Activist Republican Justices and the Affordable Care Act

If the Affordable Health Care Act is declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court we will be able to say that Republican justices intervened to decide a Presidential election, overturned long-standing congressional campaign finance legislation in favor of its own twisted conception of democracy, and served up a half-baked interpretation of more than fifty years of commerce clause precedent in order to invalidate congressional legislation that had been a significant goal of the Democratic Party for many decades.  Republicans claim to be apostles of judicial restraint while accusing Democrats of being judicial activists. If the Affordable Health Care Act is overturned, the Court will properly be accused of implementing a partisan ideology. It will become impossible to suggest with a straight face that this partisan court is guided by notions of judicial restraint. Its reputation will be forever sealed in the court of history.

Perhaps this fact is the best hope for the Affordable Care Act.   

Comments

[Jimbino]

Which is why SCOTUS will only declare the individual mandate unconstitutional and let the greater part of Obamacare die by common sense and the Death Spiral.

Then Congress could solve the nation's healthcare problem by eliminating employer tax deductions for health benefits and by eliminating certification of healthcare takers (so-called "givers"), as Milton Friedman advocated, letting Walmart take over medical care altogether.