Supreme Court and Obamacare: Day 1

The first day of oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Obamacare dealt with the Anti-Injunction Act. Obamacare forces Americans to buy health insurance, and if they don’’t they’’ll be fined. If the Court sees this fine as a tax, the Anti-Injunction Act wouldn’’t let anyone challenge Obamacare in court until they were actually penalized——probably not until 2015. But based on the oral arguments yesterday, I don’’t think that’’ll happen. Justices Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Breyer all said the law in question inflicted a penalty, not a tax. And there was no evidence the other justices disagreed. They seemed unconvinced by the attorney’’s attempts to label it as a taxation issue. This means we can expect the Court to move on to other matters, such as the mandate itself. I’’ll keep you posted.