I was dying to find out whether the Supreme Court would take the case challenging the Obamacare Death Panel.
Some grave news out of the Supreme Court.
Via The Hill:
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to ObamaCare that argued a cost-cutting board set up by the law was unconstitutional.
The case dealt with the law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which critics of ObamaCare have labeled a “death panel.” The board is charged with recommending ways to cut Medicare spending if it rises above a certain threshold.
As is customary, the court did not give a reason for its decision.
The Goldwater Institute, which brought the case, Coons v. Lew, argued the board violates the constitutional principle that Congress cannot delegate its power to another body.
A federal district court ruled that the board does not violate the Constitution, and an appeals court later dismissed the case as being “unripe,” meaning that there is no practical harm at stake because the board does not yet exist.
The Supreme Court is now declining to reconsider that decision. It takes the vote of at least four justices to hear a case.
The 9th Circuit Opinion is here.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Rahm’s brother) must be smiling.
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9 scorpions deserve to be stomped on.
“an appeals court later dismissed the case as being “unripe,” meaning that there is no practical harm at stake because the board does not yet exist.”
Once someone is actually harmed, it’s too late.
On the bright side, perhaps the SC knows which way Burwell will be decided and doesn’t want to waste its time on this one.
Wishful thinking! SCOTUS, in the person of John Roberts, has shown that it is not going to jeopardize Obamacare.
Anyone know the vote count, and how the Justices voted? I’m preparing for black messiah medicine of the future…
From a legal perspective, this does not surprise me at all.
Without the Board actually being empaneled, any decision by the SUPREMES would be, by definition an “advisory opinion” (that they can’t do).
Further, the SUPREMES are never, ever, under any circumstances going to say that Congress cannot delegate it’s power to another body. That ship sailed LONG, LONG ago. Congress routinely delegates it’s power to other bodies, boards and departments of the Federal Government. It’s the only and sole way the bureaucracy could possibly exist and implement the foolishness that is the current Federal Government, with it’s hundreds of thousands of pages of legislation, interpreted by millions of pages of regulations, which in turn drives hundreds of millions, if not billions of individual decisions every year.
This is a good place to quote Wilde: “The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”
The SUPREMES are never going to, by themselves, cut back the expanded bureaucracy.
Unfortunately, you nailed it!
Wilde quote added to my scrap book. Thanks.
The federal courts have long held that plaintiffs need standing to be heard. You can’t sue for harm which might occur in the future. There is good reason for this: the courts’ dockets are already crowded and there are many open judicial slots being covered by retired judges now, just to handle current volume.
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As odious as the death panel is, the earliest it could deny any sort of treatment or reimbursement currently covered would be 2019. And it is entirely possible any such action might be enjoined at the time to allow action by those directly affected.
Why people wast money on these things is amazing. Their appellate lawyers have to have told them the result up front, it is almost a default ruling.
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Unfortunately, there are too many on “our side” who judge court decisions just like the far leftists, by their favored results only, and not the law.
You can’t sue for harm which might occur in the future. There is good reason for this: the courts’ dockets are already crowded and there are many open judicial slots being covered by retired judges now, just to handle current volume.
That does not seem very compelling. To a non-lawyer like me it sounds like the judges are saying: “We’re overloaded, so the proles should stop pestering us.”
And what does this say about the fetish that some Federal judges have for blocking implementation of (for example) voter ID laws or laws restricting abortion, sometimes almost as quickly as they are passed? That the Federal judicial system doesn’t have the time for Obamacare death panels, but somehow they do have time for those? If you cannot sue for harm that might occur in the future, shouldn’t that always be the case no matter the workload?
In the eyes of the law some issues, as are some people, are more important than others.
Yes – there is some leeway. But, realistically and legally, it is hard to make a case that there is a “case or controversy” until the board/death panel actually goes into action. This is a Constitutional limitation on our federal judiciary – and was first followed centuries ago.
Voter ID suits are brought under Civil Rights laws or the VRA, which have a different status from most actions.
They can usually argue “imminent and irreparable harm,” as well, which gets you past the standing issue, since if barred from voting you have no remedy after the election is over.
I’m with RL. This “no harm yet” bit sounds like “you cannot do anything about an uplifted knife untill blood is shed”.
It’s not what is meant, but…
Miracles do happen. Look. The Democrats actually care about the cost of something!
But in return they want to play god.
“…the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”
Attenuated?!? In other words, the health care law discriminates based on inherited traits (e.g., downs syndrome, terminal life) and government statistics. Certainly this portion of the health care law discriminates against your unalienable Rights.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
And, I thought liberals were against the death penalty.
Liberals are not against the death penalty. They just want the power to decide who lives and who dies. It’s political or economics… nothing personal… just business. The needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few. Getting beyond the few… it just becomes statistics and their beloved Joseph Stalin lends credence to this.
“Congress cannot delegate its power to another body.” Quick, somebody tell the Federal Reserve!
If we’re lucky, the law won’t live to see 2019, but if it does, the issue will then be ‘ripe’. No lawyer here, but the SC probably made the correct legal decision. I can live with that. For now.
Unfortunately, at this point it will most likely survive in some form, regardless. Remember the famous words or Reagan “The closest thing to immortality is a government agency.”
The real problem is Chief Justice Roberts’ decision to keep Obamacare alive by unilaterally declaring it a “tax” – after Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration said it wasn’t. Nothing but evil has flowed from that decision.
It isn’t the Supreme Court’s place to do Congresses’ job of writing and enacting laws – or it wasn’t, until Roberts decided that getting invited to the best Washington parties outweighed his duty to the Constitution.
Every conservative and Republican had argues it WAS a tax for three years. Obama DID in fact argue it was a tax, too, in the court case, essentially admitting we were right and he was lying all along.
And Roberts was known at the time of his appointment to go out of his way not to declare acts of the legislature unconstitutional, and to defer to executive actions. This didn’t bring any objections from conservatives, but at the time we held Congress and the White House.
So Roberts ruled as any educated observer of his history would have guessed, and in the process agreed with Republican arguments that it WAS a tax. Yet, you complain as if betrayed.
Whatever the finer points of the politics or law are, I don’t care. The Ruling Class has inverted the relationship between government and governed put forth by our founders. That is the betrayal and John Roberts ruling is what gave it legs.
Given the circumstances, it now turns out that our Supreme Court is only second as great a death panel as was the democrat Congress passing Obamacare.
Thank you John ‘Boehner’ Roberts.
Death panels are entirely consistent and conforming with a pro-choice religion or moral philosophy. One of its sincerely held tenets is that if a human life is ever disposable (i.e. elective abortion) or interchangeable (i.e. “diversity”), then it is always, and may in fact be superfluous. Obamacare is merely the latest example of human and civil rights violation by the State-established Church.
Is there a point when you will rebel and just say “No, I will not comply, I will not obey this law, I will resist, I will fight and kill to retain my liberty?”
Or will you follow the law?
“Enlightened” progressives have no issue with killing the unborn or (effectively) the elderly. Human beings deemed inconvenient, unwanted or burdensome may be disposed of or denied care. The IPAB is just the end-of-life equivalent of government-funded abortion.