Bob CollinsHere’s today’s final block of oral arguments in the Affordable Health Care Act before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here is the transcript of today’s arguments.
In this afternoon’s arguments it appeared the majority of the nine justices do not favor striking down the part of the law that expands Medicaid.
In earlier arguments, it appeared the judges based their questions on the assumption they’ll kill the part of the law that requires people to have health, insurance, the Associated Press reported.
The first of the day’s two sessions was unusual in that it assumed an answer to the central question in the historic health care case: that the requirement that Americans carry health insurance or pay a penalty will be struck down.
In their questions, liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer took issue with Paul Clement, the lawyer for 26 states seeking to have the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act tossed out in its entirety.
“What’s wrong with leaving this in the hands of those who should be fixing this?” asked Sotomayor, referring to Congress.
Chief Justice John Roberts also spoke about parts of the law that “have nothing to do with any of the things we are” talking about.
Here is the audio from that portion of today’s arguments:
