“An Act Of Human Decency”: The Real Winners Of The Affordable Care Act Are Ordinary Americans
So the Supreme Court — defying many expectations — upheld the Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare. There will, no doubt, be many headlines declaring this a big victory for President Obama, which it is. But the real winners are ordinary Americans — people like you.
How many people are we talking about? You might say 30 million, the number of additional people the Congressional Budget Office says will have health insurance thanks to Obamacare. But that vastly understates the true number of winners because millions of other Americans — including many who oppose the act — would have been at risk of being one of those 30 million.
So add in every American who currently works for a company that offers good health insurance but is at risk of losing that job (and who isn’t in this world of outsourcing and private equity buyouts?); every American who would have found health insurance unaffordable but will now receive crucial financial help; every American with a pre-existing condition who would have been flatly denied coverage in many states.
In short, unless you belong to that tiny class of wealthy Americans who are insulated and isolated from the realities of most people’s lives, the winners from that Supreme Court decision are your friends, your relatives, the people you work with — and, very likely, you. For almost all of us stand to benefit from making America a kinder and more decent society.
But what about the cost? Put it this way: the budget office’s estimate of the cost over the next decade of Obamacare’s “coverage provisions” — basically, the subsidies needed to make insurance affordable for all — is about only a third of the cost of the tax cuts, overwhelmingly favoring the wealthy, that Mitt Romney is proposing over the same period. True, Mr. Romney says that he would offset that cost, but he has failed to provide any plausible explanation of how he’d do that. The Affordable Care Act, by contrast, is fully paid for, with an explicit combination of tax increases and spending cuts elsewhere.
So the law that the Supreme Court upheld is an act of human decency that is also fiscally responsible. It’s not perfect, by a long shot — it is, after all, originally a Republican plan, devised long ago as a way to forestall the obvious alternative of extending Medicare to cover everyone. As a result, it’s an awkward hybrid of public and private insurance that isn’t the way anyone would have designed a system from scratch. And there will be a long struggle to make it better, just as there was for Social Security. (Bring back the public option!) But it’s still a big step toward a better — and by that I mean morally better — society.
Which brings us to the nature of the people who tried to kill health reform — and who will, of course, continue their efforts despite this unexpected defeat.
At one level, the most striking thing about the campaign against reform was its dishonesty. Remember “death panels”? Remember how reform’s opponents would, in the same breath, accuse Mr. Obama of promoting big government and denounce him for cutting Medicare? Politics ain’t beanbag, but, even in these partisan times, the unscrupulous nature of the campaign against reform was exceptional. And, rest assured, all the old lies and probably a bunch of new ones will be rolled out again in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision. Let’s hope the Democrats are ready.
But what was and is really striking about the anti-reformers is their cruelty. It would be one thing if, at any point, they had offered any hint of an alternative proposal to help Americans with pre-existing conditions, Americans who simply can’t afford expensive individual insurance, Americans who lose coverage along with their jobs. But it has long been obvious that the opposition’s goal is simply to kill reform, never mind the human consequences. We should all be thankful that, for the moment at least, that effort has failed.
Let me add a final word on the Supreme Court.
Before the arguments began, the overwhelming consensus among legal experts who aren’t hard-core conservatives — and even among some who are — was that Obamacare was clearly constitutional. And, in the end, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., the court upheld that view. But four justices dissented, and did so in extreme terms, proclaiming not just the much-disputed individual mandate but the whole act unconstitutional. Given prevailing legal opinion, it’s hard to see that position as anything but naked partisanship.
The point is that this isn’t over — not on health care, not on the broader shape of American society. The cruelty and ruthlessness that made this court decision such a nail-biter aren’t going away.
But, for now, let’s celebrate. This was a big day, a victory for due process, decency and the American people.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, June 28, 2012
“A Lie Designed To Mislead”: Don’t Buy The GOP Narrative That Obamacare Is A Tax On Middle Class
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wasted no time getting to the floor of the Senate to argue
that today’s Supreme Court ruling clarifies that Obamacare is nothing more than a tax on the middle class which—according to McConnell—is precisely what the Administration and Congressional Democrats promised it was not.
Leader McConnell, and his fellow Republicans, should read the Majority ruling before they embarrasses themselves further.
In the opening paragraphs of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, he clarifies that the law specifically does not involve a tax. If it did, Roberts clarifies, the Court would have had no choice but to reject the case for lack of jurisdiction as a tax case cannot be brought until someone is actually forced to pay the tax. This is, as we know, not the case.
The fact that the Court found that the mandate was constitutional under the taxing authority granted Congress by the Constitution is an entirely different matter. This finding does not reduce the individual mandate to the status of a tax—it merely says that as the penalty for failing to purchase health insurance will fall to the Internal Revenue Service for collection was something Congress could provide for under it’s Constitutional authority.
