The Legal Debate Over the Health Law Re "Justices, by 5-4, Uphold Health Care Law; Roberts in Majority; Victory for Obama" (front page, June 29): The world must be watching with amazement how slowly, in little increments, America is inching toward universal health care, which Bismarck introduced in Germany in the 1880s. They must also be amazed reading that some justices even today, in the 21st century, consider medical care to be an optional commodity comparable to consumer goods like shoes or books that people buy depending on their taste and budget. While the Supreme Court ruling in the health care case leaves the door open for new attacks on the federal government's presumed power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause, it is unlikely we will see a federal law with the breadth or as controversial as health care reform any time soon. Until then, the court's narrow escape from a troubling decision proves that the needs of the nation still trump politics, at least by a hair. There is a legitimate question as to when government should step in to regulate the economy. But as we have seen several times in our history, capitalist fervor can have devastating consequences. While some prefer to live in a win-lose world, the more rational view is to find win-win solutions to our economic woes. The court's holding has, at least, slowed the conservative march backward. At the same time, any further efforts in Congress to force us to eat broccoli should now take pause over the limits of federal power in the era of the Roberts court. As the author of a leading dictionary of tax definitions, I was astonished to see the word "tax" used to describe what is clearly a civil penalty. Taxes are there to raise revenues. As the renowned tax law professor and practitioner Martin D. Ginsburg (husband of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) once remarked to me, "Every time the Supreme Court touches the tax law, they crumb it up." Unfortunately, Congress has also done its part to scramble the meaning of the Internal Revenue Code. The writer is a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law. The claim (or fear) that the Commerce Clause has been gutted by a Supreme Court majority's rejection of it as a valid basis for Congressional action on the Affordable Care Act neglects a basic rule of judicial precedents. As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. says, the court should look for a way to uphold the action of democratically elected legislatures. He and four others found that basis in the taxing power. Five of the justices stated that the Commerce Clause could not support the act. But this opinion was "mere dictum." In other words, the statute survived on other grounds. There was no need to reach the Commerce Clause argument. Judges, including the five who opined that the Commerce Clause was inadequate, are not bound by that conclusion. They were in effect judicially musing aloud. They can change their minds without violating precedent. They may be unlikely to do so, and their view is likely to prevail, but that does not make the undoing of the Commerce Clause a foregone conclusion. The writer is a lawyer.