Round one

So you didn’t get one of the approximately 170 seats in the Supreme Court for yesterday’s opening hearing on the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  Well, I didn’t either but I did get to talk to someone who was in the Chamber.

Elizabeth Wydra is the chief counsel for the Constitutional Accountability Center.  She practices before the Supreme Court and was seated in in the exclusive Well of the Court restricted to members of the Supreme Court bar. 

I talked with Ms. Wydra on my radio show yesterday afternoon.  You can hear her take on Monday’s proceeding here.  She’ll be back on my show today at 5:44 EST to give her timely assessment of the arguments on the constitutionality of the individual mandate and which side she thinks scored the best points. 

So what do Ms. Wydra’s fellow Supreme Court-practicing attorneys and former Supreme Court clerks think will be the final Court ruling?  A poll released yesterday showed that almost 75% agreed that the Court would make a ruling this year and not wait until 2015 (yesterday’ issue).  The good news for ACA supporters is that 65% thought that Supreme Court would uphold the constitutionality of the individual mandate and 81% said that the Medicaid expansion (Wednesday’s issue) would also be upheld. 

You can listen to my interview with Ms. Wydra live by clicking here.

Be careful what you wish for

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide possibly today that it will take up the Florida case opposing national health care reform—the Affordable Care Act or as it is now commonly called “Obamacare”.   Everyone expects that that the Court will rule in 2012 whether the individual mandate for almost every American to purchase health insurance is constitutional. 

The opponents of the law have been clamoring for the Supreme Court to rule as quickly as possible that the mandate is unconstitutional in hopes that Congress will then have to kill off the whole healthcare law or at least make the issue the center piece of the 2012 elections.  But now that they are going to get the first part of their wish, legal analysis of a recent District Court ruling indicates that they might not get the second part. 

Bruce Brown writes in The New Republic that the D.C. Circuit Court opinion “provides the most authoritative, truly conservative defense of the Act thus far, a defense that should buttress the legal position of the Obamba administration before the Supreme Court next year.”

The worry of the opponents is that their favorite conservative Justices won’t share their partisan spirit in their decision.   If that happens, the Republican Presidential candidate won’t be able to claim that because part of the law is unconstitutional then it must be rescinded or that the election should be about nominating more conservative Justices. 

I can’t wait to hear what the new spin will be.