While I grant you that this gets a bit into the weeds, the effort that is being made by the GOP to use the Court’s basis for decision as a weapon fails on its face and is completely disingenuous. There is a difference between the levying of a tax and the Court finding Constitutional authority for Congress under the taxing authority. But then, anything that is more complicated than your basic “See Spot Run” first grade reading primer has always been fair game and fodder for the GOP message machine which would prefer to base their arguments on misstatements than educating and enlightening its base.
By: Rick Ungar, Contributor, Forbes, June 28, 2012
“Elected By Nobody”: Our Supreme Court Has Lost Its Honor
Once upon a time, in a place called America, there was a government with three equal branches. That America no longer exists.
One branch now rules American life.
It is the Supreme Court, and it consists of nine people elected by nobody. They rule for life. Their power is absolute.
To overrule them requires an amendment to the Constitution, a process so politically difficult, it is nigh on impossible. (The most recent amendment, the 27th, which deals with congressional salaries, took 203 years to ratify.)
Technically, the justices can be removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors, but none ever has been.
There is no aspect of American life — from civil rights to sports, to guns, to religion, to sex — over which the justices have not exerted control.
There are no qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court.
Though the Constitution lists qualifications to become a president, a senator or a representative, none are listed for the high court. The justices need not be of a certain age or have been born in the United States or even be a citizen.
They do not have to be lawyers, though all have been. (Some, however, never went to law school.)
You could be a justice of the Supreme Court. I could. Justin Bieber, age 18 and a Canadian citizen, also could be, though Senate approval would not be likely.
The greatest power the justices have is carved into the marble of the Supreme Court Building and gilded in gold: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.”
These are the words of John Marshall, the fourth U.S. chief justice, written in 1803. His decision established forever that the Supreme Court had the right to uphold or strike down laws passed by Congress.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the Supreme Court given this power. The Supreme Court took it in a 4-0 decision. (There were only six members on the court at the time and two were sick.)
The Supreme Court would, over its history, come up with some terrible decisions countenancing slavery, locking up Japanese-American citizens in camps, supporting “separate but equal” segregation and approving the forced sterilization of the mentally ill.
But these were anomalies. Overall, the court would help create a vibrant and free society where citizens could live under the rule of law, where nobody was above the law and where equal rights were promised to all.
For much of modern times, the court has been seen as being above politics. This was very important as a balance to its vast power. Even though justices were appointed by political presidents and approved by political senators, their own politics was to be suppressed.
We realized they were human beings with political opinions, but we expected them to put those opinions aside.
And then came 2000 and the court’s 5-4 decision that made George W. Bush the president of the United States. The decision was nakedly political. “The case didn’t just scar the Court’s record,” Jeffrey Toobin wrote in The New Yorker, “it damaged the Court’s honor.”
Its honor has never fully recovered. Our current court is led by Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by Bush in 2005 after having worked on Bush’s behalf in Florida in 2000.
The signature of the Roberts Court, Toobin wrote, has been its eagerness to overturn the work of legislatures. This is hardly conservative doctrine but today, politics trumps even ideology. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the court “gutted the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law” which amounted to “a boon for Republicans.”
“When the Obama health-care plan reaches the high court for review,” Toobin predicted 18 months ago, “one can expect a similar lack of humility from the purported conservatives.”
At this writing, I do not know how a majority of the justices will rule on Obama’s health care plan, which was passed into law by Congress. Two branches of government have spoken, but their speech is but a whisper compared with the shout of our high court.
The die was cast in 2000. And it would take the most dewy-eyed of optimists to expect the court’s decision to be anything other than political.
Justice John Paul Stevens, now retired, wrote in his dissent in Bush v. Gore in 2000: “Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.”
That is a lot to lose. But we have lost it. And getting it back may be a long time in coming.
By: Roger Simon, Politico, June 27, 2012
“Not A Chance”: Does The Supreme Court Care A Whit About The Public’s Opinion Of The Obamacare Ruling?
As we edge closer to this month’s Supreme Court decision on the future of the Affordable Care Act—or lack of any such future—many liberal pundits are pinning their hopes for a happy ending on Chief Justice John Roberts voting to uphold the law in response to the court’s poor showing in recent polls on the issue of the court’s political objectivity.
Nonsense.
Of the many concerns that fall to a Chief Justice—whose name will forever attach to the decisions of the court over which he or she presides—public polls would have to be at the very lowest rung on the list.
A recent New York Times/CBS News poll reveals that public support for SCOTUS is at just 44 percent, with 76 percent believing that the justices, at least some of the time, base their rulings on their personal and political views.
This rather dismal opinion of our one government institution— that is supposed to be high above petty political concerns—prompted former Clinton Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, to write in the Christian Science Monitor –
The immediate question is whether the Chief Justice, John Roberts, understands the tenuous position of the Court he now runs. If he does, he’ll do whatever he can to avoid another 5-4 split on the upcoming decision over the constitutionality of the Obama healthcare law.
