So, there was a ruling and the entire right wing shed a collective sad tear. Jon Justice is taking advice from Tyler Vogt, failed city council candidate, on the air. Small business owners who subscribe to Glenn Beck’s pseudo-cable network are claiming they’re going to give up on their life’s work. Dogs are kissing cats. The whole world has lost its mind.
The money quote from the opinion [giant PDF behind the link]:
Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it.
From the dissent:
The Constitution, though it dates from the founding of the Republic, has powerful meaning and vital relevance to our own times. The constitutional protections that this case involves are protections of structure. Structural protections—notably, the restraints imposed by federalism and separation of powers—are less romantic and have less obvious a connection to personal freedom than the provisions of the Bill of Rights or the Civil War Amendments. Hence they tend to be undervalued or even forgotten by our citizens. It should be the responsibility of the Court to teach otherwise, to remind our people that the Framers considered structural protections of freedom the most important ones, for which reason they alone were embodied in the original Constitution and not left to later amendment. The fragmentation of power produced by the structure of our Government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty at peril. Today’s decision should have vindicated, should have taught, this truth; instead, our judgment today has disregarded it.
For the reasons here stated, we would find the Act invalid in its entirety. We respectfully dissent.
Reactions and whatnot to come.
UPDATE: The decision, “in plain English,” from the Atlantic:
The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.
A note: please stop saying SCOTUS. It makes you sound like that asshole Jonah from Veep:
This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2012.
Actually, it’s probably best to just call it the Affordable Care Act. People who like the legislation or are simply neutral about it don’t call it Obamacare—a term more charged with negative connotations by the right wing than just about anything these days.
We still need “medicare for all”.
While the Affordable Care Act does wondrous things, it is a financial windfall for health insurance companies, many of whom simply price out high risk customers.
Example: To continue my health insurance to cover pre-existing conditions late last year, after a Cobra payment schedule expired and before I qualified for Medicare, my “for profit” health insurance company said it would cost $4,572 per month for my coverage. I take cholesterol, blood sugar and pressure medications. Under Oregon’s alternative program resulting from the AC Act, the cost from a different company was a little over 10% of $4,572 per month and it covered pre-existing conditions. Still, the $547 per month I was charged for health insurance covering pre-existing conditions was a financial burden. I only had to pay that for three months, because I then qualified for Medicare and am okay with my health insurance premium now.
We cannot continue to operate health insurance on a “for profit” model. Decisions are made based on making money, not on providing adequate and affordable health care. We do not operate all of our fire and police departments on a “for profit” model. We must not retain our “for profit” health insurance, either.
We currently pay $1300 a month for 2 people to AZ State Retirement. I’m hoping that when the AZ exchange gets set up, it will at least be cut to between $600 to $800 for 2 people. Maybe even better than that. This affirmation by the Supremes is a good thing.