Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Apparently, the Court actually finds that the mandate violates the Commerce Clause, but that doesn't matter b/c there are five votes for the mandate to be constitutional under the taxing power.

And the latter, as to your question. Pay the tax only when your failure to comply is noted.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Kennedy and the other dissenters would have invalidated the entirety of the act.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

It is indeed. Hello ACA!

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

I burst into tears when I heard the decision on the radio.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Um, Obama has been calling for new taxes on the wealthy. Read his lips: Norquist and his puppets are fools.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Congratulations: you were right on the ACA decision all along.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Um, this is a tax on everyone.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

A win for the Act. A win for limits on the Commerce Clause. A loss for the DOJ in constitutional law circles for not focusing on the winning argument, in fact it could be a political loss for Obama as Club notes because the Court has just told him that he was full of shit when he said it wasn't a tax. A tax by any other name ...

LessinHannover

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

It's not de minimis (although that's a question of perspective), but it's probably cheaper than insurance.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

I'm not sure I see the comfort in the first one. Congress may be able to impose any mandate by taxing the failure to purchase, perhaps.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Thought from SCOTUSblog:

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Actually, very oddly, a potential win for the court. The not-arguing-tax-bit was in my mind silly but politically understandable. Ugly as the process and allignment of votes this way and that is, the outcome makes some sense and is rational and not filled with the ranting mindless ideological bent some of the court has.

We are seeing a narrowing of the commerce clause powers these days, but part of that may be that older courts read some provisions, including taxation, much more narrowly than they can and should be and commerce became the place you stuffed everything.

But the calesthenics to declare a loss for Obama are just silly. If this is a loss, may we have many more!

Back to reading

By the way, tax was argued in the alternative, but not made the center of the arugment. It was actually argument 3. I'm reading commerce clause statements though as dicta - right? Any argument it is not?

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Back to what one can do:

Footnote 11, on page 44: "Those subject to the individual mandate may lawfully forgo health insurance and pay higher taxes, or buy health insurance and pay lower taxes. The only thing that they may not lawfully do is not buy health insurance and not pay the resulting tax."

LessinHanover

eta - the Court did not sustain it as a command for Americans to buy insurance, but as a tax if they don’t.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Which is all it ever was.