Obamacare: 'The sky is the limit'.

Obamacare: 'The sky is the limit'.(AmericanThinker). By Clarice Feldman.Today, it became clear that four of the Supreme Court's nine justices reject the academic consensus.
As Justice Kennedy states in his dissent joined by Scalia, Thomas, and Alito: "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."
The alternative gestalt is no longer an outlier, a theory endorsed by a few eccentric professors and one odd justice of the Supreme Court. And because Justice Roberts believes that the mandate is not a valid exercise of the commerce clause (but is valid if interpreted as a tax), he has left open the possibility that there is a fifth justice who endorses the alternative gestalt.

Conservatives have a shot at getting the best of both worlds: having the Supreme Court use Obamacare as a way to limit federal power while also using the democratic process to overturn the law. I didn't think we could have one without the other, but now maybe we can.

If Obama loses in November, that is...

(b) What Next?

The ball is now in the Republicans' court. They've already scheduled a repeal vote on July 11. Once before the Democrat-controlled Senate was able to scotch the effort by threat of filibuster. Had the mandate stood as mandate they could do so again. But now that it's a tax, it can be passed by a simple majority. And if it is, the president will be forced before the election to veto a repeal  of a law  a majority of the voters keep indicating they want repealed.

Every Democrat running in November will be forced to defend what amounts to the biggest tax increase-about $400 billion dollars-in American history, a tax largely levied against the young and the middle class who don't normally carry health insurance.

Professor Ann Althouse sets out the state of play for Obama and his party:

I have said repeatedly that Obama would be worse off if Obamacare were upheld, but what I'm really seeing is how bad it is for him with the mandate declared a tax.

Remember the Democrats got the statute passed by insisting it was not a tax. Now, we learn it is only constitutional because it is a tax. That's got to hurt politically.

ADDED: Romney has at least 3 big arguments:

1. Obama imposed a huge new tax on working people.

2. Obama deceived the American people by saying it was not a tax, when it was.

3. The law made it look like money would go to insurance companies - in the form of new premiums - that would keep premiums low as the companies were required to take on people with pre-existing conditions, but now we find out that the money is really going to go to the federal government. [ADDED: So get ready for your premiums to spiral up and/or for insurance companies to be ruined.]

Did you really ever think Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and Barack Obama could outsmart and outplay Justice Roberts? Really?Read the full story here.