WASHINGTON — President Obama issued an extraordinary warning to the Supreme Court yesterday, saying that if justices vote to strike down ObamaCare they would be thwarting the will of the people.
Speaking in the Rose Garden, Obama predicted the court would uphold the health-care law, saying the 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.”
His remarks came after court hearings last week where several conservative justices mocked the law’s “individual mandate” by comparing it to having the government coerce people into buying broccoli, with some experts predicting a conservative 5-4 court majority would nix the law.
But Obama said yesterday that without a mandate, there isn’t a way to get care to people with pre-existing medical conditions.
“So there’s not only an economic element to this and a legal element to this, but there’s a human element to this. And I hope that’s not forgotten in this political debate,” he said.
Appearing alongside Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Obama decried the prospect “that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.”