Obama Delivers Warning to Supreme Court on Healthcare; If Obamacare Goes Down Who Is

Obama Delivers Warning to Supreme Court on Healthcare; If Obamacare Goes Down Who Is To Blame? Who Loses If Not Struck Down? Mathematically Speaking, Obamacare Cannot Survive

Tuesday, April 03, 2012 3:05 PM

Open issues abound on healthcare. Will the Supreme Court strike it down? If so, who is to blame? Who are the winners and losers? Will healthcare help or hurt the Republican chances?

First please consider Obama delivers warning over healthcare law

Barack Obama has delivered a surprisingly strong warning to the US Supreme Court, saying that it would be guilty of an “unprecedented” case of “judicial activism” if it overturned his signature healthcare law.

On Monday the president said he was “confident” the law would be upheld, questioning how an “unelected group of people” could overturn a law approved by legislators.

“I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” Mr Obama said during a press conference with Felipe Calderón and Stephen Harper, the visiting leaders of Mexico and Canada respectively.

“For years, what we have heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” he said.

Blatant Lies or Sheer Foolishness?

For starters Obama is a liar or a fool. Given the questioning by the supreme court justices, I fail to see how anyone could be confident this bill does not go down in flames.

As for overturning the "extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress" we most assuredly see an outright lie.

Obamacare did not pass by a "strong majority". Rather Obamacare passed the House 219-212. Some components passed in a "reconciliation" process that would have failed an outright vote in the Senate.

Healthcare and Reproductive Rights Will Hurt Romney?

As much as Romney campaigns against Obamacare, he is also campaigning against Romneycare. Without a doubt Romneycare was the basis of Obamacare.

Whether Obamacare is struck down or not I see no advantage for Romney. Indeed, should it be struck down, the issue will become will be in the spotlight.

Coupled with Republican asininity on reproductive rights, women are going to have a difficult time supporting Romney as noted in a Gallup Poll that shows Women boost Obama over Romney in swing states.

Support for Obama among women under the age of 50 surged from mid-February, the poll found, putting the president ahead of Romney by 51 percent against 42 percent among all voters. Obama led Romney among the women with 54 percent, compared to Romney's 36 percent.

Republican criticism of birth control played a big role in the party's race for the presidential nomination in recent weeks, with Romney promising to end Planned Parenthood, which provides family planning services.

In mid-February, Obama trailed Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, by two percentage points and fewer than half of women under the age of 50 said they would vote for Obama. In Monday's results, more than six in 10 said they would, the poll showed.

If Obamacare Goes Down Who Is To Blame?

It's possible to blame nearly everyone. Obama is to blame. Mitt Romney is to blame for providing the healthcare model. One can blame an activist court. One can blame Congress for passing an unconstitutional law.

Or one can blame both parties and the process itself. The implications of what is happening with healthcare are severe.

Mathematically Speaking, Obamacare Cannot Survive

My friend "BC" writes:

Obama gets attacked by opponents, but the "reform" was written by hospital companies, doctors, and insurers and is an effective tax on the labor of young people and a massive transfer to the aforementioned groups who already receive a grossly disproportionate share of GDP already.

Were the real culprits to be singled out for scrutiny of their motives, it would be doctors, hospitals, and insurers.

Healthcare Key Points

• "Health care" (HC) spending is now 17% of GDP and an equivalent of 50% of private wages and of total government spending, growing at twice the rate of GDP since '00.
• 50% of HC spending is on the sickest 5%.
• 20% is spend on end-of-life services for elders.
• Private HC and total government spending is an equivalent of 100% of public and private wages.
• HC and war spending make up and equivalent of 25% of GDP.
• Out-of-pocket HC costs are now the primary cause of personal bankruptcy.
• HC in the US is unaffordable for most people were they to have to pay for it themselves.
• "The market" is "rationing" care for at least 50 million uninsured people and would for most elders were they to have to bear more of the true costs of their late-life care.

