How Pot Could Could Save Obamacare

[jefferson_dem]

How Pot Could Could Save Obamacare
—By Stephanie Mencimer

| Tue Nov. 15, 2011 3:00 AM PST

On Monday morning, the Supreme Court announced that is will consider the constitutionality of the Obama health care reform law this term, guaranteeing a decision on the landmark legislation by the end of June, right in the middle of the 2012 election campaign. The administration seems fairly confident that the court won't, in fact, overturn the law. It's asked for an expedited review of the legal challenges, and, like the law's opponents, it has pressed the court to settle the matter as soon as possible so states can move forward with implementing the law.

"We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement Monday morning. The administration has good reason to be optimistic—and if the law is eventually upheld, the Obama team might owe a thank you to a surprising group of people: pot smokers. Here's why.

In both the DC Circuit and the 6th Circuit, the two appellate courts that have upheld the health care law, judges relied heavily on a 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Gonzalez v Raich—a medical marijuana case. That case involved a California woman named Diane Monson who'd been growing marijuana in her backyard for medicinal reasons. (Monson was joined in the case by Angel Raich, a woman who'd also had her medicinal marijuana seized by federal agents.) The DEA swooped in one day and destroyed her plants, even though medical marijuana use in California is legal under state law. The high court found that the Commerce Clause gave Congress wide authority to regulate interstate commerce, even when that commerce takes place mostly in someone's backyard.

Monson had claimed the DEA's action was unconstitutional and a violation of the Commerce Clause because federal agents were moving to prohibit noncommercial, intrastate cultivation of a plant intended for personal consumption. The pot wasn’t crossing state lines—it wasn't even being sold at all. That, the plaintiffs believed, made the weed beyond the reach of the feds.

The Supreme Court would have none of it. In a 6 to 3 decision, the court held that Congress could regulate backyard pot cultivation because it still constituted part of a very large, interstate market. It’s hard to see how the individual mandate doesn't square with that view of the law, given how enormous the national health care market is. Sixth Circuit Judge Jeffery Sutton, a George W. Bush nominee and a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote, "If Congress could regulate Angel Raich when she grew marijuana on her property for self-consumption, it is difficult to say Congress may not regulate the 50 million Americans who self-finance their medical care."

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[court jester]

1. So Democrats should now support the idiotic decision by the supes re: cannabis

so the (R)epublican Health Insurance ripoff and enslavement act can somehow be upheld?

Holy crap.

The Feds have no business in whatever I ingest (every single abortion supporter would agree or be properly labeled a hypocrite) and they have no business in my health care.

Period. End of story. You have no idea how serious this issue is for some of us.

You can twist the commerce clause all you want but people like me will not comply. Ever. Take it to the bank.

"come and take the premium from my hands"

[jefferson_dem]

3. This MoJo piece is about the constitutional jurisprudence surrounding the Affordable Care Act.

It is, undeniably, about commerce and fully within the federal government's sphere of authority, even though the teabaggers would try to convince us otherwise.

Nobody is "in your health care," silly. Of course, you are free to "not comply" if that's your choice. Just don't expect others to pick up the slack. Pay the tax and move on.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. What a disgusting point of view.

More and more of the same right wing ignorance, it is as if they detest science, truth, and all that is right. They oppose medicine that is natural, they oppose love, which they call unnatural, and they do not represent me, nor the will of the majority of Americans on this at all.