Successful Legal Challenge Of Health Care Reform Could Topple Medicare Social Security: Legal Expert

[Joanne98]

A successful legal challenge of health care reform wouldn't just bring down the legislation signed into law by the president on Tuesday, but could topple Medicare and Social Security as well, according to a prominent lawyer.

Legal challenges to health care reform are focused on the requirement that starting in 2014, individuals must buy health insurance or pay a penalty for going without it. Simon Lazarus, public policy counsel for the National Senior Citizens Law Center, said on a conference call with reporters that a challenge of the constitutionality of the so-called "individual mandate" also applies to the constitutionality of longstanding programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

"There are ways in which the the challenges to the validity of the mandate do implicate Medicare and Medicaid," said Lazarus, who has written a brief arguing for the constitutionality of health care reform. "The people who are challenging the constitutionality of the mandate are people who believe that Medicare and Social Security ought to be unconstitutional also. The arguments they're making would certainly call those programs into question.

"Essentially, Medicare is a program which requires people to pay rather substantial taxes ultimately to be in a position to receive benefits of health coverage when they're over 65," Lazarus continued. "This program is a tax-and-spend program as well as a regulatory program. In order to get to the point where you could declare the program unconstitutional, you'd have to involve 200 years of precedent under the spending clause and Congress's tax-and-spend powers.

"You couldn't really challenge this program without throwing some question over Medicare and Social Security."

Continued>>>>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/successful-legal-challeng_n_511713.html

And the very same people have always wanted to repeal these programs.

[Oregone]

1. Nonsense.

Medicare and Social Security are socialized government programs, not a mandate to force people to buy private products

[emulatorloo]

4. In teabag heaven there will be no Medicare or motorcycle helmets

[Hugin]

6. and Truck Nutz for all.

Dontcha know. :crazy:

[Alcibiades]

5. It's not nonsense

Though the claims that HCR is somehow unconstitutional are nonsense, if the SCOTUS were to rule against the government, it could endanger Social Security and Medicare: the Republicans are using exactly the same arguments they used to challenge Social Security in 1935. The real problem for them is that back then the SCOTUS ruled for the government, and it would have to ignore stare decisis to rule against the government here, or somehow craft some bullshit ruling that did not.

[rocktivity]

2. Rocktivity: Successful Legal Challenge Of Health Care Mandates Could Trigger Medicare For All

I mean, Obama and the Dems would have "no choice," would they?

So the Rethugs better be careful what they wish for, just sayin'.

:evilgrin:
rocktivity

[Bitwit1234]

3. A challenge to Health Care....there won't be one.