United States President Barack Obama emphatically stated that he was confident his administration’s health care law will be upheld by the Supreme Court. On Monday, the president used unusually blunt language to challenge the Supreme Court to uphold the pivotal health care reform legislation, suggesting that if the Supreme Court were to overturn the law, it would be an “unprecedented” and “extraordinary step” of judicial activism.
Obama flipped the script on some of his conservative opponents of the health care law, who he said for years have argued that one of the biggest problems in the court was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. Obama questioned the authority of the Supreme Court, an unelected, but appointed, panel of nine justices, in overturning a law that had been approved of and passed by a majority of Congress. The president then emphasized his confidence that the Supreme Court would recognize this and not take the step of reversing his administration’s legislation.
Despite Obama’s unwavering confidence that the law will be passed, the Supreme Court has shown a willingness to at the very least consider ruling a portion of “Obamacare,” a policy that would require all uninsured American citizens to purchase health care coverage, unconstitutional.
Though such a ruling would be a major blow to the president’s re-election campaign, Obama has maintained that his administration has no need for a “Plan B” in case the law is overturned, once again reinforcing his confidence that the law will ultimately be ruled constitutional by the courts. Obama cited the opinions of various constitutional law professors, academics, judges, and lawyers who have spent considerable amounts of time examining the law to back up this notion.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to announce its ruling in June, and if upheld, the law will be fully implemented by 2014.
Read more at The Washington Post.
