With a wry smile, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg laid waste Friday to all those rumors about the fate of the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court.
“Those who know don’t talk. And those who talk don’t know,” she quipped Friday night at a conference hosted by the American Constitution Society at the Capital Hilton.
Ginsburg said she was responding to a “steady stream of rumors and fifth-hand accounts” about the court’s deliberations on the law.
(Also on POLITICO: Democrats in the dark on how to respond to SCOTUS ruling)
Careful not to tip her hand on the court’s ruling — expected in the next two weeks — Ginsburg described the oral arguments in the case as unprecedented for the number of “press conferences, prayer circles, protests and counterprotests” that occurred on the courthouse steps.
Although she offered no insight into the tightly held decisions of her colleagues, Ginsburg did indicate that many of the court’s decisions over the next two weeks — which are also expected to include an FCC indecency ruling — might be close.
The 21 remaining decisions, she said, were “many of the most controversial cases” that the court reviewed this term.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77479.html#ixzz1xv83YMUp
GOPCare
The Republican vacuum as the Supreme Court prepares to rule.
via WSJ:
No one knows how the Supreme Court will come down in its decision on ObamaCare, expected in a little over a week. No one knows how President Obama will respond if the court overturns some or all of the law, though we have a pretty good idea. And no one knows how the Republicans will respond either, including the Republicans.
In short, the GOP may be positioning itself to become the dog that caught the car. Political and policy uncertainty is perhaps inevitable given the range of what the Court could do. But the Republicans need a more coherent strategy, and more credible alternatives, to avoid reprising the payroll tax holiday debacle of last Christmas, except with generational consequences.
Republicans are down the line opposed to the individual mandate, but there’s an internal debate about what to do if the Court also overturns the main insurance regulations. A sizeable cargo cult within the GOP wants to preserve some Affordable Care Act provisions and favors passing stand-alone bills reinstating them if necessary. Tom Price of Georgia and Phil Roe of Tennessee—both physicians and among the House’s health-care leaders—held a press conference last week endorsing this “keep the good stuff” approach.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577464560163538838.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
