mr. carvin? >> thank you, mr. chief justice. may i please the court. i'd like to begin with the solicitor general's main premise, which is that they can compel the purchase of health insurance in order to promote commerce and how the market because it will reduce uncompensated care. if you accept that argument, you have to fundamentally alter the text of the constitution and give congress plenary power. it simply doesn't matter whether or not this regulation will provide -- promote health care, reducing uncompensated care. all that matters is whether the activity actually being regulated by the act negatively affects congress or negatively affects commerce regulation, so that its within the commerce power. if you agree with us that this is -- exceeds commerce power, the law doesn't somehow become redeemed because it had been official policy affects in the health-care market. in other words, congress does not have the power to promote commerce. congress has -- congress has the power to regulate commerce. and if the power exceeds their permissible regula

mr. carvin. >> thank you, mr. chief justice. may it please the court. i'd like to begin with the solicitor general's main premise which is that they can compel the purchases of health insurance in order to promote commerce in the health market because it will reduce uncompensated care. if you accept that argument, you have to fundamentally alter the text of the constitution and give congress plenary power. it simply doesn't matter whether or not this regulation will promote health care commerce by reducing uncompensated care. all that matters is whether the activity actually being regulated by the act negatively affects commerce or negatively affects commerce regulation so that it's within the commerce power. if you agree with us that this is -- that this exceeds commerce power the law doesn't somehow become redeemed because it has beneficial policy effects in the health care market. in other words, congress does not have the power to promote commerce. congress has the power to regulate commerce, and if the power exceeds permissible regulatory authority

mr. carvin that it might be different if you were raising an as applied to challenge and presenting a class of people whole you could say clearly would not be in the health care market, but you're raising a challenge, and we can't really know which -- which of the many, many people that this law addresses in fact will not participate in the health care market and in fact will not impose costs on all the rest of us, so the question is can congress respond to those facts that we have no crystal ball, that we can't tell who and isn't going to be in the health insurance market and say most of these people will be and most of these people will thereby impose costs on the rest of us and that's a problem that we can deal with on a classwide basis. >> no, again, the people who impose the costs on the rest of us are people who engage in a different activity at a different time which is defaulting on their health care payments. it's not the uninsured. under your theory you could regulate anybody if they have got a statistical connection to a problem. you could say -- since we could regulate people wh

mr. carvin and mr. long and mr. favre, the case is submitted. >> that wraps up the last of three days of supreme court oral arguments on the health care law. if you missed any of this, it's you available online at c spa cspan.org, we'll also show it again tonight at 8:00 p.m. on cspan2. on our facebook page, we're asking you what justice is having the most influence on the oral arguments, log on and vote and leave your thoughts. that's facebook.com/cspan. and you'll hear the congressional speeches and rallies on the health care law as well as documents and links at cspan.org/health care. >>> live sunday on in depth, your questions for author and national review senior richard brookheiser, include right time, right place, america's first dynasty. he'll taking your phone calls, e-mails and tweets on sunday's book tv. >>> here's a look at our schedule on cspan 3. next vice president joe biden visits davenport iowa to talk with supporters about manufacturing jobs and the middle class and then attorney general eric holde

mr. carvin, a large part of this argument has concerned the question of whether certain kinds of people are active participants in a market or not active participants in a market, and your test, which is a test that focuses on this activity/inactivity distinction would force one to confront that problem all the time. now, if you look over the history of the commerce clause, what you see is that there were sort of unhappy periods when the court used tests like this, direct versus indirect, commerce versus manufacturing. i think most people would say that those things didn't really work, and the question is why should this test, inactive versus active, work any better? >> the problem you identify is exactly the problem you would create if you bought the government's bogus limiting principles. you'd have to draw distinctions between the insurance industry and the car industry and all of that. return you to the commerce clause jurisprudence that bedeviled the court before the 1930s where they were drawing all these kinds of distinctions among industries, whereas our test is really very simple.

mr. clement and mark carvin who also argued today against the law. they are pointing out to the justices that they don't buy the government's argument, that this is a unique market. that the cost shifting that occurs in the health care market they say, occurs in every market. and so justice breyer, justice ginsburg, justice kagan, they seemed to pick up on the government's arguments and tried to press mr. clement and mr. carvin to respond to those arguments. >> ifill: but the chief justice and justice kennedy and justice scalia and the silent justice thomas seemed to be... >> they were much more aggress with the government. but that's almost understandable because the government is appealing a lower court decision that struck down the mandate. the government has in a sense the tougher argument to make. this is an unusual exercise of congress's power and so the government has to lay out the reasons for that power. and also the court was very interested in if this is okay you should the commerce clause, what are the limits? what stops congress from ord

mr. carvin, mr. katsas, and in particular, of course, mr. long and mr. farr. the case is submitted. >> the supreme court wrapped up three days of oral arguments yesterday. this week, they focused on four primary questions -- first, if the law includes a tax, does the court had jurisdiction to decide the case before the law takes effect? secondly, is the individual mandate part of the statute constitutional? and, if not, can the rest of the law survive? finally, is above law's expansion of medicaid coverage and intrusion on state, which is the case we just heard. listen to all four arguments on line and find out more about the health law. go to c-span.org/healthcare. >> live sunday on in depth, or founding fathers, civility, and conservative politics with your questions for author and national review senior editor. his 11 books include "right time, right place," "america's first dynasty," and his latest and james madison. he will take your phone calls, e-mails, and sweets -- on c- span2's book tv. starting sunday, see the winners in this year's c-span studentca

mr. carvin, i think it is a fair question to ask, i wanted to ask it to you directly. if they can compel this, what purchase could they not compel? >> as i said earlier, we are not arguing that the failure to buy something is what causes the economic activity that congress is regulating. he is looking at the wrong side of the transaction. he is looking at the means and saying if you can do that, the failure to buy something, it will always be commerce. that is not what congress said. congress said the status quo was once that was leading to cost shifting. you can imagine a president that forbade the government from forcing the purchase of a good in terms of a substantial commerce clause authority. it would not matter one bit. we're talking about the means. with respect to that, while there may be jumps in timing, in many circumstances this is not one of them. here health insurance is the way that most health care is paid for. 80% comes from non-out of pocket cost. will congress decided to do >> it pays for a 37% of health care. medicaid, medicare, many other ways accou

mr. carvin, mr. katsas, and in particular, of course, mr. long and mr. farr. the case is submitted. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] thehe supreme court ar argument. later, whether the rest of the law can stay intact if the mandate is found unconstitutional. the supreme court could announce its ruling by late june or early july and just a reminder, you can watch the health-care oral arguments any time at our web site, c-span.org. >> this week, a look at cyber- security, privacy, and spectrum issues before the house with representative greg walden of oregon. he chairs the energy and commerce subcommittee on communications and technology. >> this week, joining us is representative greg walden. he serves as chairman of the commerce subcommittee on communications and technology. we appreciate you being on the program. >> thank you. >> if we could start with an issue that it -- is working its way through congress. that is cyber security. it was fast track in the senate and has helped hearings in the house. wh