Unless one can make a case for the economy becoming 100% government and HC spending over the next 30-40 years, there is a 0% probability that growth of HC spending can continue, let alone at twice the rate of GDP. A decline of 30% is a mathematical certainty over the next 10+ years and 50% per capita over the same period.

That the growth of government and HC spending has contributed 100% of growth of GDP since '00-'01, no growth and eventual contraction of HC spending will mean effectively no nominal GDP growth hereafter except for whatever net incremental borrowing and spending will occur at the federal level.

Were US government spending to grow at the trend rate, nominal GDP will avg. 1%. Were US government spending to slow to the GDP trend, nominal GDP will be no more than 0.8%.

The implied ~1% nominal GDP growth implies the 10-yr. Treasury yield in the low 1% range, little or no price inflation (eventually falling services prices), decelerating core inflation and periodic core deflation, and no growth of bank lending, employment, investment, spending, and reported earnings for most of the decade.

We will look back on the period '09-'12 as a final central bank-induced asset reflationary cycle that eventually gave way to the forces of demographics, thermodynamics, debt deflation, and valuations.

Whether Obamacare passes Supreme Court muster or not, mathematically speaking, healthcare cannot survive in its present form, nor can it survive in Obamacare form for reasons my friend BC explains.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Obama Delivers Warning to Supreme Court on Healthcare; If Obamacare Goes Down Who Is To Blame? Who Loses If Not Struck Down? Mathematically Speaking, Obamacare Cannot Survive

Premier Obama Moves on Supreme Court

Posted on April 5, 2012
by Henry Shivley - OR

http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.co.../04/obama1.jpgNot since the beginning of the US Civil War have we seen a grab for power by a single individual like we are seeing today being perpetrated by Barack Obama. On April 27, 1861, following the onset of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in response to riots, local militia actions, and the threat that the border slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union, leaving the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., surrounded by hostile territory.

Following the arrest of Maryland secessionist John Merryman, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney defied Lincoln’s order and issued a writ of habeas corpus demanding that the U.S. Military bring Merryman before the Supreme Court. The military refused to honor the writ and the Supreme Court then declared Lincoln’s action in suspending habeas corpus to be unconstitutional.

Lincoln then attempted an executive coup in issuing a secret warrant for Chief Justice Taney’s arrest. The warrant was given to US Marshalls but was never executed.
On February 14, 1862, Lincoln ordered most prisoners released, putting an end to court challenges for the time being. He again suspended habeas corpus on his own authority in September that same year, however, in response to resistance to his calling up of the militia.

The suspension of habeas corpus in defiance of the Supreme Court should be considered no little matter.

Now let’s look at what Obama has been up to.

On December 31, 2011 he signed the National Defense Authorization Act with sections 1021 and 1022, military arrests and indefinite detention without due process of the law.

On March 8, 2012 he signed Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, the no-Trespass Bill, paving the way for the military arrests and detention of any who might oppose his regime.

On March 16, 2012 he signed the Executive Order, National Defense Resources Preparedness, which was portrayed in the mainstream media as a reaffirmation of existing law. However that law was only to take effect in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. Under Obama’s new version the law can be implemented in the case of an emergency. This could be any kind of emergency, even an economic one, or as the law now states, no emergency at all.

Obama was recently caught over an open mic telling a Russian Ambassador, “After my next election I have more flexibility.”

On Monday, Obama, in addressing the Supreme Court in reference to his socialist heath care law, said that the “unelected” justices should show restraint in the face of arguments for overturning the law.

Now, considering that lawsuits have been filed against Obama saying the provisions in the NDAA are unconstitutional; could Obama be setting the stage for an attempted Executive challenge to the authority of the Supreme Court? If the Supreme Court rules against Premiere Obama will he, like Lincoln, issue secret warrants for the arrest of those in the Supreme Court who oppose him? And unlike Lincoln, will he go through with it?

Before you dismiss the notion, look what Obama has already done? And consider this, we are not engaged in a Civil War….at present.

God bless the Republic, death to the international corporate mafia, we shall prevail.

Premier Obama Moves on Supreme Court_ |