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Showing posts with label obamacare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obamacare. Show all posts
Is the individual mandate tax in Obamacare unenforceable?

Is the individual mandate tax in Obamacare unenforceable?

Could Obamacare actually increase the number of uninsured people? Suppose that you believe Obama's claims about ending free-riding by people on health care. Well, it turns out that Obamacare might really make them pay anything. John Merline has this at IBD:
But the uninsured problem under ObamaCare could be much worse than the CBO projects.

What the report doesn't cover is the fact that the other legs of the ObamaCare stool designed to expand insurance coverage — the individual mandate, the employer mandate and the state insurance exchanges — are also buckling.

As a result, ObamaCare will likely cover far fewer uninsured than advertised. There's even a chance that, if all goes wrong, it could actually make the uninsured problem worse.

The individual mandate, for example, is a cornerstone of ObamaCare's effort to expand coverage. But tax experts who've studied how the IRS will enforce the mandate conclude that it's likely to be ineffective, because the law makes it virtually impossible for the IRS to collect the tax penalty from those who don't pay it.

Under normal circumstances, the IRS has broad powers to collect taxes from those who don't pay what they owe. It can charge civil and criminal penalties, impose liens, and seize assets and bank accounts.

But ObamaCare specifically blocks the IRS from using these enforcement tools when it comes to collecting any unpaid ObamaCare tax penalties. . . .

Obama IRS rewriting Obamacare now that it is clear that states aren't doing what was intended

Obama IRS rewriting Obamacare now that it is clear that states aren't doing what was intended

Congress wrote the Obamacare law to achieve a particular result, but things haven't worked out quite as intended. In this case, Democrats wrote the law to put pressure on states to adopt the health insurance exchanges, but apparently Democrats thought that the pressure would be so great that states would have to adopt the exchanges. They never really planned for the exchanges not being set up. From the Cato Institute:
It turns out that ObamaCare makes an essential part of its regulatory scheme—an $800 billion bailout of private health insurance companies—conditional upon state governments creating the health insurance “exchanges” envisioned in the law.

This was no “drafting error.” During congressional consideration of the bill, its lead author, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), acknowledged that he intentionally and purposefully made that bailout conditional on states implementing their own Exchanges.

Now that it appears that as many as 30 states will not create Exchanges, the law is in peril. When states refuse to establish an Exchange, they are blocking not only that bailout, but also the $2,000 per worker tax ObamaCare imposes on employers. If enough states refuse to establish an Exchange, they can effectively force Congress to repeal much or all of the law.

That might explain why the IRS is literally rewriting the statute. On May 24, the IRS finalized a regulation that says the law’s $800 billion insurance-industry bailout will not be conditional on states creating Exchanges. With the stroke of pen, the IRS (1) stripped states of the power Congress gave them to shield employers from that $2,000 per-worker tax, (2) imposed that illegal tax on employers whom Congress exempted, and (3) issued up to $800 billion of tax credits and direct subsidies to private health insurance companies—without any congressional authorization whatsoever. . . .

Forget Jonathan Gruber's promises that Obamacare would "for sure" lower health insurance costs

Forget Jonathan Gruber's promises that Obamacare would "for sure" lower health insurance costs

Remember Jonathan Gruber's crucial analysis that played such a central role in getting Obamacare passed?  Remember his promise that passage would greatly reduce health insurance costs?  He promised" "we know for sure the bill will do is that it will lower the cost of buying non-group health insurance."  Remember that this is the same guy who got paid about $400,000 from the Obama administration and failed to mention it in all the media that he did pushing Obamacare?  Well, as best as I can tell from Gruber's statements is that for some states that already have a lot of mandates, the cost of health insurance will pretty much stay the same, but in other states the cost will go up, often by a lot.  Of course, none of this includes the impact from the ban on pre-existing conditions exclusion.


Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute has the story here:

As states began the process of considering whether or not to set up the insurance exchanges mandated by the new health law, several retained Gruber as a consultant. In at least three cases—Wisconsin in August 2011, Minnesotain November 2011, and Colorado in January 2012—Gruber reported that premiums in the individual market would increase, not decrease, as a result of Obamacare.
In Wisconsin, Gruber reported that people purchasing insurance for themselves on the individual market would see, on average, premium increases of 30 percent by 2016, relative to what would have happened in the absence of Obamacare. In Minnesota, the law would increase premiums by 29 percent over the same period. Colorado was the least worst off, with premiums under the law rising by only 19 percent. . . .
"It is important to recognize some limitations in our modeling of prices. In particular, given publicly available data we cannot incorporate the effects of the ban on pre-existing conditions exclusions. . . . ."
Roy's piece is worth reading.
Obamacare already at 13,000 pages of regulations and they are just getting started

Obamacare already at 13,000 pages of regulations and they are just getting started

Well, this will certainly simplify health care.  From Fox News:
"Oh boy," Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute said. "HHS has a huge amount of work to do and the states do, too. . . ." The IRS, Health and Human Services and many other agencies will now write thousands of pages of regulations -- an effort well under way:
"There's already 13,000 pages of regulations, and they're not even done yet," Rehberg said. . . .
According to James Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, federal powers will include designing insurance plans, telling people where they can go for coverage and how much insurers are allowed to charge.
"Really, how doctors and hospitals are supposed to practice medicine," he said.
The health department is still writing regulations, which can be controversial in and of themselves. . . .
Unbelievably, Obama still claiming that everyone can keep their current health insurance if they are happy with it

Unbelievably, Obama still claiming that everyone can keep their current health insurance if they are happy with it

From Obama's remarks after the Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare:
"First, if you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance. This law will only make it more secure and more affordable." . . .
I only care about this because it shows that Obama simply won't admit the obvious to voters.  To believe that Obamacare will lower the costs of insurance means that Obama really doesn't think that profits motivate firms.  
Insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime limits on the amount of care you receive.  . . .  Because of the Affordable Care Act, young adults under the age of 26 are able to stay on their parent's health care plans -- a provision that's already helped 6 million young Americans.  And because of the Affordable Care Act, seniors receive a discount on their prescription drugs -- a discount that's already saved more than 5 million seniors on Medicare about $600 each. . . .
If these changes really lowered costs, firms would have offered all these benefits on their own.  More misinformation on how insurance has actually worked.
They can no longer discriminate against children with preexisting conditions. . . .

"Only 6 Percent of Americans Say Health Care is the Top U.S. Problem"

Remember this is before Obamacare actually goes into effect.  A new Gallup poll finds that only 6% of Americans think that health care is the most important policy problem in the country.


The other important finding is that satisfaction about the way that things are going in the US down to 20%.  Click here to see the details of the survey.

If John Roberts changed his position on Obamacare to protect the court from being called political, the initial polls are not encouraging

If John Roberts changed his position on Obamacare to protect the court from being called political, the initial polls are not encouraging

It is possible that the Supreme Court's approval rating would have fallen anyway as the Obama administration and Democrats would have savaged them if they struck down Obamacare, but this can't be encouraging.  From Rasmussen Reports:
Public opinion of the Supreme Court has grown more negative since the highly publicized ruling on the president’s health care law was released. A growing number now believe that the high court is too liberal and that justices pursue their own agenda rather than acting impartially.
A week ago,  36% said the court was doing a good or an excellent job. That’s down to 33% today. However, the big change is a rise in negative perceptions. Today, 28% say the Supreme Court is doing a poor job. That’s up 11 points over the past week. . . .
Thirty-seven percent (37%) now believe the Supreme Court is too liberal, while 22% think it's too conservative. A week ago, public opinion was much more evenly divided:  32% said it was too liberal and 25% said too conservative. . . .
Jan Crawford at CBS is someone who I have met and I think that she comes across as quite credible.  She claims to have two well placed sources who say that Roberts changed his position as a result of outside pressure on the court.
Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.
Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.
"He was relentless," one source said of Kennedy's efforts. "He was very engaged in this."
But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, "You're on your own." . . .
Some of the conservatives, such as Justice Clarence Thomas, deliberately avoid news articles on the Court when issues are pending (and avoid some publications altogether, such as The New York Times). They've explained that they don't want to be influenced by outside opinion or feel pressure from outlets that are perceived as liberal.
But Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As Chief Justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the Court, and he also is sensitive to how the Court is perceived by the public.
There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the Court - and to Roberts' reputation - if the Court were to strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the President himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be upheld. . . . .
The funny thing is that while the liberals on the court talk about giving respect to legislative decisions, it is clear that they only give respect to decisions by liberal legislatures.  For example, the court just recently struck down a decision to give life sentences without parole to juveniles who commit especially heinous acts of murder.  The court had previously struck down the death penalty for 17 year olds, and states moved to have life in prison. Now that has been struck down.  
Let me get this straight, the Obama administration tells the Supreme Court that Obamacare has taxes so that it will be declared constitutional, but then tells the voters these aren't really taxes

