Supreme Court upholds Affordable Health Care Act
Particularly of interest, they deemed the individual mandate constitutional. Originally they wanted to use the commerce clause to say it was constitutional, but the SCOTUS said that was a no-go, so it was re-written to say that the individual mandate is actually a tax, and that therefore it falls under the federal government's constitutional authority to levy taxes. The supreme court agreed and declared the whole thing constitutional.
The amazing part is that conservative Justice Roberts was the swing vote and he sided with the affordable care act, and rightly so.
So basically this is a small for republicans because they have now limited the power of the commerce clause, but a huge win for democrats because obamacare is constitutional (namely the individual mandate). I do find it funny that the whole time they argued it wasn't a tax, but then when it went to court they argued that it was a tax and won on that basis.
Either way, I think this is a good thing: 73% of American youth now now have health insurance as a result of Obamacare
I think in the end this will all go over pretty smoothly, I don't see any major issue with the AHCA right now, we'll see how it plays out in regards to budget issues etc later but for now there's no way to know and at least it is helping people get insurance. We'll see more once it actually kicks into effect in 2014. At least now my mom who has cancer could buy healthcare if she needed to (despite her pre-existing condition).
Particularly of interest, they deemed the individual mandate constitutional. Originally they wanted to use the commerce clause to say it was constitutional, but the SCOTUS said that was a no-go, so it was re-written to say that the individual mandate is actually a tax, and that therefore it falls under the federal government's constitutional authority to levy taxes. The supreme court agreed and declared the whole thing constitutional.
The amazing part is that conservative Justice Roberts was the swing vote and he sided with the affordable care act, and rightly so.
So basically this is a small for republicans because they have now limited the power of the commerce clause, but a huge win for democrats because obamacare is constitutional (namely the individual mandate). I do find it funny that the whole time they argued it wasn't a tax, but then when it went to court they argued that it was a tax and won on that basis.
Either way, I think this is a good thing: 73% of American youth now now have health insurance as a result of Obamacare
I think in the end this will all go over pretty smoothly, I don't see any major issue with the AHCA right now, we'll see how it plays out in regards to budget issues etc later but for now there's no way to know and at least it is helping people get insurance. We'll see more once it actually kicks into effect in 2014. At least now my mom who has cancer could buy healthcare if she needed to (despite her pre-existing condition).