By Dave Andrusko
The United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court today agreed to hear a challenge to ObamaCare, focusing on the lawsuit brought by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, opening the strong possibility that the Justices will hand down a decision on President Obama’s “signature domestic issue” around the time the two major political parties hold their national conventions.
As a barometer of the complexity of the “Affordable Care Act,” the Justices have allotted a whopping 5 ½ hours for oral arguments. The longest segment—two hours—will be devoted to the “individual mandate,” the highly controversial requirement that virtually every American obtain health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty.
Another hour and a half will be devoted to how much (some, all) of ObamaCare must fall if the mandate is declared unconstitutional. Another hour will allow the Justices to address a threshold question of whether the High Court can rule until the mandate goes into effect in 2014 (because of the Anti-Injunction Act.)
The final sixty minutes is allotted to the law’s expansion of Medicaid, “which the states claim is an unlawful coercion by the federal government since they must expand the program or drop out completely,” according to POLITICO.
White House Communications Director Dan Feiffer issued a statement, saying, “We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.” National Federation of Independent Businesses’ Karen Harned also gave the decision to proceed a thumbs-up, saying in a statement, “We are confident in the strength of our case and hopeful that we will ultimately prevail.”
The decision to grapple with ObamaCare was expected, given that all parties wanted the issues addressed and because there were conflicting opinions from court courts of appeal.
Two circuit courts of appeals declared ObamaCare constitutional—the 6th and the District of Columbia. One deemed it unconstitutional—the 11th circuit–while one (the 4th circuit) said until someone was forced to pay the penalty for not purchasing insurance, a challenge could not be brought.
From a pro-life perspective, there are multiple abortion-expanding provisions of ObamaCare. (See in an October 6 letter to the House of Representatives and in testimony by Legislative Director Douglas Johnson at www.nrlc.org/AHC/ProtectLifeActDouglasJohnsonTestimony.pdf) It is those abortion-expanding provisions that the Protect Life Act, passed by the House October 13, are intended to remedy.
Specifically, ObamaCare includes provisions that “provide authorizations for subsidies for abortion, both implicit and explicit, and also multiple provisions that opened doors to abortion-expanding administrative actions.” The Protect Life Act would prohibit the use of any ObamaCare-authorized funds for abortions or to subsidize health plans that cover abortions, except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest.
There are also provisions in ObamaCare that virtually guarantee rationing, (See http://www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/Index.html)
Your feedback is very important to improving National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha