The Obamacare health insurance mandate is unconstitutional according to SCOTUS:
The individual mandate, however, does not regulate existing commercial activity. It instead compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product, on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce. Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority:
But, says John Roberts, it’s OK if you think of it as a tax hike instead. So, SCOTUS just passed the biggest tax hike in all of time, in the middle of a severe economic downturn. Talk about judicial activism.
Whatever happened to paying heed to the intent of the legislators, who roundly denied the mandate was a tax, going so far as to eschew the word entirely in a 2,000 page bill?
Then, if it's a tax, doesn't that need 2/3's of the house?
I'm not sure what you mean. Repeal? I think that takes a simple majority in the House, and – now that it's a tax – a simple majority in the Senate, too. No filibuster.Of course the Democrats are still insisting it isn't a tax, and can be expected to take that approach should a Senate vote become possible.