Obama Stumbles Through Answer When Confronted on Health Care Law's Future

If you ask Obama his thoughts on the future of his controversial health care bill, he'll tell you that he's confident it will be upheld. But it might take him a while to give you that answer.

Obama stumbled while trying to give a cogent response when asked why it would be unprecedented for the Court to overturn his health law when that's exactly what the court does, and what he would do for individuals who would miss out on care if the law was overturned.

(Related: Obama warns "unelected" justices about judicial activism)

"First of all, let me be very specific," Obama said before launching into a nearly six-minute response filled with pauses and blank stares. "We have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on an economic issue like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce, a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner, so we're going back to the thirties, pre New Deal."

"The point I was making was that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws and all of us have to respect it, but it's precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly-elected legislature, our congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this.

"Now, as I said, I expect the Supreme Court to actually recognize that and to abide by well-established precedents out there."

While struggling to connect his thoughts, he went on to say he is not getting contingency plans ready because he expects the law to be upheld:

But Obama's assertion that such a law dealing with the Commerce Clause has not been overturned is a curious one. For example, in 1994 the court struck down school-zone gun legislation that was based on that part of the Constitution.

On Monday, Fox's Judge Andrew Napolitano ripped into the president for inaccuracies in his argument for the law and against the Court: