June 30, 2012
By William L. Gensert
The Supreme Court decision on the American Care Act is a loss for Barack Obama, despite how the president and his minions in the mainstream media will attempt to portray it. They will insist on selling this as a win for Obama.
Always classy, Obama himself has already tweeted, "Still a BFD."
When the Supreme Court declared the mandate a tax, it was in reality calling Barack Obama a liar -- not only for emphatically claiming that the mandate was not a tax when trying to convince citizens to back the legislation, but also for promising that his administration would never raise taxes on the middle class. Remember, he said that "no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase."
Instead, ObamaCare is the largest tax increase in the history of the nation...and it is a regressive tax. After all, the 1% of Americans he rails against religiously already have health insurance. Guess what: much of the burden of the cost of this legislation will be borne by families making less than $250,000. But don't worry: Obama cares -- perhaps only for himself and his name in the history books, but he cares.
In the coming months, many people will begin to realize how much the survival of ObamaCare will cost them in additional taxes and higher insurance premiums. All the Supreme Court has done, in upholding the president's destruction of medical care in America, is give another 100 million people a reason to despise Barack Obama and all he stands for. Obama may claim to care, but I suspect that the American electorate on November 6 will come out in force to show the president and the world how much they actually care for him.
Another point has gone unmentioned. After Ted Kennedy joined Mary Joe Kopechne in the afterlife, the ACA was passed with 51 votes in the Senate using reconciliation. Reconciliation is a process restricting use of the filibuster with respect to legislation related to budget matters. The mandate, now labeled a tax, is a revenue item that can be repealed with the same 51 votes. The filibuster-proof 60 votes needed for repeal before the decision are no longer required.
To quote Mike Franc, the Heritage Group's VP of Government Studies:
In the end, this seals defeat for Barack Obama, because it shows him to be a man who cares nothing for America, unless he can get his name on legislation and in the history books. If it turns out badly in the end, it can be sold to the general public as a misinterpretation of what was originally the embodiment of his genius and transcendence.
At best, we are headed to a two-tiered system where the rich and well-insured get all the health care money can buy while the poor get only what ObamaCare decides is absolutely necessary.
Today in America, even the sickest person who hobbles into the emergency room gets virtually the same care as the rich. Thanks to ObamaCare, that will change. No longer can a secretary with cancer get the same care as a politician with the same cancer.
The secretary will wait, perhaps for months, and then receive whatever a faceless, nameless board decides is the minimum care necessary, while the politician will get whatever advancements are available that he or his insurance company can afford.
Since the decision also invalidated the financial penalty (Sorry, was it a penalty or a tax?) states would incur if they refused to expand Medicaid as told, many of the 30 million additional people ObamaCare claims to insure will never have the opportunity as states refuse the Medicaid expansion integral in increasing coverage.
So what does ObamaCare accomplish? It ruined health care for the middle class and preserved and enshrined the advantages of health care for the rich, while eliminating and degrading care for the poor, increasing unemployment, and depressing economic development. What a deal.
It's not that Chief Justice Roberts' argument that the mandate is constitutionally supportable as part of congressional power to tax is incorrect. It's just that the mandate was sold as precisely not a tax, and the legislation is written in a way that makes it a penalty to not buy insurance. Nowhere is "tax" mentioned.
Roberts has a valid argument, but only if the legislation was written utilizing the power of taxation as the means by which to compel purchase of insurance, which it wasn't. In any case, is the nation is now taxing inactivity? When has an American incurred a tax for what he didn't do? In an exploration of his inner Chávez, Obama should try to pass a law taxing people who don't vote for him.
If it was meant to be a tax, the law should have been written that way and sold to the public that way. The judiciary does not have the power to rewrite legislation after the fact, to make it more acceptable for constitutional affirmation. Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Scalia wrote in their dissent that "we cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not."
Yet that is exactly what Chief Justice Roberts did. Perhaps he succumbed to the progressive bullying and did not want to hear the abuse that would have been heaped on him by Obama and his minions had he done the right thing. But that is exactly what the Supreme Court is supposed to do: decide on the constitutionality of legislation as written. Not twist logic into knots to find a way it should have been written in order for it to be constitutional.
In the end, Roberts justifies an abomination of a law by limiting congressional power with respect to the Commerce Clause. Important though that may be, because it puts restrictions on what Congress can do, can't the same congressional overreach be accomplished now, except using taxation instead? Don't vote for Barack, don't eat your broccoli...well, then, you have to pay.
A majority of Americans do not support this legislation and in fact want it repealed. Does anyone think that the more people understand what it will cost them and their families, support will increase? Yet that doesn't matter to Obama -- see the grin?
I think the lower threshold for repeal will come back to haunt proponents of the legislation. In theory, a repeal of the ACA could be on the president's desk before November's election -- there are quite a few Senate Democrats up for re-election this year. The 51-vote threshold for repeal is not an impossibility.
This would force Barack Obama to explain why he supports the country's greatest tax increase of all time and how raising taxes on the middle class is now acceptable. Will he still look like a winner then?
The Supreme Court decision hands the president's political opponents the perfect case for the November election. Barack Obama is a liar, whose only policy seems to be to tax and spend. Oh...and he managed to destroy health care in the process.
The president is right: this is a BFD.
By William L. Gensert
The Supreme Court decision on the American Care Act is a loss for Barack Obama, despite how the president and his minions in the mainstream media will attempt to portray it. They will insist on selling this as a win for Obama.
Always classy, Obama himself has already tweeted, "Still a BFD."
