Which Side of History? - Is the HCR law constitutional?

[groovedaddy]

Which of these assertions is the less plausible?

1. Representative Randy Neugebauer of Texas wasn’t aiming at Representative Bart Stupak when he interrupted Mr. Stupak’s floor speech during the closing hours of the health care debate by yelling “baby killer.” (Mr. Neugebauer said his target was the bill, not his colleague from Michigan, who had accepted a fig leaf of a compromise on the bill’s anti-abortion stance.)

2. The Supreme Court will find the new health care legislation unconstitutional.

In my book, these two propositions are running neck and neck into the realm of fantasy.

Fourteen state attorneys general — 13 in a coalition led by Bill McCollum of Florida and one, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II of Virginia, going it alone — filed lawsuits this week asking federal judges to declare the new Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act unconstitutional. The plaintiffs do not exactly mince words. The new law violates “the core constitutional principle of federalism upon which this nation was founded,” the Florida complaint declares. It is “contrary to the foundational assumptions of the constitutional compact,” Virginia claims.

The Web is filled with commentary and debate over the merits of the states’ arguments that the new law exceeds Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce and violates the 10th Amendment’s protection for state sovereignty.

Interesting theoretical questions, to be sure. But the only real question is whether any of these arguments will find a warm reception from at least five Supreme Court justices. The answer, almost certainly, is no.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/which-side-of-history/?th&emc=th

[Birthmark]

1. It's pretty clear that almost all of the law is Constitutional

I still have grave misgivings about the individual mandates, though. Don't know how the Court will rule on that issue particularly, but aside from that the rest of the Law (in the general terms in which I'm familiar with it) doesn't seem to pose any Constitutional problem.