Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday the fact the Supreme Court could judge the constitutionality of Obamacare, bypassing lower court appeals, is a win for “taxpayers, consumers, and our businesses.”
“I’ll tell you who is winning — the taxpayers, consumers, and our businesses right now, because we filed a petition today asking the Supreme Court to take our case,” Bondi told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “And we know that the Obama administration — they’re not going back before the 11th Circuit, so we are very hopeful that we will make it to the United States Supreme Court this term.”
Bondi said the 11th Circuit’s ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional is hopefully a forbearer of what the Supreme Court will decide.
“That is the crux — the main part of our argument,” Bondi said. “The two other arguments, of course, were the Medicaid coercion, which we’ve always said, there’s been — there’s very little case law on the Medicaid coercion — they did it with much hesitation and without much serious thought, because we’ve always said that’s got to be the issue argued before the Supreme Court.
“And we also did not prevail on the severability clause — however even the federal government's conceded that without that mandate the entire Obamacare falls,” she said. “So we prevailed on the major issue, of course, which is that the federal government cannot force us to purchase a product simply by be being alive — and that it’s unconstitutional.”
Van Susteren asked Bondi what she thought the likelihood was that the high court would rule on the case by the end of the next term, June 2012.
“By the end of the year, we will know whether the Supreme Court will agree to take this issue,” Bondi said. “On that note: This is a case of truly overriding national importance, which is one of the things they consider. We have a split among circuits throughout the country, which is another thing they consider in taking a case.
“So we have very compelling reasons for them to take the case, as well as this is a law enacted by Congress that our courts have ruled to be unconstitutional,” she said. “Having said that, Greta, we hope that they will take it this term.”
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