Question for DU experts -how could The health care act be illegal if this was legal?

[malaise]

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, b]they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html
---------------------
Of course Spitzer was Watergated for exposing this.

[dmr]

1. K&R

Good question.

[unblock]

2. the penalty for not buying insurance would be transparently constitution even if payment was forced.

had they said you have to pay $800 or whatever if you're above the poverty line, it would have been obviously constitutional as a straightforward income tax.

then, adding in a 100% credit for this income tax on the basis of having qualifying insurance is every bit as constitutional as any of the myriad of other deductions and credits that are part of the income tax code.


people forget that there's an exemption for people under an certain income threshold. that exception makes the payment an income tax, and therefore perfectly constitutional.


whether or not it's sucky law is a different question entirely.



as to how the court will rule, well, that depends on how partisan they want to be. if the "mandate" were of a republican president's signature program, there's zero doubt that it would be found constitutional. with this court, however, it's hard to know if they'd prefer to protect industry or take a partisan shot at obama.