shall be assessed and collected in the same manner” as tax penalties. §§5000A(c), (g)(1).Another key provision of the Act is the Medicaid expansion. The current Medicaid program offers federal funding to States to assist pregnant women, children, needy families, the blind, the elderly, and the disabled in obtaining medical care. 42 U. S. C. §1396d(a). The Affordable Care Act expands the scope of the Medicaid program and increases the number of individuals the States must cover.
——————
*Together with No. 11–398, Department of Health and Human Ser vices et al. v. Florida et al., and No. 11–400, Florida et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
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For example, the Act requires state programs to provide Medicaid coverage by 2014 to adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal pov erty level, whereas many States now cover adults with children only if their income is considerably lower, and do not cover childless adults at all. §1396a(a)(10)(A)(i)(VIII). The Act increases federal funding tocover the States’ costs in expanding Medicaid coverage. §1396d(y)(1).But if a State does not comply with the Act’s new coverage require ments, it may lose not only the federal funding for those require ments, but all of its federal Medicaid funds. §1396c.
Twenty-six States, several individuals, and the National Federation of Independent Business brought suit in Federal District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the Medicaid expansion as a valid exercise of Congress’s spending power, but concluded that Congress lacked authority to en act the individual mandate. Finding the mandate severable from theAct’s other provisions, the Eleventh Circuit left the rest of the Act intact.
Held: The judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part.
648 F. 3d 1235, affirmed in part and reversed in part.
1. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part II, concluding that the Anti-Injunction Act does not bar this suit.
The Anti-Injunction Act provides that “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be main tained in any court by any person,” 26 U. S. C. §7421(a), so that thosesubject to a tax must first pay it and then sue for a refund. The present challenge seeks to restrain the collection of the shared responsibility payment from those who do not comply with the individual mandate. But Congress did not intend the payment to be treated asa “tax” for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Affordable Care Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label cannot control whether the payment is a tax for purposes of the Con stitution, but it does determine the application of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act therefore does not bar this suit. Pp. 11–
15.
2. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS concluded in Part III–A that the individual mandate is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Pp. 16–30.
(a) The Constitution grants Congress the power to “regulate Commerce.” Art. I, §8, cl. 3 (emphasis added). The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated. This Court’s precedent reflects this understanding: As expansive as this Court’s cases construing the scope of the commerce
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power have been, they uniformly describe the power as reaching “activity.” E.g., United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 560. The individual mandate, however, does not regulate existing commercial activity. It instead compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product, on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce.
Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority. Congress already possesses expansive power to regulate what people do. Upholding the Affordable Care Act under the Commerce Clause would give Congress the same license to regulate what people do not do. The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it. Ignoring that distinction would undermine the principle that the Federal Government is a government of limited and enumerated powers. The individual mandate thus cannot be sustained under Congress’s power to “regulate Commerce.” Pp. 16–27.
- (b)
- Nor can the individual mandate be sustained under the Necessary and Proper Clause as an integral part of the Affordable Care Act’s other reforms. Each of this Court’s prior cases upholding laws under that Clause involved exercises of authority derivative of, and in service to, a granted power. E.g., United States v. Comstock, 560
- U.
- S. ___. The individual mandate, by contrast, vests Congress with the extraordinary ability to create the necessary predicate to the exercise of an enumerated power and draw within its regulatory scope those who would otherwise be outside of it. Even if the individual mandate is “necessary” to the Affordable Care Act’s other reforms, such an expansion of federal power is not a “proper” means for making those reforms effective. Pp. 27–30.
3. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS concluded in Part III–B that the individual mandate must be construed as imposing a tax on those who do not have health insurance, if such a construction is reasonable.
The most straightforward reading of the individual mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance. But, for the reasons explained, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress that power. It is therefore necessary to turn to the Government’s alternative argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power to “lay and collect Taxes.” Art. I, §8, cl. 1. In pressing its taxing power argument, the Government asks the Court to view the mandate as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product. Because “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order tos ave a statute from unconstitutionality,” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657, the question is whether it is “fairly possible” to inter
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pret the mandate as imposing such a tax, Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62. Pp. 31–32.
4. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part III–C, concluding that the individual mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power under the Taxing Clause. Pp. 33–
44.
(a) The Affordable Care Act describes the “[s]hared responsibility payment” as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act. It does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s power to tax. In answering that constitutional question, this Court follows a functional approach,“[d]isregarding the designation of the exaction, and viewing its sub stance and application.” United States v. Constantine, 296 U. S. 287, 294. Pp. 33–35.
