On Wednesday March 28, 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on both sides of the 2010 Affordable Health Care Act. Supreme Court justices John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, and Antonin Scalia had some very tough questions for those who support this landmark statute. Justice Kennedy said, "The law 'changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way.'" Questioning whether the law's central requirement that Americans purchase health insurance fundamentally alters the government's relationship with its citizens, the high court's conservative justices suggested they might be willing to send lawmakers back to the drawing board just months before a presidential election--particularly if they can't find a way to uphold the law without significantly expanding the power of the federal government, according to USA Today. Four of the liberal justices are most likely to uphold the law while Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy demonstrated by their questions their votes will be pivotal when the case is decided in June.
Allow me to repeat a quote from Justice Antonin Scalia: Could you define the market? Everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli. What Scalia was saying is absolutely true. Does this health care law regulate every aspect of life revolving around health? Evidently it does. This monstrosity of a bill says that all Americans must have health insurance by 2014 or we could face some penalty for not possessing health insurance. The question that must be asked is: Does government have the right to tell its citizens to purchase health insurance or should that be left up to the discretion of the individual? That's the question the Supreme Court justices are considering.
To read the full story of the justice's review of the health care law, click on the above link from The Washington Post.
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