When the Supreme Court declared the mandate a tax, it was in reality calling Barack Obama a liar -- not only for emphatically claiming that the mandate was not a tax when trying to convince citizens to back the legislation, but also for promising that his administration would never raise taxes on the middle class. Remember, he said that "no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase."
Instead, ObamaCare is the largest tax increase in the history of the nation...and it is a regressive tax. After all, the 1% of Americans he rails against religiously already have health insurance. Guess what: much of the burden of the cost of this legislation will be borne by families making less than $250,000. But don't worry: Obama cares -- perhaps only for himself and his name in the history books, but he cares.
In the coming months, many people will begin to realize how much the survival of ObamaCare will cost them in additional taxes and higher insurance premiums. All the Supreme Court has done, in upholding the president's destruction of medical care in America, is give another 100 million people a reason to despise Barack Obama and all he stands for. Obama may claim to care, but I suspect that the American electorate on November 6 will come out in force to show the president and the world how much they actually care for him.
Another point has gone unmentioned. After Ted Kennedy joined Mary Joe Kopechne in the afterlife, the ACA was passed with 51 votes in the Senate using reconciliation. Reconciliation is a process restricting use of the filibuster with respect to legislation related to budget matters. The mandate, now labeled a tax, is a revenue item that can be repealed with the same 51 votes. The filibuster-proof 60 votes needed for repeal before the decision are no longer required.
To quote Mike Franc, the Heritage Group's VP of Government Studies:
Now that the individual mandate has acquired the official constitutional status of a "tax", there is no longer any doubt that the Congress, and more specifically the Senate, can repeal it pursuant to the simple majority vote threshold available under the Budget Act's reconciliation process.If people didn't like Barack Obama before, they are certainly not going to like him any better now. Watching his brief announcement the day of the decision, it was clear that he could barely contain his jubilation. The half-smile on his face almost looked too hard for him to control. Apparently, to our president, it really is still a BFD.
In the end, this seals defeat for Barack Obama, because it shows him to be a man who cares nothing for America, unless he can get his name on legislation and in the history books. If it turns out badly in the end, it can be sold to the general public as a misinterpretation of what was originally the embodiment of his genius and transcendence.
At best, we are headed to a two-tiered system where the rich and well-insured get all the health care money can buy while the poor get only what ObamaCare decides is absolutely necessary.
Today in America, even the sickest person who hobbles into the emergency room gets virtually the same care as the rich. Thanks to ObamaCare, that will change. No longer can a secretary with cancer get the same care as a politician with the same cancer.
The secretary will wait, perhaps for months, and then receive whatever a faceless, nameless board decides is the minimum care necessary, while the politician will get whatever advancements are available that he or his insurance company can afford.
Since the decision also invalidated the financial penalty (Sorry, was it a penalty or a tax?) states would incur if they refused to expand Medicaid as told, many of the 30 million additional people ObamaCare claims to insure will never have the opportunity as states refuse the Medicaid expansion integral in increasing coverage.
So what does ObamaCare accomplish? It ruined health care for the middle class and preserved and enshrined the advantages of health care for the rich, while eliminating and degrading care for the poor, increasing unemployment, and depressing economic development. What a deal.
It's not that Chief Justice Roberts' argument that the mandate is constitutionally supportable as part of congressional power to tax is incorrect. It's just that the mandate was sold as precisely not a tax, and the legislation is written in a way that makes it a penalty to not buy insurance. Nowhere is "tax" mentioned.
Roberts has a valid argument, but only if the legislation was written utilizing the power of taxation as the means by which to compel purchase of insurance, which it wasn't. In any case, is the nation is now taxing inactivity? When has an American incurred a tax for what he didn't do? In an exploration of his inner Chávez, Obama should try to pass a law taxing people who don't vote for him.
If it was meant to be a tax, the law should have been written that way and sold to the public that way. The judiciary does not have the power to rewrite legislation after the fact, to make it more acceptable for constitutional affirmation. Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Scalia wrote in their dissent that "we cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not."
Yet that is exactly what Chief Justice Roberts did. Perhaps he succumbed to the progressive bullying and did not want to hear the abuse that would have been heaped on him by Obama and his minions had he done the right thing. But that is exactly what the Supreme Court is supposed to do: decide on the constitutionality of legislation as written. Not twist logic into knots to find a way it should have been written in order for it to be constitutional.
In the end, Roberts justifies an abomination of a law by limiting congressional power with respect to the Commerce Clause. Important though that may be, because it puts restrictions on what Congress can do, can't the same congressional overreach be accomplished now, except using taxation instead? Don't vote for Barack, don't eat your broccoli...well, then, you have to pay.
A majority of Americans do not support this legislation and in fact want it repealed. Does anyone think that the more people understand what it will cost them and their families, support will increase? Yet that doesn't matter to Obama -- see the grin?
I think the lower threshold for repeal will come back to haunt proponents of the legislation. In theory, a repeal of the ACA could be on the president's desk before November's election -- there are quite a few Senate Democrats up for re-election this year. The 51-vote threshold for repeal is not an impossibility.
This would force Barack Obama to explain why he supports the country's greatest tax increase of all time and how raising taxes on the middle class is now acceptable. Will he still look like a winner then?
The Supreme Court decision hands the president's political opponents the perfect case for the November election. Barack Obama is a liar, whose only policy seems to be to tax and spend. Oh...and he managed to destroy health care in the process.
The president is right: this is a BFD.
American Thinker
