我不清楚歐巴馬健保法案的細節，或許你可以將其優缺點列舉出來供網友參考。

美國大法官是終身職。當到大大法官和首席大法官後，我不認為他/她們還看得上 -- 不要說接受 -- 聯邦政府中其他職位的任命。

最高法院這個判決, 讓首席大法官 - 羅伯特大出風頭. 有馬屁媒體, 拍馬屁說: 羅伯特此舉, 不但救了奧八螞, 還救了最高法院. 這個不打自招的分析, 卻明顯曝露: 最高法院, 權高, 沒有實質執行權力, 以及一向讓美國人懷疑他們的決斷能力的糗事!

老美反對奧式全民健保的基本原因, 是他不是要真正的辦理全民健保. 他只是使用權力, 要求立法支持他: 懲罰沒有購買保險的人民!

這個不辦事, 只以行政權力, 處罰不買保險人民的做法, 是偷懶的口號全民健保.

真正實施全民健保, 要花許多錢. 克林頓想搞, 發現在美國無法實施, 為了連任, 就捲旗掩鼓. 反而是臺灣的最後獨裁者 - 李登輝命令張博雅, 這克式想法, 在臺灣辦理成功. 美國到今天, 還羨慕得流口水!

但是, 奧八螞這傢伙, 不是做事的人, 卻是出鋒頭, 競選的專家!

他這個計劃, 讓他出名, 讓保險公司和各州政府收拾善後. 還拿了一批, 完全不夠用的聯邦經費, 要求各州就範. 各州在仔細研究, 一方面覺得這筆錢不夠, 又怕選民責怪他們不與聯邦合作, 損失補助, 已經有過半數的州, 到法院提出控訴.

而最高法院, 一直表示: 處罰人民, 違憲!

在這樣子的環境之下, 能夠贏得全國大選的奧八螞, 一清二楚的知道: 在最高法院, 九位法官, 他只需要五票, 就可以安然過關!

他如何達成? 總統自有職位上的利器可用!

九個人, 搞五票. 比國會, 全國大選, 容易多啦!

他過此關, 老丐對他另眼相看: 覺得此人可怕! 他不是做事的人, 卻是在美國制度下的投機取巧的勝利者!

經過他舌燦蓮花, 再加上他背叛提拔他的共和黨, 他順利地為奧八螞護航!

他與奧總統的交易, 別人永遠無法知道. 但是, 他們兩位, 這兩天, 不但是眾目所視的焦點, 更是馬屁媒體爭捧的對象!

問題是: 美國人, 還是要自己掏腰包買保險! 還是要與私人保險公司打交道. 奧政府, 根本沒有任何真正推動與保證全民保險的實質行為. 只是拿了最高法院的雞毛, 可以當成處罰買不起保險的老百姓的令箭! 呵呵! 保證: 稅捐處絕對全力配合!

這就是美國現在最熱門的政治漫畫, 描述奧式健保, 是屠城木馬, 跑出來消滅美國的戰士, 是稅捐處的稽察員!

這不是笑話! 這是美國人民, 最深切的害怕!

羅伯特法官的口才, 我們中國歷史上, 也有一位這樣子, 巧言令色鮮矣仁的例子. 也就是同樣具有無上權威的趙高先生: 他在朝廷, 指鹿為馬, 沒有官員敢指正.

同樣的, 連奧八螞自己都說: 他建議的處罰, 不是稅收.

但是, 羅伯特法官一番辯論, 玩弄文字遊戲. 這個百分之七十人民反對的法案, 在這九位大法官角力之下, 為奧總統贏了一場戰爭!

最高法院, 還上演了一齣鬧劇: 就是甘迺迪法官, 也發表的反對的宣言. 當然, 這個雜音, 被奧總統, 羅法官, 以及馬屁媒體掩蓋!

其實, 美國也是陷入黨爭: 奧總統的司法部長 Holder, 被國會判決藐視國會. 當然, 奧總統政府的司法部, 不會執行處罰. 馬屁媒體, 也跟著白宮, 咒罵國會!

我們回歸全民健保的基本層面:

這個法案通過, 人民沒有真正的全民健保局, 美國政府還是要傳統保險公司負責保險.

問題來啦: 對於已經購買保險的人, 沒啥差別. 對於那些會被罰的人民, 他們找誰去買?

白宮有撥款項, 要求州政府配合. 這筆款項, 各州的保險局計算一下, 發現這是雞肋: 食之無肉, 不夠支持州內窮人. 棄之可惜: 可能會被選民咒罵, 成為下輪選舉的罩門!

