Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Phony Tough

Now I don't trust Anthony Kennedy to get anything right, never mind vote to strike down Obamacare (personally I doubt he will), but the Florida decision seems to have put the fear of the Constitution in Ezra Klein's heart.  Klein argues that if Obamacare is struck down, liberals will then try to destroy the private health insurance industry and establish single-payer and boy, conservatives will then be sorry for making liberals mad.  Oh no!  Liberals politicians running in marginal constituencies will have to be more honest about their radical policy goals!  Listen tough guy.  We know what you are up to and it works to our advantage rather than yours to have the general public be aware what you are up to.  That doesn't mean you won't win anyway, but the more honest you have to be, the better the odds for our side.  I know you are frustrated and nervous.

Good.

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Discussions - 3 Comments

Ditto. This post is spot on. You can always tell who has the better argument by who is and who is not inclined to push for clarity.

And notice how his path to nearly-single payer and nearly no private health insurance, would be to expand Medicare to everyone over 45 and SChip to all children, i.e., a law or set of laws which would be, whether you're for or against, BLINDINGLY EASY TO UNDERSTAND compared to the murky labyrinth that is Obamacare.

Citizen R: "I'm against the monstrosity that is Obamacare!"

Citizen D: "It's not a monstrosity! It insures the uninsured!"

Citizen X: "But what does it actually do? What actually concretely happens as a result of the bill?"

Citizens R and D: "err...uh...(various half-remembered gobbledy-gook about various agencies and purchasing blocks tossed around here) ...to be honest, we don't really know, beyond our parties' respective talking points."

But that's why Citizen R is ultimately right about Obamacare being a monstrosity. It is virtually incomprehensible, and thus requires us all to trust guys like Ezra Klein, but less honest.

What happens if the individual mandate is held unconstitutional, but the supreme court holds that this is severable(perhaps because Obama switches tact and argues it is).

Then you got rid of the individual mandate and the adminstrative agencies are tasked via authority in the mandate statute with making informal rules to piece the thing together to try to accomplish the original intent of the authors by constitutional means.

Pelosi: Well when we passed it we knew we would have to wait a while to see what it looked like, we just kind of assumed we would have a better idea, but the conservatives run the courts and two opinions full of judicial activism have taken the issue away from we the people.

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