- (b)
- Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax. The payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not limited to willful violations, as penalties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation. Cf. Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U. S. 20, 36–37. None of this is to say that pay ment is not intended to induce the purchase of health insurance. But the mandate need not be read to declare that failing to do so is un lawful. Neither the Affordable Care Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. And Congress’s choice of language—stating that individuals “shall” obtain insurance or pay a “penalty”—does not require reading §5000A as punishing unlawful conduct. It may also be read as imposing a tax on those who go without insurance. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 169–174. Pp. 35–40.
- (c)
- Even if the mandate may reasonably be characterized as a tax, it must still comply with the Direct Tax Clause, which provides:“No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” Art. I, §9, cl. 4. A tax on going without health insurance is not like a capitation or other direct tax under this Court’s precedents. It therefore need not be apportioned so that each State pays in proportion to its population. Pp. 40–41.
5. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, joined by JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE KAGAN, concluded in Part IV that the Medicaid expansion violates the Constitution by threatening States with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they decline to comply with the expansion. Pp. 45–58.
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Syllabus
- (a)
- The Spending Clause grants Congress the power “to pay the Debts and provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States.” Art. I, §8, cl. 1. Congress may use this power to establish cooperative state-federal Spending Clause programs. The legitimacy of Spending Clause legislation, however, depends on whether a State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of such programs. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 17. “[T]he Constitution simply does not give Congress the authority to require the States to regulate.” New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 178. When Congress threatens to terminate other grants as a means of pressuring the States to accept a Spending Clause program, the legislation runs counter to this Nation’s system of federalism. Cf. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203, 211. Pp. 45–51.
- (b)
- Section 1396c gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to penalize States that choose not to participate in the Medicaid expansion by taking away their existing Medicaid fund ing. 42 U. S. C. §1396c. The threatened loss of over 10 percent of a State’s overall budget is economic dragooning that leaves the States with no real option but to acquiesce in the Medicaid expansion. The Government claims that the expansion is properly viewed as only a modification of the existing program, and that this modification ispermissible because Congress reserved the “right to alter, amend, orrepeal any provision” of Medicaid. §1304. But the expansion accomplishes a shift in kind, not merely degree. The original program was designed to cover medical services for particular categories of vulner able individuals. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid is transformed into a program to meet the health care needs of the entire nonelderly population with income below 133 percent of the poverty level. A State could hardly anticipate that Congress’s reservation of the right to “alter” or “amend” the Medicaid program included the power to transform it so dramatically. The Medicaid expansion thus violates the Constitution by threatening States with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they decline to comply with the expansion. Pp. 51–55.
- (c)
- The constitutional violation is fully remedied by precluding the Secretary from applying §1396c to withdraw existing Medicaid funds for failure to comply with the requirements set out in the ex pansion. See §1303. The other provisions of the Affordable Care Act are not affected. Congress would have wanted the rest of the Act to stand, had it known that States would have a genuine choice whetherto participate in the Medicaid expansion. Pp. 55–58.
6. JUSTICE GINSBURG, joined by JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, is of the view that the Spending Clause does not preclude the Secretary from with holding Medicaid funds based on a State’s refusal to comply with the
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expanded Medicaid program. But given the majority view, she agrees with THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s conclusion in Part IV–B that the Medicaid Act’s severability clause, 42 U. S. C. §1303, determines the appropriate remedy. Because THE CHIEF JUSTICE finds the withholding—not the granting—of federal funds incompatible with the Spending Clause, Congress’ extension of Medicaid remains available to any State that affirms its willingness to participate. Even absent §1303’s command, the Court would have no warrant to invalidate the funding offered by the Medicaid expansion, and surely no basis to tear down the ACA in its entirety. When a court confronts an unconstitutional statute, its endeavor must be to conserve, not destroy, the legislation. See, e.g., Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New Eng., 546
U. S. 320, 328–330. Pp. 60–61.
ROBERTS, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III–C, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined; an opinion with respect to Part IV, in which BREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined; and an opinion with respect to Parts III–A, III–B, and III–D. GINSBURG, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part,and dissenting in part, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined, and in which BREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined as to Parts I, II, III, and IV. SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., filed a dissenting opinion. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/obamaccaresupremecourtruling10oct13.shtml
Sent to us by the author.