SCOTUS Healthcare Reform Law Case Expected To Create Media "Frenzy."
 

The Hill (3/21, Baker) reports in its "Healthwatch" blog, "The frenzy generated by the Supreme Court's arguments on the healthcare reform law next week is likely to dwarf anything the court has ever seen," and "many legal experts say the ruling on the healthcare law could be one of the most consequential in the court's history."

Drexel University law professor Lisa McElroy remarked, "This is just unprecedented. The only thing that even compares is maybe Bush v. Gore. This is going to be on a scale we've never seen before." 
 

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WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - U.S. farm and crop insurance subsidies would be cut by $30 billion over 10 years under a proposal made by the House of Representatives Budget Committee chairman,

far larger reductions than agricultural-state lawmakers suggested.

Budget chairman Paul Ryan called for reductions in the $5-billion-a-year "direct payment" subsidy and reforms to control the soaring cost of federally subsidized crop insurance, the largest part of the farm safety net.

"These reforms will save taxpayers roughly $30 billion over the next decade," Ryan wrote in a budget blueprint for the federal government. The cuts equal 19 percent of projected spending in the two areas through fiscal 2022.

If the House agrees with Ryan, the Agriculture Committee will be required to write a farm bill that meets the goal of $30 billion in cuts. Earlier this month, its leaders said $23 billion would be appropriate. The Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to use $23 billion as its target.

Ryan's plan would reduce "the fixed payments that go to farmers irrespective of price levels" and "reform the open-ended nature of the government's support for crop insurance so that agricultural producers assume the same kind of responsibility for managing risk that other businesses do". Continue reading here.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Dale Hudson)

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Courtesy Wall Street Journal 3-15-12

By Sam Favate

Everyone's gearing up for the upcoming debate on the health-care law before the Supreme Court at the end of March. Turns out, not a lot of people have faith the case will be decided on its merits.

Three-quarters of Americans say the Supreme Court will be influenced by politics when it rules on the constitutionality of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, according to a Bloomberg National Poll. Methodology and poll questions can be seen here.

Breaking down the results by political party, more Republicans than Democrats believe the court will be guided by politics, by 74% to 67%. Eighty percent of independents say the court won't base its decision on just legal merits. The poll also noted that among Tea Party supporters, 81% said politics will play a role in the decision, the highest percentage of any subgroup. In the nine-month term that began October 2010, the justices divided along party lines in a dozen cases, Bloomberg noted.

In a preview of the case, the American Bar Association recently polled academics, journalists and lawyers who follow the court, and found that 85% said the act would be upheld, due to a belief the court would find the insurance coverage mandate to be constitutional. Most of those polled also said that if the court were to strike down the individual mandate, they'd likely leave the rest of the law intact.

The most recent ex-justice, John Paul Stevens, who retired from the court in 2010, said earlier this year that the Supreme Court has "a wonderful record of trying to decide things on the merits rather than on the basis of our own particular views." Stevens also said controversial decisions like Bush v. Gore - which he called "a mistake" - "had an adverse impact on the public's regard for the independence of the court."