Let me get this straight, the Obama administration tells the Supreme Court that Obamacare has taxes so that it will be declared constitutional, but then tells the voters these aren't really taxes

Some how the Obama administration only remembered that these were taxes when it needed to make arguments before the Supreme Court.  From Fox News:

First it was a penalty. Then it was a tax. Now it's a penalty again.
The war of words over what to call the fine attached to the federal health care overhaul's most controversial provision continued Friday, as the White House took issue with the Supreme Court's argument -- even though that argument alone spared President Obama's law.
The five-justice majority argued that, while the fine imposed by the law for not buying health insurance would otherwise be unconstitutional, the fine is actually legal under Congress' authority to tax.
Ergo, the fine is officially a "tax" in the eyes of the court. The law stands.
But in a case of biting the hand that feeds, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Friday the fine is still just a "penalty."
Calling it a "tax" causes obvious political problems for the White House. Obama fought that label vigorously when selling the bill in 2009. . . .
Many Republican governors are still putting up opposition to Obamacare

Many Republican governors are still putting up opposition to Obamacare

The fear that I have is that once many of these institutions are enacted some of the structure of the private market will be destroyed and it will be costly to replace it.  Despite Obama's claim that everyone should fall in line now, it is nice to see that some states are delaying putting it in place.  From Politico:

. . . Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, Bob McDonnell and Rick Perry all responded to the Supreme Court’s decision by saying they’ll keep fighting — even as the White House on Friday made clear its response: Fine, we’ll do it without you.
The Republican governors’ message was clear on a morning Republican National Committee conference call, when Jindal and McDonnell stressed their continued defiance of the Affordable Care Act and said they will resist implementing the state-based health insurance exchanges for which the law calls.
“Here in Louisiana, look, we refused to set up the exchange. We’re not going to start implementing Obamacare,” Jindal said. “We have not applied for the grants, we have not accepted many of these dollars, we are not implementing the exchanges, we don’t think it makes any sense to implement Obamacare in Louisiana.”
The response from GOP governors was similar elsewhere. . . .
How come only conservatives get blamed for dysfunctional government?

How come only conservatives get blamed for dysfunctional government?


David Gregory: "What happens if it is struck down in part or in whole by a 5 to 4 decision? Would that not underscore how dysfunctional our government is, the major institutions of our government are? That is a real nightmare scenario, I think, for the political class in this country." 
Why isn't it dysfunctional if the Supreme Court only approved it by a 5-4 margin? 
"Chief Justice Roberts....he has spoken publicly about how on big controversial decisions, he thinks a 5-4 majority on the Court overtime undermines the Supreme Court. And only fuels the view that our major political institutions are too polarized. He's taken a big step here. He's going to be cheered for that by some on the Right and the Left, criticized I'm sure, as well, by some on Right."
So does this mean that the four liberal justices who voted in a block are the polarizers? 

So if the individual mandate in Obamacare is struck down, what is the probability that all of Obamacare will be struck down

A survey of former Supreme Court clerks and 18 attorneys who have argued before the court gives us some information.



