The Supreme Court Obamacare Fallout

By now everyone knows that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare). Some of the conversation has centered on why the reform was upheld, but more so the story has been advanced to focus on what this all means for the future of the country as well as President Obama’s re-election chances.

One thing is certain: The 5-4 majority decision ensures all U.S. citizens, regardless of pre-existing condition, will have access to healthcare by 2014.

In the never-ending game of political point scoring—think of it as a interminable cricket match played in suits—some news outlets are calling President Obama the big winner and Republican ideologues the big losers.

In his statement immediately following the verdict, Obama called today’s decision “a victory for people all over this country whose laws will be more secure because of this law and the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold it.” Meanwhile, Mitt Romney was quick to vow that if elected he “will act to repeal Obamacare” his first day in office.

But Chief Justice John Robert’s surprising justification of the individual mandate as a tax argument might not be the stamp of approval almost everyone is calling it, according to Tom Scocca at Slate. The decision could be part of an assault on the Commerce Clause.

Nonetheless, some pundits are framing this as a Democrat tax hike. In fact, Rush Limbaugh—always measured in his opinion—took no time at to call it “the largest tax increase in the history of the world.”

There are reports that the decision could cause insurance rates to rise, but not simply because it costs more to tend to the sick. The nation’s healthcare companies could be passing on costs to keep their profit margins where they’re at currently.

Michael McCallister, CEO of Humana Inc., the fifth-largest health insurer, told SF Gate that the “younger, healthier Americans might be hit with higher premiums because insurers will likely look to make up for the fact that they can no longer charge older, sicker customers more.”

Partisan assessments aside, one thing most people can agree upon is the humor to be found in early misreports of the decision. While most news outlets were pivoting to the future this morning, CNN and Fox News were still trying to figure out what happened.

The media giants raced to be first in reporting the decision and ended up incorrectly reporting that the Affordable Care Act was ruled unconstitutional. Buzzfeed reported that CNN employees said the mistake was “f—-ing humiliating.”

10 Comments

  1. > One thing is certain: The 5-4 majority decision ensures all U.S. citizens, regardless of pre-existing condition, will have access to healthcare by 2014.

    If you believe this is a certainty, you are not just living in a bubble,  you are living in a bubble inside of a bubble.

    The numbers of people that Obama has pissed off grows by leaps and bounds daily, even hourly.

    Republicans,
    Conservatives,
    Libertarians,
    Independents,
    Reagan Democrats,
    Left-wing Democrats,
    businesses
    employers
    job-seekers
    tax-payers
    veterans
    Christians
    Evangelicals
    Jews
    men
    women
    young voters
    legal immigrants

    The latest group to be REALLY, REALLY pissed off are FORMERLY Democrat leaning Catholics.

    Would Catholics ever vote against the “first black president” and for a Mormon?

    They wouldn’t, until the “first black president” arrogantly put abortion/sterilization/birth control mandates in his “Obamacare” law, gave Catholic leaders the middle finger, and told them to forget about all that “religious freedom” crap.

    Not good for little big ears.

    Catholics, and a LOT of other people, are going to be crawling to the polls on hands and knees over broken glass to vote Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Read, Holder and their whole corrupt crew OUT.

    Obamacare is going to repealed, folded, spindled, and mutilated, and anyone who thinks it will “ensure[] all U.S. citizens, regardless of pre-existing condition, . . . access to healthcare by 2014” is ignorant of how angry Americans are over the Obama anti-constituional tyranny.

    • No religion is an island. No matter what religion you’re a part of, you have to do the right thing. To put it another way, no matter what group that believes the earth is 5000 years old you’re a part of, you have to do the right thing.

    • Lou, I think your list is a little too long. It’s true, some people hate Obama, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time. However, “young voters”? “Women”? If anything, I would take the animosity from “Left-wing democrats” as a sign that Obama is a moderate politician. After all, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea, endorsed by even Mitt Romney.

      And ninety-nine percent of Catholic women use birth control. The “Catholic Controversy” is largely a battle between Obama and Church Bishops, but as that statistic I pointed out will demonstrate, there is a significant dissonance between the views of the Bishops and those of the Lay People. There are Catholics who oppose Obama, no doubt, but they are part of the Conservative minority like Santorum who resemble evangelicals more closely than they resemble most Catholics.

      And why do you put “first black president” in quotation marks? Are you trying to be snarky or something?

  2. Republicans would have us believe this is bad for America.  Is there any doubt that a Romney administration would favor the rich and increase the income gap in our country while leaving millions of our citizens uninsured and unprotected?  Mitt is a pariah in Mormon Clothing and will stop at nothing to expand an empire of greed for the rich in this country.  Can his sacred Mormon underwear gain him enough donations to buy this election?  See for yourself as Mitt dons his tighty-whities sent from the Good Lord Himself at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/05/mitt-romneys-magic-mormon-underwear.html

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