The lopsided 7-2 decision yesterday favoring the Affordable Care Act was a welcome relief and a signal that Obama’s healthcare program will be around for the foreseeable future. This is the third time that Obamacare has been upheld by the high court. It also has survived 63 challenges from Republicans in congress.The court specifically rejected the challenge of Texas and 17 other red states because they could not trace legal injury to the law’s mandate as it no longer exists since being eliminated by the 2017 Republican tax law. Rather amusingly, the Republicans seemed to have shot themselves in the foot!
Since becoming law in 2010, the Affordable Care Act has become increasingly popular. Today 31 million more Americans have the security of health care, many for the first time. It guarantees health insurance for those with pre-existing conditions, coverage for children under family insurance plans until age 26, and numerous protections for people who get their coverage outside the Obamacare market.
My personal experience in the north Georgia mountains as well as along the state’s coastal counties is that many hard working people simply could not afford health insurance; if they had insurance it was only for catastrophic cases meaning they could not afford out of pocket costs to cover routine injuries. Their only recourse, if they bothered to take it, was to go to the local hospital emergency room where few patients, if any, had health insurance. These bills, of course, are paid by all of us and drive up the cost of insurance for everyone.
More than a victory for Obamacare, the 7-2 decision also goes a long way toward restoring confidence in our courts and the legal system. Justices put aside politics and came together for the good of the American people and in doing so shored up our faith in the judiciary. Justices Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh, both appointed by Trump, joined the majority.
What I have written here will be subject to ridicule by Republicans and conservatives who argue that it is not the proper role of government to provide health care. In their view any changes, if needed, should be left to the private sector which knows best. They will yell socialism just as they did with the passage of social security in 1935. The truth is we did not become a socialist state after 1935 and we won’t today, but will remain a pragmatic hybrid derived from both the left and right politically.
The rub is that these critics and their political allies will not take action on health care.. They will simply sit on their hands and continue to procrastinate as they did during the previous administration. This is not lost on the voters and will lead to further damage to the Republican brand. This failure of Republicans to deal seriously with health care is the single biggest threat to the Republican Party today.