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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumObamacare Supreme Court Case Is a Bad Joke
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/03/supreme-court-case-is-a-very-bad-joke.htmlObamacare Supreme Court Case Is a Bad Joke
Posted by John Cassidy
Forgive me if a wry tone eludes me when it comes to todays proceedings in the Supreme Court. As far as I am concerned the whole thing is absurdyet another example of how Americas antiquated system of government, and its determined refusal to accept the economic realities of the modern world, is undermining its future.
snip//
The economics isnt very complicated. The health-care industry, which makes up about a sixth of the economy, is rife with inefficiency, waste, and coverage gaps. In seeking to remedy some of these problems, the Obama Administration made a deal with the private-insurance industrythe same deal Mitt Romney made when he was governor of Massachusetts. On the one hand, the federal government barred the insurers from discriminating against the sick and the elderly, thereby raising the industrys costs. On the other hand, the feds obliged uninsured individuals to purchase coverage, thereby expanding the insurers revenues. We can argue whether this was the best way to proceed. (At the time the bill was passed, I raised some doubts about how much it would cost.) But it was a straightforward instance of the central government seeking to redress the failures of the private marketsomething akin to imposing fuel standards on auto manufacturers, providing state pensions, and forcing banks to hold adequate capital reserves.
In a modern, interconnected economy, activist government policies to remedy market failures are essential. Rather than confronting this argument head-on, which would involve publicly defending the actions of the banks, the insurers, and the industrial polluters, the right has settled on a strategy of trying to undermine the government through the courts, where its pro-corporate agenda can be repackaged as a defense of ancient freedoms.
snip//
But, of course, this case isnt ultimately about the lawit is about politics. The four ultra-conservative justices on the courtAlito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomasare in the vanguard of a movement to roll back the federal government and undermine its authority to tackle market failures. The movement began in the nineteen-eighties, when the Federalist Society got its start and Ronald Reagan appointed one of its members, Scalia, to the courtand for thirty years it has been gathering strength.
Thus the creation of a new legal theory to sink Obamacare: the idea that while the federal government might well have the authority to regulate economic activity, it doesnt have the right to regulate inactivitysuch as sitting around and refusing to buy health insurance. Now, it is as plain as the spectacles on Antonin Scalias nose that opting out of the health-care market is about as realistic as opting out of dying. But necessity is the mother of invention. And, judging by his questions this morning, it is this invention that Kennedy has fastened on.
As I said at the beginning, its a bad jokeupon us all.
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Obamacare Supreme Court Case Is a Bad Joke (Original Post)
babylonsister
Mar 2012
OP
hughee99
(16,113 posts)1. Let's hope it's all about politics,
because I don't think the mandate stands a chance if this case is decided on the law alone.
polichick
(37,152 posts)2. The Supreme Court is all about politics these days...
To hell with democracy and the Constitution.