日頭赤豔豔, 隨人顧性命!

奧總統得意洋洋, 一副已經連任的姿態. 卻拼命推銷他葫蘆裡的膏藥(顯然, 還沒有得到選民的認同, 甚至瞭解)

各州政府與保險公司, 卻還在觀望!

老丐一直對於奧總統存疑!

這一陣子, 油價拼命下跌, 這個奧總統, 當初信誓旦旦的諾言, 一直到連任選舉前半年, 才開始實現! 讓老丐更認為: 這傢伙, 非不能也, 是不為也! 天曉得: 他又與石油界, 用啥交換條件, 達成現在的降價暫時假像!

呵呵!

好在: 臺灣承認雙重國籍. 老丐這一身賤骨頭, 也還耐操! 如果生重大疾病, 買張票回臺灣, 享受張博雅全民健保!

美國人: 你們隨人顧性命!

In Health Care Ruling, Roberts Steals a Move From John Marshall's Playbook

There are eerie parallels between today's decision and a legendary case from Thomas Jefferson's time.

Daniel Epps, 06/28/12

Earlier today, the Supreme Court, by a narrowly divided vote, upheld the individual mandate, a key component of President Obama's signature piece of legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Obama supporters are letting out a collective sigh of relief, as most observers expected the mandate -- and possibly the entire Act -- to fall after the oral argument. Conservatives are conversely upset that Chief Justice Roberts -- the deciding vote in the case -- snatched defeat for conservatives from the jaws of victory, given that there were four votes to strike down the Act in its entirety.

Although the decision is certainly a win for Obama and Democrats, it's by no means a clear-cut victory. And while the Chief Justice is taking a lot of heat from the right, the way he handled the case might actually turn out to be a brilliant strategic move -- one that could very well define his judicial career, and could actually be the optimal outcome for Republicans.

To explain -- and I promise this historical detour will be worth it -- we should note unexpected parallels to Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 case in which the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Marshall, established that it had the power of judicial review: i.e. to declare federal laws unconstitutional. The very simplified background is this: The petitioner, William Marbury, had been nominated as a justice of the peace by President John Adams at the very end of Adams's term, right before Thomas Jefferson took office. The Senate confirmed the nomination.

Unfortunately for Marbury, he never got his hands on his commission. Marbury's nominations had been part of a large slew of judicial nominations pursuant to the Judiciary Act of 1801 -- a statute passed by the Federalists after the 1800 election as a last minute attempt to stack the bench with Federalist judges before Jefferson and his party took office. Once Jefferson was sworn in, his secretary of state, James Madison, refused to deliver the undelivered commissions and the new Congress got to work repealing the Judiciary Act of 1801.

Marbury went to the Supreme Court, asking the Court to issue a writ of mandamus -- an order telling Madison he had to deliver the commission to Marbury. The Court was full of Federalists like Marshall, but Jefferson thought he had the justices boxed in. They could either rule that Marbury's rights hadn't been violated, vindicating Jefferson's supposition that the appointments did not need to be honored. Or they could issue a writ of mandamus ordering the secretary of state to deliver Marbury's commission. But Jefferson would likely have simply ignored it, in which case the Court's credibility would have been permanently damaged.

Chief Justice Marshall did something no one expected: writing for the Court, he ruled that Marbury's rights had been violated, thereby refusing to give a judicial imprimatur to Jefferson and Madison's actions. But his opinion did not issue a writ of mandamus that the Administration could simply ignore. Instead, it provided no remedy to Marbury, because of a technicality: The statute under which he had sought mandamus relief authorized such petitions to be filed directly in the Supreme Court. But Marshall concluded that that statute was unconstitutional, because in the Court's reading it could only authorize appellate jurisdiction over mandamus suits. In doing so, the Court built its own power and prestige by establishing that it had a power it was not necessarily assumed to have before: the authority the strike down federal statutes that violated the Constitution. But in doing so, the Court gave Jefferson absolutely nothing he could use politically: the opinion clearly rebuked his actions, but it didn't give him an order he could defy.

The parallels here are eerie. President Obama was ready for the Court to uphold the mandate -- in which case he would have trumpeted the decision as a vindication of the law and a rejection of Republican criticism that Democrats had overreached. And he similarly, was ready for the Court to strike down the mandate, or even the whole Act (apparently, he had three different speeches prepared for all the possibilities). He'll never read those speeches, but he almost certainly would have challenged the Court head-on and tried to make its conservative bent into a wedge issue in his campaign -- he has been quite willing to politicize the Court in the past. There was no prospect that Obama would have ignored the ruling -- as Jefferson might have ignored a mandamus writ -- but the ensuing political struggle could have damaged the Court's credibility. And it might very well have hurt Roberts's legacy in particular, given that there had been a focused attempt in the press to paint a narrative about him as the leader of a Court out to get Democrats and Obama.

