The Court heard arguments today, Wednesday, March 28, 2012, on the Severability issue and Medicaid issue of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare cases. The audio recording and unofficial transcript of the oral argument on the Severability issue (Nat. Fed. Indep. Business v. Sebelius, Sec. of H&HS, 11-393; and Florida v. Dept. of H&HS, 11-400) are available at this link. The audio recording and unofficial transcript of the oral argument on the Medicaid issue (Florida v. Dept. of H&HS, 11-400) are available at this link.
The orders, briefs, and other information regarding the Obamacare cases are available at this link.
Embed below:
Supreme Court Obamacare
Media and discussion links below:
LA Times headlines with "Justices poised to strike down entire healthcare law ."
ScotusBlog headlines with "First severability argument update."
MSNBC headlines with "First Thoughts: Brace yourself for another 5-4 decision ."
New York Times headlines with "Justices Ask if Health Law Is Viable Without Mandate."
New York Times, in a second piece, headlines with "Contingency Plans Are Few if Court Strikes Down Insurance Requirement."
Washington Wire headlines with "Live Blog: Obama Health Law at the Supreme Court, Day 3 ."
Campaign 2012 headlines with "SCOTUS mulls striking down all of Obamacare."
Mother Jones headlines with "Obamacare's Supreme Court Disaster."
Hot Air headlines with "Kennedy: Would leaving parts of ObamaCare in place be more “extreme” than entire repeal? Update: “Plane wreck” for White House?"
[Update] Nice doom and gloom from CNN's Jeff Toobin again, video below:
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeff Toobin: “This still looks like a train wreck for the Obama Administration, and it may also be a plane wreck. This entire law is now in serious trouble. It also seems that the individual mandate is doomed. I mean, Anthony Kennedy spent much of this morning talking about if we strike down the individual mandate, how should we handle the rest of the law? Now, it is less clear that they are going to strike down the whole law. There does seem to be some controversy in the court about that. Certainly there are some members of the court, Antonin Scalia, Justice Alito, who want to strike down the entire law, but it seemed almost a foregone conclusion today that they were going to strike down the individual mandate, and the only question is does the whole law go out the window with it?”
Whitfield: “Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I have got about 20 seconds or so left. How might this impact arguments later on this afternoon, Jeff?”
Toobin: “Well, it’s hard to imagine how things could be going much worse for the Obama Administration, but now they’re going to be dealing with the Medicaid portion, and they may decide to get rid of that as well.”
Related:
Transcript and Audio- Supreme Court Hears Obamcare: Day Two Arguments
.