So the bottom line? They think that the mandate will be found unconstitutional. But the various other questions indicate that only part of Obamacare will be struck down.  That the Medicaid expansion will be upheld (essentially meaning that there is no limit to what can be required in exchange for government funds) and that even if that is struck down, it won't cause anything else to be struck down.    

The House originally had a severability clause in Obamacare.  The Senate took this out, but because of Scott Brown winning in Massachusetts the House couldn't put the clause back in.  So how is the court going to logically decide what to keep and what not to keep?  Here are two telling comments:

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?
And this even more telling discussion.
JUSTICE BREYER: I don't think it's not uncommon that Congress passes an act, and then there are many titles, and some of the titles have nothing to do with the other titles. That's a common thing. And you're saying you've never found an instance where they are all struck out when they have nothing to do with each other. My question is, because I hear Mr. Clement saying something not too different from what you say.  He talks about things at the periphery. We can't reject or accept an argument on severability because it's a lot of work for us. That's beside the point. But do you think that it's possible for you and Mr. Clement, on exploring this, to — to get together and agree on -­ (Laughter) JUSTICE BREYER: — I mean on — on a list of things that are in both your opinions peripheral, then you would focus on those areas where one of you thinks it's peripheral and one of you thinks it's not peripheral. And at that point it might turn out to be far fewer than we are currently imagining. At which point we could hold an argument or figure out some way or somebody hold an argument and try to — try to get those done. Is -- is this a pipe dream or is that a - 
MR. KNEEDLER: I — I — I just don't think that is realistic. The Court would be doing it without the parties, the millions of parties -­ 
JUSTICE SCALIA: You can have a conference committee report afterwards, maybe. (Laughter)  
MR. KNEEDLER: No, it just — it just is not something that a court would ordinarily do. But I would like -­  
The sad thing is that Breyer wants to desperately save the rest of the law and this was the best that he could come up with.  With comments such as these, how is it possible that they can pick and choose what parts of the law to keep?

UPDATE: Is it possible for the New York Times to write a news story that isn't very biased?
Congress held no hearing on the plan’s constitutionality until nearly a year after it was signed into law. Representative Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, scoffed when a reporter asked what part of the Constitution empowered Congress to force Americans to buy health insurance. “Are you serious?” she asked with disdain. “Are you serious?”
Opponents of the health plan were indeed serious, and so was the Supreme Court, which devoted more time to hearing the case than to any other in decades. A White House that had assumed any challenge would fail now fears that a centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s presidency may be partly or completely overturned on a theory that it gave little credence. The miscalculation left the administration on the defensive as its legal strategy evolved over the last two years.
“It led to some people taking it too lightly,” said a Congressional lawyer who like others involved in drafting the law declined to be identified before the ruling. “It shouldn’t strike anybody as a close call,” the lawyer added, but “given where we are now, do I wish we had focused even more on this? I guess I would say yes.”
Looking back, Democrats said they had had every reason for confidence, given decades of Supreme Court precedents affirming Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce, and lawyers who defended the law said they had always taken the challenge seriously even if politicians had not. But they underestimated the chances that conservative judges might, in this view, radically reinterpret or discard those precedents. . . .
Does this article strike one as being written for and by Democrats?  It is true that for decades the Supreme Court had obliterated the original meaning of the commerce Clause, but does that mean that the congress can stretch that meaning even more?  Surely even Democrats must see a difference between a farmer who grows wheat for his own consumption being regulated and forcing someone to grow wheat (or in this case forcing them to buy health insurance).  Why is acknowledging such a difference the same as radically reinterpreting or discarding precedents?  Of course, the piece has other references to an "increasingly activist court."

One has to really appreciate how the New York Times keeps on blaming the poor presentation by Verrilli, as if the Justices aren't able to evaluate the arguments independently of how well the lawyers before them argue their cases.
By the end of January 2011, judges in Florida and Virginia had ruled it unconstitutional. Only then did the Senate and the House hold hearings on its constitutionality, and the administration grew worried. . . . Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who became solicitor general last June, rehearsed in multiple moot court sessions. But on the critical day of Supreme Court arguments on March 27, he momentarily choked on a drink of water and was hammered by justices skeptical of his argument. He gave a rambling answer about the limits of Congressional power and had a hard time controlling the discussion as he was peppered with questions. . .
Why not just accept that Verrilli had an almost impossible case to make? 
Corruption Obama style

Corruption Obama style

When there is a lot of government money and power at stake you get a lot of corruption.  From Kimberly Strassel at the WSJ:

. . . An outside group funded by industry is paying the former firm of senior presidential adviser David Axelrod to run ads in favor of the bill. That firm, AKPD Message and Media, still owes Mr. Axelrod money and employs his son.
The story quickly died, but emails recently released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee ought to resurrect it. The emails suggest the White House was intimately involved both in creating this lobby and hiring Mr. Axelrod's firm—which is as big an ethical no-no as it gets.
Mr. Axelrod—who left the White House last year—started AKPD in 1985. The firm earned millions helping run Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. Mr. Axelrod moved to the White House in 2009 and agreed to have AKPD buy him out for $2 million. But AKPD chose to pay Mr. Axelrod in annual installments—even as he worked in the West Wing. This agreement somehow passed muster with the Office of Government Ethics, though the situation at the very least should have walled off AKPD from working on White-House priorities.
It didn't. The White House and industry were working hand-in-glove to pass ObamaCare in 2009, and among the vehicles supplying ad support was an outfit named Healthy Economy Now (HEN). News stories at the time described this as a "coalition" that included the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the American Medical Association, and labor groups—suggesting these entities had started and controlled it. . . .
Could the Supreme Court save a $1 trillion at a stroke?

Could the Supreme Court save a $1 trillion at a stroke?

Remember all the promises about the 2010 health care law being budget neutral? Now people are talking about how much the Supreme Court decision to strike down the health care law could save a lot of money. From Politico:
Congress could stumble into a big pile of cash from an unlikely source: the Supreme Court.The justices will deliver their landmark ruling on the 2010 health care law this month, and the government is in line to reap hundreds of billions of dollars in savings — perhaps more than $1 trillion — if certain parts of it are struck down. That money could be freed up just in time for a battle over whether automatic cuts to the Pentagon and social programs will kick in, and some members of Congress are already dreaming about the possibilities. “We’re thinking [about] different options, but there are so many variations of what could happen from the court decision, it’s hard to make any hard plans,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.). But, he added, a windfall “would be a factor” in discussions about whether to keep in place pending Pentagon cuts. . . .
More Mandates in Obamacare

More Mandates in Obamacare

From ABC News:
The individual insurance requirement that the Supreme Court is reviewing isn't the first federal mandate involving health care. There's a Medicare payroll tax on workers and employers, for example, and a requirement that hospitals provide free emergency services to indigents. Health care is full of government dictates, some arguably more intrusive than President Barack Obama's overhaul law. It's a wrinkle that has caught the attention of the justices. Most of the mandates apply to providers such as hospitals and insurers. For example, a 1990s law requires health plans to cover at least a 48-hour hospital stay for new mothers and their babies. Such requirements protect some consumers while indirectly raising costs for others. One mandate affects just about everybody: Workers must pay a tax to finance Medicare, which collects about $200 billion a year. It's right on your W-2 form, line 6, "Medicare tax withheld." Workers must pay it even if they don't have health insurance. Employees of a company get to split the tax with their employer. The self-employed owe the full amount, 2.9 percent of earnings. . . .
Paul Krugman's embarrassingly weak analysis on the Supreme Court debate over health care

Paul Krugman's embarrassingly weak analysis on the Supreme Court debate over health care

