Now They Acknowledge the Lawsuits Against Obamacare Might Succeed

A very interesting thing happened over the Thanksgiving weekend.  All of a sudden, certain non-conservative media outlets-- and the Obama administration itself-- began to acknowledge the possibility that one of the various lawsuits against Obamacare might succeed.

Part of the basis for making this acknowledgement is the skeptical attitude adopted by a couple of district court judges when they were preliminarily looking at the issues raised by the legal challenges.

Let's see what happens.  But already the debate is focusing on severability-- an issue I had raised here eight months ago.  If the federal judiciary invalidates one part of Obamacare-- like the individual mandate to purchase health insurance-- is the whole enterprise overturned?

Comments

[michele]

OK, this may be a dumb question, but... with a new Republican-controlled House and more Republicans in the Senate, is there no way to say beep, beep, beep, back up the truck, we're not doing this whole Obamacare thing anymore?

[bubba]

"...is there no way to say beep, beep, beep, back up the truck, we're not doing this whole Obamacare thing anymore?"

That particular truck doesn't have a reverse gear. It can be done piece by piece, yes, but probably not in the whole, as long as Obama is President.

[michele]

Ugh. Wouldn't it be great if somebody in Washington could just press "delete" on the Obamacare button? And also, if unicorns were real?

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

" . . . beep, beep, beep, back up the truck". LOL! I LOVE that!

But, Michelle, you mean unicorns aren't real?

[Spag]

I haven't read the whole law, but the issue of severability is important. The Courts cannot presume that Congress intended the legislation to operate without each part unless the law so specified. On that basis, I think that if one provision of the law is Unconstitutional then the whole law will be struck down. The Court is not authorized to determine the workability of the bill if one of its parts are missing.

[Joe Guarino]

Sam, that would be great news if true. When I posted about this many months ago, it was on the basis of an interview on the Bill Bennett radio program with Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett. Corbett was absolutely convinced severability was going to be a major issue for Obamacare.

(BTW, Corbett has since been elected to be Pennsylvania's next Governor:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_707560.html )

[Joe Guarino]

Michele, the consensus seems to be that we will not be seeing the entire bugaboo enacted any time soon. It is unclear to me, however, how much of it the House Republicans can defang by defunding it.

[michele]

Thanks, Mary. ;)