LAST EDITED ON 04-05-12 AT 12:07 PM (EST)Here's the paragraph before the one that I quoted before:
And I think it’s important, and I think the American people understand, and the I think the justices should understand, that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to ensure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care. So there’s not only a 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.
The only way I can read this statement is a claim that this is a political debate, not a legal debate, and the Supreme Court should take that into account.
Obama's statement is probably correct politically, but that's immaterial legally.
Then let's look at this, which is his lead paragraph.
With respect to health care, I’m actually -- continue to be confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law. And the reason is because, in accordance with precedent out there, it’s constitutional. That's not just my opinion, by the way; that's the opinion of legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices that said this wasn’t even a close case.
I searched Judge Silberman's DC Circuit opinion (the only conservative appellate court judge that wrote an opinion upholding Obamacare) in vain for the phrase "close case". What I saw was a discussion about both the government's argument and the plaintiff's argument being novel (pp. 29-33)
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DC-aca-opinion.pdf
Judge Silverman takes the approach that the Wickard v. Filburn case gives Congress an unlimited Commerce Clause jurisdiction, even though that he admits that is not what the Constitution specifies for Commerce Clause power, and the only precedents drawing back Wickard are not the same as this case (since both parties are making novel arguments here). Perhaps someone with no legal knowledge would read that to mean that this "wasn't even a close case." But no constituitonal lawyer would do that.
Sorry, the full quote doesn't make Obama seem any more knowledgeable of a lawyer than the last paragraph of the quote does.