“Unprecedented is a description, not an analysis.”

March 22nd, 2012

Linda Greenhouse is not impressed with the “unprecedented” analysis in ACA:

Basically just one word, in fact: “unprecedented.” Did you know that the individual mandate is unprecedented? You will after you read the brief filed by the redoubtable Paul D. Clement, the former solicitor general, on behalf of the 26 states that filed suit to challenge the law. The brief uses the word “unprecedented” 10 times, by my count — I probably missed some — not counting such other formulations of the same thought as “novel” and “first ever.” O.K., I get it. I’ll even accept it as true: granted that passage of the Affordable Care Act ended decades of deadlock over how to reform the developed world’s most irrational health care system. It should have happened much earlier.

UpdateCalvin Massey is not impressed by Greenhouse:

She used to be an excellent reporter on the Court’s business.  Now she’s an “Opinionater.”