Krugman's piece on Friday, "Broccoli and Bad Faith," continues his trend for polemics over accuracy or analysis.
Let's start with the already famous exchange in which Justice Antonin Scalia compared the purchase of health insurance to the purchase of broccoli, with the implication that if the government can compel you to do the former, it can also compel you to do the latter. That comparison horrified health care experts all across America because health insurance is nothing like broccoli. Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don't make broccoli unavailable to those who want it. But when people don't buy health insurance until they get sick -- which is what happens in the absence of a mandate -- the resulting worsening of the risk pool makes insurance more expensive, and often unaffordable, for those who remain. As a result, unregulated health insurance basically doesn't work, and never has. . . .
OK, so if you wait until you are sick before you buy health insurance, you drive up the price of insurance for others. But the exact same argument exists for broccoli. If broccoli makes you healthier and you don't eat it, you are more likely to get sick and you will shift up the demand curve for health care, raising the price of insurance.
unregulated health insurance basically doesn't work, and never has. . . .
Krugman is well-known for his assertions. If you got rid of insurance regulations, prices would be set according to risk.
I was struck, in particular, by the argument over whether requiring that state governments participate in an expansion of Medicaid -- an expansion, by the way, for which they would foot only a small fraction of the bill -- constituted unacceptable "coercion." One would have thought that this claim was self-evidently absurd. After all, states are free to opt out of Medicaid if they choose; Medicaid's "coercive" power comes only from the fact that the federal government provides aid to states that are willing to follow the program's guidelines. If you offer to give me a lot of money, but only if I perform certain tasks, is that servitude? . . .
The discussion before the Supreme Court was over "coercion," not "servitude." "Coercion" means to impose a cost on others. As any economist knows, costs are always opportunity costs. Giving up money represents an opportunity cost. But let me make it simple for Krugman: You take money from me by force and give it back only if I do want what you want me to do. That sure seems like coercion.
The Vote on Severability on Obamacare

The Vote on Severability on Obamacare

My guess is that the vote on striking down the entire Obamacare bill could be 6 to 2 or even higher.  If anything this is the one of the four decisions that could be great that 5 to 4.  Why?  Kagan and Sotomayer asked about whether the simplest rule for striking down an entire bill is whether the congress didn't include a sever ability clause.  Then there is this discussion by Breyer and Scalia.  The bill just seems to long to make figure out what to include or exclude to difficult for anyone to determine. From CNS news:


“Could I ask you one question, which is a practical question,” Breyer asked of Paul Clement, the lawyer representing the state of Florida in the case.
“I take as a given your answer to Justice Kennedy,’ said Breyer, “you are saying let's look at it objectively and say what Congress has intended, okay? This is the mandate in the community, this is Titles I and II, the mandate, the community, pre-existing condition, okay? Here's the rest of it, you know.
“And when I look through the rest of it, I have all kinds of stuff in there,” said Breyer. “And I haven't read every word of that, I promise.
“As you pointed out, there is biosimilarity, there is breast feeding, there is promoting nurses and doctors to serve underserved areas, there is the CLASS Act, etcetera,” said Breyer.
“What do you suggest we do?” said Breyer. “I mean, should we appoint a special master with an instruction? Should we go back to the district court? You haven't argued most of these. As I hear you now, you're pretty close to the SG [the Obama administration’s solicitor general]. I mean, you'd like it all struck down, but we are supposed to apply the objective test. I don't know if you differ very much.
“So what do you propose that we do other than spend a year reading all this and have you argument all this?” said Breyer.
Also on Wednesday, Justice Antonin Scalia jokingly invoked the Eighth Amendment—which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments—when discussing the “severability” issue with Deputy Solicitor General Ed Kneedler. Scalia’s remarks elicited laughter from the audience in the court chamber.
“Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?” said Scalia.
“And do you really expect the Court to do that? Or do you expect us to give this function to our law clerks?” said Scalia.
“Is this not totally unrealistic? That we're going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?” he said. . . .

Here is a prediction using some work by Landes and Posner that the individual mandate will be struck down.
The statistics illustrate the stark divide on the court -- the four Democratic appointees, Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- all aimed their comments at Clement and Carvin by a heavy margin. Three of the five Republican appointees, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia, were equally one-sided, aiming the overwhelming majority of their comments at Verrilli.
Kennedy was somewhat less skewed, but was far closer to the conservative side, with comments to Verrilli outnumbering those to Clement and Carvin by a 2-1 margin.
The statistics also support another observation court watchers have made -- Breyer is by far the wordiest justice. 
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