por admin » Mar Mar 27, 2012 1:14 pm
Los jueces conservadores en la Corte Suprema retaron al gobierno sobre la la ley del seguro de salud.
Los cinco jueces conservadores de la corte suprema cuestionaron insistentemente a la administracion Obama y sus argumentos por la ley del seguro de salud, el juez Anthony Kennedy llegando a decir que el gobierno de Obama tiene "una carga muy pesada al tratar de justificar la ley" al requerir que todos compren en seguro de salud y de no hacerlo paguen una multa.
Los jueces preguntaron por que la Constitucion autoriza al congreso a obligar a todos a tener el seguro.
Como en las otras cortes mas bajas, el gobierno de Obama tuvo problemas para delinear el principio que limitaria al Congreso a requerir a todos los americanos que hagan otras compras similares en el futuro. El Jefe de la Corte Suprema John Roberts dijo que si la corte aprobaba ese mandato, seria dificil ponerle limites al Congreso.
Se le daria al Congreso la autoridad para obligar a los individuos a comprar otras cosas tambien.
El juez Kennedy dijo que el mandato cambiaria de manera fundamental la relacion entre los individuos y el gobierno, mostrando escepticimo acerca del argumento del gobierno de que el mandato seguiria la autoridad bien establecida del Congreso ante La clausula de Comercio de la Constitucion.
Los jueces A. Scalia y Samuel Alito tambien atacaron al gobierno al pedirle que explicara los limites del principio del mandato del seguro. Ellos preguntaron si el gobierno podria tambien requerur que la gente tenga seguro para un funeral o para comprar alimentos.
El juez Roberts comparo el seguro de saludo con los servicios de la poilcia y de los bomberos, donde la gente no sabe que va a necesitarlos hasta que se presenta una emergencia. El pregunto si se le deberia exigir a las personas a tener un celular para poder llamar a emergencia (911) mas rapido.
El juez Alito fue el mas explicito en su escepticimos respecto a que el seguro de salud obligatorio cambiaria el costo del servicio de salud, pensando que si las personas mas jovenes estarian subsidiando los servicios que se le dan a las personas de mayor edad.
En la segunda sesion, el juez Roberts y el juez Kennedy preguntaron lo mismo sugiriendo un nivel de simpatia con la administracion Obama y su defensa mientras Scalia y Alito no dijeron nada que pudiera ser interpretado a favor del gobierno de Obama.
Los 26 estaados que han demandado al gobierno de Obama, ven la obligatoriedad del seguro de salud como una intrusion a la libertad individual sin precedentes. Ellos dicen que el Congreso no puede usar sus poderes de comercio entre estados para regular a individuos que eligen no participar en el mercado de seguro de salud.
Se espera una decision en Junio.
Conservative Justices Challenge Government Over Health Law
By LOUISE RADNOFSKY, BRENT KENDALL and JESS BRAVIN
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court's five conservative justices on Tuesday sharply challenged the Obama administration's arguments for the health-care law, with Justice Anthony Kennedy saying the government has a "very heavy burden of justification" for the law's requirement that people carry health insurance or pay a penalty.
The conservative justices fired a barrage of questions at the government's lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, asking him to explain why the Constitution authorizes Congress to enact the insurance mandate.
As in lower courts, the federal government on Tuesday struggled to outline a workable principle that would limit the ability of Congress to require people to make other kinds of purchases in the future. Chief Justice John Roberts said that if the court approved of the mandate, it may be hard to set limits.
"All bets are off," Chief Justice Roberts said.
Justice Kennedy said the mandate would change the relationship between the government and individuals in a "fundamental way," showing skepticism toward Mr. Verrilli's argument that the mandate follows Congress's well-established authority under the Constitution's Commerce Clause.
The court was holding two hours of argument Tuesday morning on the mandate, the centerpiece of the challenge to the Obama health-care law.
.Two liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, weighed in repeatedly to counter skeptical questions from the court's conservatives.
Justice Ginsburg cited a brief filed to the court suggesting that those who go without health insurance raise costs for other consumers. Health care is different from other products, she suggested, because uninsured people are passing their costs to others.
"When disaster strikes, you may not have the money," Justice Ginsburg said.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito also challenged Mr. Verrilli to explain the limiting principle for the insurance mandate. They asked whether the government could also require people to carry funeral insurance or buy food.
Chief Justice Roberts compared health insurance to fire and police services, which people don't know that they're going to need until an emergency. He asked whether people could be required to carry cellphones to dial 911 faster.
Mr. Verrilli, consistently playing defense, argued that Congress was regulating the health-care market in which people were already participating, rather than breaking new ground by forcing them to buy a product.
Responding to Justice Alito's question about funeral insurance, Mr. Verrilli said that example was "completely different" because if a family can't afford a funeral, the costs aren't shifted to other people.
Justice Alito was the most openly skeptical about the idea that the mandate would stop cost-shifting, wondering if in fact it forces young healthy people "to subsidize services that will be received by somebody else."
In the second half of the session, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy asked some questions that suggested a level of sympathy with the Obama administration's defense, while justices Scalia and Alito said hardly anything that could be interpreted as favorable to the government.
Justice Kennedy wavered over the assertion that in health care, a bright line could be drawn between those engaged in commerce and those staying wholly outside the market.
A large crowd of people protesting, and supporting, the health care overhaul descended Monday on the Supreme Court, which is deciding whether the law is constitutional. WSJ's Neil Hickey reports the people had a variety of reasons for being there.
."Most questions in life are matters of degree," Justice Kennedy said. The younger, healthier Americans the law seeks to drive into the risk pool are "uniquely proximate" to affecting insurance rates, he said.
The law's challengers, including a group of 26 Republican-led states, view the insurance requirement as an unprecedented intrusion on individual liberty. They say Congress can't use its interstate-commerce powers to regulate citizens who choose not to participate in the health-insurance market.
The Obama administration argues the insurance mandate is a valid way to address a national crisis in which the uninsured impose huge costs on the U.S. health-care system. It also says the provision is an essential part of the law's insurance overhaul, which require insurers to accept all prospective customers, even if they have pre-existing medical conditions.
Two lawyers representing the challengers were set to respond before the court. Paul Clement, a former solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration, was arguing on behalf of the state challengers. Michael Carvin of the Jones Day law firm was representing the National Federation of Independent Business and a group of individuals challenging the law.
How the court's five-justice conservative majority receives Tuesday's arguments will be crucial to the outcome of the case.
Lower courts have issued conflicting rulings on whether the health-care law's individual insurance mandate is constitutional. During those earlier court proceedings, two well-known conservative appellate judges joined rulings for the Obama administration.
The Supreme Court is hearing three days of oral arguments on the law. During initial arguments Monday, the justices sent clear signals that they believe they can rule on the health-care overhaul now. They appeared skeptical of arguments that courts can't consider challenges to the insurance mandate until after the penalties go into effect in 2014.
On Wednesday, the court will consider whether the rest of the health-care overhaul can remain intact if the insurance mandate is ruled invalid. The law's challengers are seeking to void the entire law, while the Obama administration argues that most of the law's provisions aren't connected to the mandate and should remain in place even if the insurance requirement is struck down. The court will also consider the states' legal attack against the health-care law's expansion of Medicaid, a federal-state partnership that provides health care to low-income Americans. Lower courts ruled for the Obama administration on this issue.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.