
Texas Judge Strikes Down Obama’s Affordable Care Act as Unconstitutional - jbegley
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/health/obamacare-unconstitutional-texas-judge.html
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panarky
Every day it makes less sense for the 326 million US citizens to remain under
a single government.

40% want European-style social democracy, and a different 40% want radical
individualism and severely limited collective action a la the Wild West.

These can't coexist.

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benjohnson
Perhaps the two could co-exist by making the social programs voluntary. Those
that commit to it can, and those that want no part of it can stay out.

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panarky
Most social programs are like insurance. You pay in when you don't need it,
and it's there for you when you do need it.

When my kids were young and I was poor, other people paid for their schooling.
Now the kids are out of school, but I'm paying for public schools for other
kids.

If you make social programs voluntary, then people join when they need it and
quit when they don't.

That's why you can't buy fire insurance for your house only when it's burning.
You have to buy the insurance when it's not on fire, or the entire program
doesn't work.

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jameskilton
I'm confused. Is this ruling itself valid? SCOTUS has already ruled twice that
ACA, including the individual mandate, _is_ constitutional.

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seanmcdirmid
When congress changed the penalty for not having insurance from N > $0 to $0,
they invalidated Roberts' opinion that the ACA was constitutional because its
penalty could be passed off as a tax.

What Trump is claiming is that they made the ACA unconstitutional by
eliminating the penalty, and hence it is no longer constitutional. I'm not
sure why the ACA would be struck down as opposed to the tax cut bill that made
it unconstitutional, but IANAL.

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throwaway-86-45
Genuine curiosity here: Why is it that it's the ACA that becomes
unconstitutional here and not the tax cut bill? If Trump is signing bills that
make other laws unconstitutional is this a violation of his oath to protect
the constitution?

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seanmcdirmid
There must be precedent on this, but drafting unconstitutional bills is not
itself unconstitutional, the bills are just invalidated by the courts.

Congress is the one responsible for all of this. Trump can only play an
ancillary role.

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craftyguy
So in this grand system of 'checks and balances', who checks the judicial
branch's power to arbitrarily strike down any law passed by congress and
signed by the president? I'm asking because it's not clear who, or how, and it
seems that the judicial branch continues to become more OP over time.

~~~
Simon_says
The check is to amend the Constitution.

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gremlinsinc
The best thing we could do is give supreme court term limits, this would make
it less of a game of roulette, and more of a fairness factor... Maybe have 9
supreme court justices. A president may pick 2 on the start of his first term.
The 5 longest serving rotate out. The Speaker of the house and Senate Majority
leader sworn in after the presidential election each get to nominate 1
justice. The last seat is nominated and filled internally by those on the
supreme court, but must be approved by congress as does the president's
choices.

So for instance say there's 9 justices in 2020. 9 - 5(retiring) = 4 4 + 5(new)
= 9

Justices may serve multiple terms, and a president could 're-nominate' a
sitting judge, but this makes the system more fluid, and less controlled by a
single party in power unless they control both chambers, the white house, and
supreme court already.

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Spartan-S63
While that may seem like a good idea in principle, that politicizes the
Supreme Court even more.

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purplezooey
Ah crap. Here we go again.

