Obama warns Supreme Court against scrapping healthcare law
Tucson Post Tuesday 3rd April, 2012
• A key piece of the law mandates that Americans should carry health insurance or pay a fine
• Opponents say the federal government does not have the constitutional power to force people to buy things
• Republican presidential candidates have made repealing the law a key campaign promise
WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama said he was confident the Supreme Court would uphold the American healthcare reform law and warned that scrapping it would be an "unprecedented" move by an "unelected group of people".
In his first public comments since last week's hearings on the constitutionality of "Obamacare", the president said that striking down the law which seeks to overhaul America's healthcare system would be an example of "judicial activism" and leave the poorest people uninsured.
"I am confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Obama said at a White House press conference Monday.
The Supreme Court is deciding whether to strike part of or the entire healthcare law, including a key piece of the legislation that mandates nearly all Americans should carry health insurance or pay a fine.
Opponents of the healthcare law say the federal government does not have the constitutional power to force people to buy things.
Obama said that overturning the law would be out of bounds by the "unelected court".
"I'd just remind conservative commentators that for years what we've heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law," the president said at a news conference with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.
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