With both the Obama administration and its challengers at various points contradicting themselves and making arguments they can't possibly believe. There is plenty of blame to go around: You can blame the lawyers and politicians on both sides of the Obamacare issue.
Consider the question that the court took up on the first day of oral arguments: Should the justices decide the case or wait until April 2015, when the first penalties for refusing to buy health insurance are due? In order to decide this question, the Court has to determine whether the penalty associated with the individual mandate is or isn't a tax.
As Justice Samuel Alito told the solicitor general on the first day of oral arguments: General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow you are going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax.
Tuesday's oral argument at the Supreme Court was not the finest hour for health care reform, or for Solicitor General Don Verrilli or even for Obama. The two issues that either one can kill the bill is the mandate and the no existing severability clause. That's the question of whether, by invalidating one part of the law, the court must invalidate the whole thing. Normally, laws include a 'severability' clause, stipulating that the statute can survive even if the court throws out one part. The Affordable Care Act lacks such a prevision.
Who do we blame?
The Democrats and Obama!
Back in 2008 the democrats had a majority House and Senate. Obama and the democrats decided to shut out the republicans. Do you remember this one: "Hey, John, remember, I won and now we begin to drain the swamp" it set such a poisonous tone for the healthcare debate.
What we all wanted from healthcare 1) health care should be available to all and 2) that it should be affordable and 3) nobody should lose their house due to a severe illness. There was actually a ton of common ground there.
The crime here is that democrats took all this common ground and tossed it away, and immediately went back to their normal "Them damn republicans want to kill Grandma" that has been their go to for the last 50 years.
And now they (democrats) are paying the price for flaunting their ignorance. What an enormous waste of time, tax dollars and energy.
As long as we live we will never forget the "Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickbacks!"
America is not for sale and we the owners are mad as hell. The left, the Right, and the Center are witnessing the collapse of the Obama Presidency.
