by Ethan Rips

Lots of us are, for very good reason, anxious about the arguments just concluded at the Supreme Court about the individual mandate and the Affordable Care Act as a whole.

It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to steer people away from the usual horse race coverage of the main stream media and hack sites like Politico, and toward substantive sources that, while no more capable of predicting what this court will do than anyone else, can provide a wealth of information & unusual ways of considering the issues. Sound good? Here goes:

SCOTUSblog, a blog (OK, the name gives it away) devoted exclusively to doings at the Supreme Court. Sharp observers there.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/03/argument-recap-will-medicaid-be-sacrificed/

Dahlia Lithwick at Slate. An insightful observer, great journalist & all-around mensch (can I use that term for a woman or is there a feminine form of that? Fun with Yiddish):
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2012/03/supreme_court_and_obamacare_why_the_conservatives_are_skeptical_of_the_affordable_care_act_.html

Balkinization. A blog by a law professor, populated by more of the same. This is where you go to get down into the weeds of constitutional issues. Cool stuff for obsessive-compulsive types (I couldn’t possibly be referring to myself here, could I?):
http://balkin.blogspot.com/

The Volokh Conspiracy. A blog devoted to the libertarian (boo, hiss) side of legal issues. Know thy enemy. Actually, every once in a while I find myself in agreement with something said by a libertarian with respect to individual liberties. That is definitely not the case when it comes to health care–or health insurance–reform. Nonetheless, when you’re not feeling traumatized, it’s interesting sometimes to see how they think. I wonder if the administration’s lawyers thought of that before they put together their arguments. I certainly hope so.
http://volokh.com/2012/03/28/sg-verrilli-relies-on-the-the-constitutions-preamble/

HTH,

Ethan