Chief Justice John Roberts signs on to Health Care Act
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 at 09:52 AM
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| John Roberts |
Well, here's some humble pie I don't mind eating. In fact, I'm in a positively celebratory mood.
I wish that I could say today's ruling signals a move to the political center for the John Roberts Court, but clearly it means no such thing.
Following the public outrage over the Citizens United decision, had the Roberts Court ruled against the Affordable Health Care Act it could have bolstered a legitimacy crisis for the Supreme Court. For whatever reasons Roberts chose not to aggravate that perception at this time.
But critics like Rush Limbaugh are now contending, with laughable hyperbole, that Obamacare constitutes the 'biggest tax increase in the history of the world.'
Well, sometimes the social compact makes us pay for things that we don't like in order to promote the greater good of the nation, allowing us receive a mutual benefit.
What Tea Party supporters call an 'immoral tax' can also be called 'taking individual responsibility' to insure yourself so that your personal costs aren't passed on to everyone else, or failing that to contribute to the Government's revenue so that it can cover those costs.
When uninsured people seek medical care we all pay for it. Either through taxes or through increases to medical costs. The new mandate takes that burden off us and places it back with the person with no insurance.
You want medical treatment but don't want to get insurance? OK, you can have it but now we'll levy a fine against you.
This is not socialism. This is common sense. You can't get a drivers license without car insurance in some states. The government has just applied the same logic to health care. Applying the same logic to health care makes good sense.
There are people in America who believe they can go without health care insurance. There are people who are certain they will never get sick, never have an accident, never need stitches or break a bone. So when they go to hospital now without insurance for those things they'll be fined.
Once upon a time they thought, wrongly, that what they did had no impact on anyone else in society. Now they'll discover the error of that view and they'll contribute to the greater health of the nation.
That's what taking responsibility for your own actions means. The Court has upheld a sensible law. We all benefit from it.
41 comments
EamonnDublin | Jun 30, 2012, 10:31 AM EDT
BrianO - Thanks for confirming that I am correct. I did NOT say that ALL melting ice raises the sea level - I said melting ice raises the sea level. Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.
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eiriamach | Jun 30, 2012, 09:36 AM EDT
BrianO, Roberts changed his vote late in the game because Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made him see the light. She argued that the ACA does not replace private enterprise (insurance carriers) with gov't agencies; therefore, there is NO reason to consider it creeping socialism. The horrendous health insurance market needed congressional regulation in the interest of all except the wealthiest Americans, and the ACA IS that regulation! The only other option-- everyone agrees with this analysis-- is a single-payer, gov't-run system, which Roberts would never have voted to uphold since it would REPLACE capitalist commerce with gov't bureaucracy. I've quoted elsewhere on IC Bader's warning, "Aware that a national solution was required, Congress could have taken over the health-insurance market by establishing a tax-and-spend federal program like Social Security. Such a program, commonly referred to as a single-payer system (where the sole payer is the Federal Government), would have left little, if any, room for private enterprise or the States. Instead of going this route, Congress enacted the ACA, a solution that retains a robust role for private insurers and state governments."
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BrianO | Jun 30, 2012, 09:33 AM EDT
Eamonn Try googling Dr Morner Sweden, or you tube him. He doesn't speak of the properties of ice but on the evidence that the oceans haven't risen in 50 years, big scam. These days with the climate being used to furthur control people, I question all "facts" as they normally are used on one side. If we are talking about stored glacial plates covering land masses that water would add to the system to potentially raise levels. If the melting ice is in the sea such as Ice bergs coastal ice, ice sheets, this would lower levels, Then there is always evaporation rates and weather flows, I'm obviously not a physicist nor do I play one on TV.
as to Ephraim, it is very frustrating to see fellow citizens so gleefully giving away their and my freedom.