My guess is he’ll try to get Anthony Kennedy to join with him and with the four Democratic appointees to uphold the law’s constitutionality, relying primarily on an opinion by Judge Laurence Silberman of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – a Republican appointee with impeccable conservative credentials, who found the law to be constitutional.
While I would love to believe that Reich has this right, I’m afraid the Secretary is engaging in some very wishful thinking. It’s just not going to happen that way.
This is not to say that the Chief Justice may not, ultimately, find the law to be constitutional.
I have previously suggested that writing off Robert’s vote in support would be a mistake— in no small measure because of his high regard for the opinions of Judge Silberman who did, as Reich reports, vote to uphold Obamacare in the DC Court of Appeals and did so in a highly compelling opinion that cannot be ignored.
Silberman is a major legal influence on conservative judges throughout the nation and, in my opinion, the most likely next appointee to the Supreme Court should a Republican president make the choice.
At the very least, it is reasonable to expect that Justice Roberts might be far more open to considering the less comfortable approach to the law than he might otherwise have been had Judge Silberman seen things differently. In the end, Judge Silberman’s well thought out opinion may turn out to be the difference between Obamacare surviving or not.
But will the Chief Justice ‘tilt’ his vote in a scheme designed to protect the status of the court in the public’s perception?
Not a chance.
If Roberts concludes that the law should be upheld, he may go after Justice Kennedy’s vote, as Secretary Reich suggests, but he would do so with the understanding that on issues as important as the healthcare decision, a 5-4 vote would leave the issue settled—but in a highly unsettling way. When it comes to critical rulings, any Chief Justice greatly prefers that the decision not be carried by a tie-breaker vote as it forever remains more suspect than a 6-3 determination.
We should also keep in mind that The Roberts Court is far from the first controversial Supreme Court in our history. Nor is the current crop of justices the first to experience a bumpy road when it comes to public opinion. We need only recall the huge public outcries engendered by the Warren Court—a version of the Supreme Court which upended the legal status quo in this country in ways never previously seen, enraging many Americans in the process.
Chief Justice Roberts may vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act—including the controversial mandate provisions. I certainly hope that this is the case. And should things go this way, there is no doubt that Roberts’ opinion will go a long way to encourage confidence in our Chief Justice who, by voting to uphold, would reveal himself as a man committed to correctly interpreting the law—even when it may be in opposition to what we suspect might be the dictates of his personal belief.
But if the Chief Justice does this, it will not be the result of some PR effort to raise the level of esteem for the Court among the American public—it will be because he will have correctly understood that, like the law or not, the Affordable Care Act passes Constitutional muster.
By: Rick Ungar, Forbes, June 17, 2012
“The Fragility Of The 3rd Branch Of Government”: Why The Public’s Growing Disdain For The Supreme Court May Help Obamacare
The public’s growing disdain of the Supreme Court increases the odds that a majority will uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare.
The latest New York Times CBS Poll shows just 44 percent of Americans approve the job the Supreme Court is doing. Fully three-quarters say justices’ decisions are sometimes influenced by their personal political views.
The trend is clearly downward. Approval of the Court reached 66 percent in the late 1980s, and by 2000 had slipped to around 50 percent.
As the Times points out, the decline may stem in part from Americans’ growing distrust in recent years of major institutions in general and the government in particular.
But it’s just as likely to reflect a sense that the Court is more political, especially after it divided in such partisan ways in the 5-4 decisions Bush v. Gore (which decided the 2000 presidential race) and Citizen’s United (which in 2010 opened the floodgates to unlimited campaign spending).
Americans’ diminishing respect for the Court can be heard on the right and left of our increasingly polarized political spectrum.
A few months ago, while a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich stated that the political branches were “not bound” by the Supreme Court. Gingrich is known for making bizarre claims. The remarkable thing about this one was the silence with which it was greeted, not only by other Republican hopefuls but also by Democrats.
Last week I was on a left-leaning radio talk show whose host suddenly went on a riff about how the Constitution doesn’t really give the Supreme Court the power to overturn laws for being unconstitutional, and it shouldn’t have that power.
All this is deeply dangerous for the Court, and for our system of government.
Almost 225 years ago, Alexander Hamilton, writing in the Federalist (Number 78, June 14, 1788) noted the fragility of our third branch of government, whose power rests completely on public respect for its judgement:
The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. [Yet lacking sword or purse, the judiciary] is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great measure, as the citadel of the public justice and the public security.
The immediate question is whether the Chief Justice, John Roberts, understands the tenuous position of the Court he now runs. If he does, he’ll do whatever he can to avoid another 5-4 split on the upcoming decision over the constitutionality of the Obama healthcare law.
My guess is he’ll try to get Anthony Kennedy to join with him and with the four Democratic appointees to uphold the law’s constitutionality, relying primarily on an opinion by Judge Laurence Silberman of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – a Republican appointee with impeccable conservative credentials, who found the law to be constitutional.
By: Robert Reich, Robert Reich Blog, June 8, 2012
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