“The way to frame a Supreme Court argument meant to persuade Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is to talk about liberty. It is his touchstone and guiding principle, and his conception of liberty is likely to determine the future of President Obama’s health care law,” according to the New York Times.
“If the administration is to prevail in the case, it must capture at least one vote beyond those of the court’s four more liberal justices, who are thought virtually certain to vote to uphold the law. The administration’s best hope is Justice Kennedy.
“The point was not lost on Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who concluded his defense of the law at the court this week with remarks aimed squarely at Justice Kennedy. Mr. Verrilli said there was “a profound connection” between health care and liberty.
“’There will be millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease,’ he said, ‘and as a result of the health care that they will get, they will be unshackled from the disabilities that those diseases put on them and have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty.’
“Paul D. Clement, representing 26 states challenging the law, had a comeback. ‘I would respectfully suggest,’ he said, ‘that it’s a very funny conception of liberty that forces somebody to purchase an insurance policy whether they want it or not.’
The rest of the article is here
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Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. may have single-handedly destroyed our last hope for universal health care in America. His arguments were HORRIBLE. He wasn’t even able to convince the court the difference between broccoli and health insurance.
Once again, the Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Despicable.
In order to pursue happiness, one must be healthy. It’s the basis of the Declaration of Independence when you really think about it…. ‘pursuit of happiness.’ We all know what we don’t have when ill or injured.
Each American should have equal access to health coverage. No American should be charged for it beyond what they are currently forking out. This is not a matter of Americans being “forced into liberty,’ this is a horrendous case of misallocation of funds. Take that damn military budget and cover the American’s people’s ass with it.
Exactly Reinette.
And as someone who has had to buy his insurance on the open market since 1997, my liberty is taken away when I have to subsidize both those whose health care is covered by tax-payer dollars–veterans, public employees (including ironically SCOTUS and the totally worthless US Congress)–and indigents who use the ER for their primary health care.
I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
Here’s a couple of comments from today’s Truthout article on Single Payer (http://bit.ly/H2Z04h) that take another tack at the problem:
“Can this fiasco get worse? Yes, at an exponential rate.
American Corporate Fascism is a runaway profit train, throwing off unwanted baggage (workers, the sick, the poor, children, elderly, disabled) to speed it (and its 1% luxury passengers) up further towards its inevitable train wreck. In the opulent bar car, the GOP and their legions of lobbyists toast their hoodwinking of the spineless Democrats who accepted their ‘Mandate’ in order to pass the Affordable Care Act, which guarantees record profits for the insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical technology industries at the expense of the least able to pay. Next stop, eliminating safety net to finance more wars abroad for oil.
Unfortunately, a monkey was the engineer for eight long years, and the brakes, the checks and balances written into the Constitution, are broken. The current SCOTUS circus has let the Fox News propaganda machine have the floor as a legitimate litigant. This train is out of control because one party is dirty and the other has no stomach for the necessary fight for what is right and the balancing body is not balanced at all.
Now, all three branches of government are utterly ruined by steaming corruption, inaction, and belching lies. We will see a spike in suicides and an exodus from America to saner countries by those who can pull it off, but most will continue to suffer in silence and die prematurely of easily treated ailments and injuries, just so much blood on the tracks. Life has become cheap, and lifestyles very dear in the USA.
Middle class, Main Street America is done for, and the SCOTUS and GOP take the tape at the finish line of the race to the bottom. And I’d like to thank the Democrats for sitting on the sidelines helplessly wringing their hands and doing nothing about it. Yep, that did the trick alright…/jackiemearound”
“We already have socialism in America. The 1% benefits form it all the time. Socialism exists for every congress member, with their healthcare…/la2002″