Photo: LaDawna Howard/Flickr
It was a close ruling, but a 5 to 4 decision by the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate, the key part of the Affordable Care Act, or more popularly known as Obamacare.
Tom Curry of NBC Politics wrote:
What do you think? Does Obamacare spell doom for the country or will it become just another Women's Suffrage/Medicare/Social Security/Desegregation - all of which were controversial way back when.The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who held that the law was a valid exercise of Congress’s power to tax.
Roberts re-framed the debate over health care as a debate over increasing taxes. Congress, he said, is “increasing taxes” on those who choose to go uninsured. [...]
The law, Roberts wrote, “makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income. And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress’s constitutional power to tax.”
Looks like Obama will still need to convince the overwhelming majority of Americans who still hate the law to suddenly embrace it, along with an enormous new tax to pay for it in a horrible economy, all in four months.
Not saying it is impossible, but look back to 2010 and along with the fact that public opinion has not wavered in three years, Obama has his work cut out for him.
In my opinion, the law will be repealed before it gets a chance to be implemented by a new administration and we will all look back on this as a horrible but necessary mistake needed in order to define the role of the government.