14 GENERAL VERRILLI: I — I — this is not a
15 purchase mandate. This is a — this is a law that
16 regulates the method of paying for a service that the
17 class of people to whom it applies are either
18 consuming -
19 JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: General -
20 GENERAL VERRILLI: — or — or inevitably
21 will consume.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74537.html#ixzz1qNOJ2mUkDoes this asshat know he just perjured himself?8 JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So on that ground,
19 you're answering affirmatively to my colleagues that
20 have asked you the question, can the government force
21 you into commerce.
22 GENERAL VERRILLI: So — no.
23 JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: And there is no limit to
24 that power.
25 GENERAL VERRILLI: No. No. Because that's
22
1 — that's the first part of our argument.
2 The second part of our argument is that the
3 means here that the Congress has chosen, the minimum
4 coverage provision, is a means that regulates the -
5 that regulates economic activity, namely your
6 transaction in the health care market, with substantial
7 effects on interstate commerce; and it is the
8 conjunction of those two that we think provides the
9 particularly secure foundation for this statute under
10 the commerce power.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74537.html#ixzz1qNOrsYAXUnlimited power, how nice!21 JUSTICE SCALIA: I don't understand your -
22 GENERAL VERRILLI: This is in -
23 JUSTICE SCALIA: Whatever the States have
24 chosen not to do, the Federal Government can do?
25 GENERAL VERRILLI: No, not at all.
28
1 JUSTICE SCALIA: I mean, the Tenth Amendment
2 says the powers not given to the Federal Government are
3 reserved, not just to the States, but to the States and
4 the people. And the argument here is that the people
5 were left to decide whether they want to buy insurance
6 or not.
7 GENERAL VERRILLI: But this — but, Your
8 Honor, this is — what the Court has said, and I think
9 it would be a very substantial departure from what the
10 Court has said, is that when Congress is regulating
11 economic activity with a substantial effect on
12 interstate commerce that will be upheld. And that is
13 what is going on here, and to embark on — I would
14 submit with all due respect, to embark on the kind of
15 analysis that my friends on the other side suggest the
16 Court ought to embark on is to import Lochner-style
17 substantive due process -
18 CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: The key in Lochner
19 is that we were talking about regulation of the States,
20 right, and the States are not limited to enumerated
21 powers. The Federal Government is. And it seems to me
22 it's an entirely different question when you ask
23 yourself whether or not there are going to be limits in
24 the Federal power, as opposed to limits on the States,
25 which was the issue in Lochner.
29
1 GENERAL VERRILLI: I agree, except,
2 Mr. Chief Justice, that what the Court has said as I
3 read the Court's cases is that the way in which you
4 ensure that the Federal Government stays in its sphere
5 and the sphere reserved for the States is protected is
6 by policing the boundary: Is the national government
7 regulating economic activity with a substantial effect
8 on interstate commerce?
9 JUSTICE KENNEDY: But the reason, the reason
10 this is concerning, is because it requires the
11 individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of
12 torts our tradition, our law, has been that you don't
13 have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in
14 danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and
15 you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation
16 between you. And there is some severe moral criticisms
17 of that rule, but that's generally the rule.
18 And here the government is saying that the
19 Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual
20 citizen that it must act, and that is different from
21 what we have in previous cases and that changes the
22 relationship of the Federal Government to the individual
23 in the very fundamental way.
24 GENERAL VERRILLI: I don't think so, Justice
25 Kennedy, because it is predicated on the participation
30
1 of these individuals in the market for health care
2 services. Now, it happens to be that this is a market
3 in which, aside from the groups that the statute
4 excludes, virtually everybody participates. But it is a
5 regulation of their participation in that market.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74537.html#ixzz1qNQ46mhIHe just keeps runninghome to momma (the commerce clause)! It is the last refuge of a statist looking to streamroll everyone and abuse the intent of the constitution!
If this comes down to the commerce clause in the affirmative, the constitution might as well get tossed into a fire and be done with it!1 cover very large numbers of unhealthy people -
2 JUSTICE SCALIA: You could solve that
3 problem by simply not requiring the insurance company to
4 sell it to somebody who has a — a condition that is
5 going to require medical treatment, or at least not -
6 not require them to sell it to him at — at a rate that
7 he sells it to healthy people.
8 But you don't want to do that.
9 GENERAL VERRILLI: But that seems to me to
10 say, Justice Scalia, that Congress — that's the problem
11 here. And that seems to be -
12 JUSTICE SCALIA: That seems to me a
13 self-created problem.
14 GENERAL VERRILLI: Congress cannot solve the
15 problem through standard economic regulation, and
16 that — and — and I do not think that can be the
17 premise of our understanding of the Commerce Clause -
18 JUSTICE SCALIA: Whatever -
19 GENERAL VERRILLI: — this is an economic
20 problem -
21 JUSTICE SCALIA: — whatever problems
22 Congress's economic regulation produces, whatever they
23 are, I think Congress can do something to counteract
24 them. Here, requiring somebody to enter — to enter the
25 insurance market.
37
1 GENERAL VERRILLI: This is not a — it's not
2 a problem of Congress's creation. The problem is that
3 you have 40 million people who cannot get affordable
4 insurance through the means that the rest of us get
5 affordable insurance. Congress, after a long study and
6 careful deliberation, and viewing the experiences of the
7 States and the way they tried to handle this problem,
8 adopted a package of reforms. Guaranteed-issue and
9 community rating, and — and subsidies and the minimum
10 coverage provision are a package of reforms that solve
11 that problem.
12 I don't — I think it's highly artificial to
13 view this as a problem of Congress's own creation.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74537.html#ixzz1qNRFF0kZAn out and out lie, it is a man-made problem and the Left's answer was ObamCare intrusion into our lives via an omnipitent commerce clause! 
