I predict the Court will rule … to uphold the constitutionality of what is bound to go down in history as the most important achievement of any U.S. president since the Civil Rights bill President Lyndon Johnson signed into law in 1964.
(“Supreme Court To Rule on Landmark Healthcare Reform,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 23, 2011)
The suspense over today’s ruling was spreading throughout Washington in recent days like yellow fever. In fact, it became so acute that I was forced to write about it only yesterday … to break this fever within my circle of friends.
Well, it will now be recorded in the annals of history that no less a person than conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the four liberals on the Court in upholding this signature achievement of the Obama presidency 5-4.
As it happens, though, yesterday’s commentary said all I care to say about this case. Especially because the arcane legal reasoning about the power to tax versus the power to regulate, which Roberts relied on in drafting the Court’s ruling, hardly matters. Frankly, I am also loath to add to the onslaught of hot air about the political implications that pundits of all stripes are already polluting throughout all media.
All that matters is that, because Obama cares, over 40 million poor and uninsured Americans will have guaranteed access to affordable healthcare.
And for the 250 million Americans now struggling to hold onto their health insurance, whitehouse.gov highlights that, because Obama cares:
- Insurance companies will no longer have unchecked power to cancel policies, deny coverage, or charge women more than men;
- No American will ever again be denied care or charged more due to a pre-existing condition, like cancer or even asthma;
- Preventive care will be covered free of charge by insurance companies–including mammograms for women and wellness visits for seniors;
- By August, millions of Americans will receive a rebate because their insurance company spent too much of their premium on administrative costs or CEO bonuses;
- 5.3 million seniors will save $600 a year on their prescription drugs;
- More will be done to protect Medicare by cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse; and
- 6.6 million young adults will still be able to stay on their family’s plan until they’re 26.
Meanwhile, from the day Obamacare became law two years ago Republicans have been hedging their bets and stoking partisan fires by threatening to repeal it if the Court rules that it is constitutional – as it has now done. But because that would ultimately require a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, these pandering Republicans know that pigs will fly before they repeal Obamacare.
Not to mention that repealing it would also require a presidential signature, which they obviously knew Obama would never do. But even if Mitt Romney wins in November, he knows that he’ll have more success deporting 12 million Hispanics as part of the comprehensive immigration reform he’s promising than he’ll have getting a repealed Obamacare bill on his desk to sign. For it would never get out of the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Which makes his promise to “repeal it on day one” of his (wishful-thinking) presidency just another example of why this pandering “outsourcer-in-chief” is such a phony, flip-flopping schmuck: but I’m sure he loves his family, even if not his dog so much.
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The Supreme Court rules…
* Bullet points courtesy of whitehouse.gov