So the president was ready for the Court to break right or break left. But instead, Chief Justice Roberts juked. He agreed with the challengers that the mandate couldn't be justified under the Commerce Clause or even the Necessary and Proper Clause -- thereby reinforcing the narrative that the Democratic Congress overreached in passing the bill. His opinion -- though not the result -- may provide much help in the future to judicial conservatives, as it suggests that, with the dissent, five justices are in favor of a more aggressive role for the Court in policing the bounds of the Commerce Clause (and the Spending Clause, which was at issue in the Medicaid legislation). And while Roberts ultimately voted to uphold the Act, he did so on a ground that, for Obama, plays terribly: that it's a tax.

Now, much as Jefferson was two centuries ago, Obama is boxed in. What is he to do? He can't criticize the Court for judicial activism, as it upheld the law (putting aside the way the Court limited the Medicaid provisions, which are not particularly salient to voters). The decision undercuts a potential theme of his campaign -- that a conservative Court is out of control. And yet Obama can't trumpet the decision either, since it states that Democrats overreached in trying to justify the law under the Commerce Clause. Worse yet, it calls the mandate something that Democrats didn't want it to be: a tax.

Conversely, the decision may be the optimal result for Mitt Romney. If the Court had struck down the mandate, it would have taken off the table an issue that Republican base voters care tremendously about. But in upholding the law, the Court didn't just leave that issue on the table; it gave Romney tremendous ammunition he can use to criticize Obama as a tax raiser.

There was much contrarian wisdom floating around prior to the decision about how a defeat might be helpful to Obama, as he could run against the Court. Jeffrey Toobin criticized this as "nonsense": "Winners win, and losers lose." We'll never know if Obama could have potentially won by losing the health care case. But the coming months will tell whether he might have lost by winning.

Daniel Epps is an associate at King & Spalding LLP in Washington, D.C. and a former law clerk to Justice Kennedy.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/06/in-health-care-ruling-roberts-steals-a-move-from-john-marshalls-playbook/259121/

John Roberts saves Obamacare: How does George W. Bush feel right now?

Walter Shapiro, 06/29/12

In his White House memoir, “Courage and Consequence,” Karl Rove recalls being the lone non-lawyer among the group of George W. Bush aides who initially interviewed John Roberts for the Supreme Court in 2005. Rove asked Roberts to go back in history to name the justice whom he most revered. Roberts’ answer, Robert Jackson, intrigued and reassured Rove. When appointed in 1941, Jackson was serving as Franklin Roosevelt’s attorney general and had been expected to be a pro-New Deal rubber-stamp on the court. But, as Rove put it, Jackson “instead demonstrated a fidelity to the Constitution that Roberts admired.”

Thursday, in a jaw-dropping turnabout worthy of Justice Jackson, Roberts provided the swing vote in a 5-to-4 decision that upheld the constitutionality of almost all of Obamacare, the president’s signature legislative achievement. While an army of armchair court watchers expected Justice Anthony Kennedy to determine the fate of the Affordable Care Act (a recent Time cover called him “The Decider”), it was Roberts who took his fidelity to the Constitution in an ideologically surprising direction. Kennedy voted with three other conservative justices to overturn the health insurance mandate at the heart of the law.

Constitutional law seminars and unlicensed political psychologists will spend years speculating about Roberts’ motivations in joining the liberal bloc in probably the most important Supreme Court decision since Bush v. Gore in 2000. While we may wait decades to know for certain, it does seem plausible that Roberts may have been partly triggered by a desire to prevent the court from being seen as overtly political. Polls showing public respect for the Supreme Court at a quarter-century low reflect the growing view that the justices pursue partisan agendas.

One of the most important passages in Roberts’ majority decision was the chief justice’s assertion: “We do not consider whether the act embodied sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenge provisions.”

In short, if you want a national referendum on the health-care law, then the proper arena is the 2012 campaign—and not the inner sanctums of the Supreme Court.

The majority opinion in the health care case points up the inadequacy of the political clichés used in the heat of an election year to describe the Supreme Court. Phrases like “strict constructionist” and “not making law from the bench” do not clarify complex Supreme Court opinions like Thursday’s ruling. Romney’s campaign website declares, “As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito.” There’s only one problem with this formulation: Roberts went in one direction and Scalia, Thomas and Alito went in the opposite on the constitutionality of the health care bill.

Obama’s own ability at prophecy is limited, as well. In 2005, the former constitutional law professor declared in a Senate address that he was opposing Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court because “I ultimately have to give more weight to his deeds and overarching political philosophy … than to the assuring words he provided me in our meeting.”

While Obama has sharply disagreed with major decisions of the Roberts Court (particularly the anything-goes Citizen United ruling on campaign finance), it is tempting to wonder if the president now feels that he misjudged the man who saved his legislative legacy.

It is almost part of the job description of a president that he will make, at least, one blunder when picking Supreme Court justices. Harry Truman called one of his nominees, Tom Clark, a “damn fool from Texas.” When George H.W. Bush tapped New Hampshire jurist David Souter in 1990, the president never expected that he would be reinforcing the court’s liberal wing. Now it is Roberts who has refused to stay in his pre-determined ideological cubbyhole.

With four current justices over the age of 70, it is likely that whoever is elected president this November will get an opportunity to put his stamp on the Supreme Court. But the potential for Lucy-and-the-football surprises endures. About the only ways a president can achieve some measure of certainty about the court are either to nominate fire-breathing ideologues like Antonin Scalia or political cronies like Abe Fortas, who kept open a back channel to Lyndon Johnson during his brief tenure as a justice. But even the Scalia precedent no longer works, because anyone with a sharply articulated judicial philosophy probably could not make it through today’s hyper-partisan Senate.

As for the health care law, its major provisions remain on schedule to take effect in 2014. Even a President Romney may find it difficult to reverse history, as he would have to face down a filibuster threat by Senate Democrats to get a repeal bill through Congress. (There are, however, administrative gambits that Romney could use to eviscerate Obamacare if Congress proves balky.) That’s why the Supreme Court seemed like such a beguiling short cut for conservatives who loathe Obamacare.

It’s also why back in 2005 Karl Rove may have badly misinterpreted John Roberts’ stated intention to be an independent jurist like Robert Jackson.

Walter Shapiro's Yahoo! News column examines what we know about the character and personalities of the 2012 candidates. Shapiro, who is covering his ninth presidential campaign, is also a special correspondent for the New Republic.

http://news.yahoo.com/john-roberts-saves-obamacare--how-does-george-w--bush-feel-right-now-.html

Obamacare's Insurance Rule Is Upheld by Supreme Court

CNBC.com with AP and Reuters, 06/28/12

The Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling Thursday, upheld President Obama's health care overhaul, including the controversial requirement that most Americans have health insurance.

The court handed Obama a campaign-season victory in rejecting arguments that Congress went too far in requiring Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty.

Chief Justice John Roberts announced the court's judgment that allows the law to go forward with its aim of covering more than 30 million uninsured Americans.

Click here to read court's decision

The court, however, found problems with the law's expansion of Medicaid, but even there said the expansion could proceed as long as the federal government does not threaten to withhold states' entire Medicaid allotment if they don't take part in the law's extension.

The court's four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, joined Roberts in the outcome. Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.

...

The court's ruling on the law could figure prominently in the run-up to the Nov. 6 election in which Obama seeks a second four-year term against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who opposed the law.

The ruling produced a day of drama at the Supreme Court, as the justices read various parts of the opinions from the bench on the last day of the court's term.

Roberts concluded his 59-page opinion by writing: "The Framers (of the U.S. Constitution) created a federal government of limited powers and assigned to this court the duty of enforcing those limits," he wrote.

"The court does so today. But the court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people," he said.

The healthcare case produced four different opinions, totaling 187 pages.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, renewed his vow to try to repeal the healthcare law.

"Today's ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety," Boehner said in a statement just minutes after the court released its ruling.

Boehner's Republican-led House will likely vote to repeal the measure, but Obama's fellow Democrats in the Senate are certain to block it.

Obama and his fellow Democrats expended a great deal of energy and political capital in securing congressional passage of the measure over unified Republican opposition. The law is reviled by conservatives, who dubbed it "Obamacare."

The healthcare battle has been the most politically charged case before the Supreme Court since 2000, when the justices halted the Florida vote recount in a ruling that gave the Republican Bush the presidency over Democrat Al Gore.

Unlike healthcare in other rich countries, the U.S. system is a patchwork of private insurance and restrictive government programs that has left tens of millions of people uninsured.

The United States pays more on healthcare than any other country.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/47946647?__source=yahoo%7Crelated%7Cstory%7Ctext%7C&par=yahoo