Supreme Court watchers are parsing every word the justices uttered this week, trying to predict which way the court will vote on the Obama health law.
But if the Court votes to uphold the law's mandatory health insurance, that ruling will turn on a lie.
The Obama administration's lawyers argued that all Americans consume healthcare, therefore they are engaged in health commerce, so Congress can use its commerce power to compel them to buy insurance.
The premise — that all Americans consume healthcare — is false. Yet it was repeated over and over during the oral arguments in the high court, and virtually no one challenged it.
The truth is half of Americans consume virtually no healthcare. That fact proved decisive to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the only federal appeals court to reject the false claim that all Americans consume healthcare and the only federal appeals court to strike down the individual mandate.
No comments:
Post a Comment