President Obama DARES Supreme Court To Throw Out PPACA...Who's Advising This Guy?...

I've long believed that if we held conversations only about what we knew, and not what we thought, those conversations would be a lot shorter.

So I was going to keep my big trap shut rather than join the chorus of talking heads and partisans of both persuasions about the possible outcome of the Supreme Court's review of PPACA's constitutionality.

But then The President goes and does something really, really dumb...

In remarks yesterday, President Obama declared that for the Justices to overturn PPACA on constitutional grounds would be a new high water mark for judicial activism. And that nine unelected judges shouldn't be permitted to overturn a law which had been enacted by a duly-elected Congress.

THEN he said that, since the linchpin of PPACA is the individual mandate, invalidating the mandate would essentially invalidate the law.

Set aside for a moment that, as my Mom would often comment, "What do you EXPECT the guy to say?". He is, after all, defending what he sees as the hallmark of his term.

But I'm astonished at the politically maladroit nature of his speech, and what those remarks imply about the nature and quality of the advice Obama is receiving from his handlers.

First, while the First Sports Fan is undoubtedly familiar with the term "a win is a win is a win," it's very clear to those of us at the grass roots that the passage of PPACA was a narrow partisan exercise. The law passed by one vote...hardly (you should pardon the expression)a mandate.

Second, there's growing evidence that, even though many Americans (seniors, dependent children and young adults, those with pre-existing health conditions whose coverage might otherwise be discontinued) have benefited significantly from the early enactment of provisions of the law, PPACA remains quite unpopular with voters. Perhaps because there hasn't been any REAL debate on the law's merits. The Administration has done a lousy job of making its case in the court of public opinion, instead banking on the smug position that once people understand how great the law is, they'll support it. I don't see that happening, do you?...At least not in the two years since its passage.

Then, to substance: Irrespective of whether the individual mandate was initially a trope of conservatives, it is just that: a trope, a commonly-stated idea which has been adopted as truth, despite there being little evidence to support it.

The mandate was a political tool, a sop to liberals who were seeking a "public option" for health coverage. Despite its being lionized on the left and vilified on the right, I've seen nothing from a credible third party which suggests that the economics of a mandate would lead to lower utilization of services or less cost-shifting from the uninsured to the insured. I've written about this before, here: http://polkiananalysis.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-difference-does-mandate-make.htmlt

My objection to the mandate has nothing to do with liberty. It's that the mandate will not achieve the economic goal it's been enacted to achieve, and that the enactment of the mandate will blow the lid off premiums, since the cost of coverage will no longer matter; the government says you have to have coverage, not that coverage needs to be affordable.

Finally, there's the issue of "severability." Virtually every piece of legislation incorporates a provision which states that parts of the law might be changed without invalidating the rest of the law.

What GENIUS in the Administration decided to leave severability language out of PPACA? I hope he or she is no longer employed. I'm sure it sounded like a swell idea at the time; "This way, if anybody decides to attack a component of the law they don't like, we can get right up in their faces and say, 'Oh yeah?...Well, just TRY to toss that provision out. You can't do that without throwing out the whole thing'."

And what GENIUS said, "That seems like a GREAT idea!"?

Even with all that, The President KNOWS the Supreme Court has essentially three options: they can maintain the entire law as constitutional; they can throw out the mandate and a couple related provisions and let the rest of the law stand; or they can toss the whole thing out.

Seems to me The President has DARED the Court to throw the whole law out the window, by making the political (not the economic) case that without the mandate the rest of the law can't stand.

And they might just accommodate him, and use his own words against him.

What do I THINK is going to happen? I think the Court will toss out the mandate, plus guaranteed issue and community rating, preserve those elements of the insurance reforms which have already taken effect (since, theoretically, the associated costs have already been baked into their rates, and say it's too early to make judgments on the rest of the law, since most of the provisions have yet to be enacted.

What do YOU think is going to happen, and what facts do you use to support your position?