Based on the some of the questions asked today by the more Conservative majority in the Supreme Court, political analysts are suggesting a possible bad outcome for the Health Care Reform passed over a year ago by the Obama administration.
The New York Times Reports: With the fate of President Obama’s health care law hanging in the balance at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, a lawyer for the administration faced a barrage of skeptical questions from four of the court’s more conservative justices.
“Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked the lawyer, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., only minutes into the argument.
Justice Antonin Scalia soon joined in. “May failure to purchase something subject me to regulation?” he asked. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked if the government could compel the purchase of cellphones. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked about forcing people to buy burial insurance.
The conventional view is that the administration will need one of those four votes to win the case, and it was not clear on Tuesday that it had captured one.
The court’s four more liberal members – Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – indicated that they supported the law, as expected. Justice Clarence Thomas, who asked no questions, is thought likely to vote to strike down the law.