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eiriamach | Jun 30, 2012, 09:08 AM EDT
BrianO, you think "if it isn't a tax then roberts couldn't have ruled as he did." I am simply saying that although Roberts voted correctly, his reasoning, his opinion in the case, was way off! It does not stretch the commerce clause to consider the ACA a congressional effort to restore rationality to a greed-ridden system that favors insurance companies' huge profits at the expense of the health and financial status of middle-class Americans. If anything, Congress waited far too long to act on the health insurance problems; too many who couldn't afford insurance have died waiting for service in emergency rooms, and too many have impoverished their families to pay to keep their un-insurable loved ones with chronic diseases alive. If ever there was an interstate commerce problem that threatened the nation with economic crash and widespread poverty, health care is that problem. Of course the commerce clause accommodates ACA, and the fine is not a tax, despite Roberts' finagling! Roberts was working for his conservative buddies when he tried to keep Obama's hands off the interstate commerce justification. But subsequent cases need not rely on Roberts' part of the Court's decision; the other 4 Justices got it right, and their opinions will guide subsequent cases.
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EamonnDublin | Jun 30, 2012, 05:10 AM EDT
"BrianO" - Where do you get it from? Firstly, may I state clearly that I am not a believer in humans causing climate change to any degree. Now, on to the point of my letter ("Where do you get it from"?) the fact of the matter is that melting ice DOES cause sea levels to rise. Now, are you listening? Melting ice DOES, DOES, DOES cause sea levels to rise. So, no justification to call Ephraim "dopey". Except maybe for his last throwaway about Fox. Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.
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BrianO | Jun 30, 2012, 01:03 AM EDT
Ephraim you are getting dopier by the minute. Ice melting will drop the sea level not raise it, climate changes, it always has. Next you will blame your fellow citizens because time changes. I don't expect seano to understand he was born in Ireland and emigrated to australia, but how does an American born citizen learn to sell his country down the drain?
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EphraimKibbey | Jun 29, 2012, 11:52 PM EDT
@shop tom - I like your suggestion about taxing those who buy gas guzzlers. Did you see the news tonight about the sea level rise along the US east coast. 2.8 inches in New York to 3.4 in North Carolina. The larger increase here is caused by a slowing of the gulf stream due to glacial melt fresh water messing up the salinity pump in the North Atlantic. By the way it is that very current that brings Ireland and Western Europe its balmy breezes. When the current pump stops, it will get rather chilly. Maybe we should do something about it before its too late. Just a thought. Fox and Friends probably doesn't believe in the Gulf Stream either.
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Scrivner | Jun 29, 2012, 10:52 PM EDT
Let us pity our poor Canadian brethern, pretty soon they won't have convenient, high quality immediate access to healthcare!
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McNamara31 | Jun 29, 2012, 09:35 PM EDT
shop tom Giving people a fair and equal right to health care is a moral issue. What is arrogant or Socialist about that? Do you realize we are the only industrialized nation that does not provide healthcare?
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shop tom | Jun 29, 2012, 09:27 PM EDT
If Obama wins re-election, the Constitution is in grave danger from this arrogant, socialist failure that is Obama. america is teetering on the edge of losing the very core of it's strength.
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shop tom | Jun 29, 2012, 09:18 PM EDT
I expectd Roberts to use brains and common sense. Only a complete idiot would give a green light to a government imposing a "tax" on something a person does not purchase. What's next? a "tax" imosed on those who do not buy fuel efficient cars---even if they don't even wish to purchase a car?
Shamefully inane is the only way to describe Robert's decision.
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pilib04 | Jun 29, 2012, 07:44 PM EDT
What did you expect from a good Irish Catholic like Chief Justice John Roberts.
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BrianO | Jun 29, 2012, 07:26 PM EDT
Eiramach if it isn't a tax then roberts couldn't have ruled as he did. words mean things, and logic is different than law. in fact roberts had to coerce a portion of the testimony to hear an argument that the fee was a tax. Government in the old days (yesterday) restrained by the constitution couldn't confiscate a persons money for not buying a private industries product. Congress does have the power to tax however. That is why this point is important and cannot be changed, without this stretching of the law roberts couldn't have sided with the leftists on the court. whether it ends up with Obama losing or not it is a bad precedent that will be mis used in the future.
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seanomelb | Jun 29, 2012, 07:21 PM EDT
A win for all Americans and POTUS will now serve four more years. The Fox lie sheet interviewed Malkin,Bachmann and Palin and the claim "their" man on the supreme court acted unconstitutionally but what would that trio witches know about constitutional law.There no pleasing the teaparty or the evangelical extreme GOP. Read the decision and weep.
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