Tomorrow, the Supreme Court rules on Obama's decision to chose the third of three options for health insurance. The question before them has been worded as, "Can the government force people to buy broccoli?" I think the more pertinent question is, "Can the government force people to pay for the broccoli they'll inevitably eat?"
The first option was to let people choose not to pay for insurance and yet still provide care when they needed it in an emergency. This is the system we have now.
The second option would be to let people choose not to buy insurance and refuse care when they needed it in an emergency. This "let them die" option is rarely supported.
The third option would be to make sure that everyone paid for insurance so that everyone had coverage. This is the option that Obama included in his Healthcare plan.
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court rules on Obama's mandatory insurance plan. Their question is whether the government can force people to buy a product (insurance in this case).
For me, the question is silly. Given that we can't refuse people the product (in this case emergency healthcare), it seems that they can't refuse to pay for it.
In any case, I'm not optimistic that the Court will rule in favor of Obama for two reasons. One is that this Court is persistently partisan, voting along party lines on most issues. This Court is, by default, 5-4 against Obama. Two, the Court doesn't make judgement on right or wrong, just what is constitutional. It is worth remembering that they ruled FDR's ban on child labor unconstitutional.
The really bad news for Obama is that if the Supreme Court rules against him, it's a major blow. If they rule for him (which seems unlikely), it's not really a big victory. So, Obama has a good chance of a big loss and a small chance of a fairly insignificant victory. That seems like a really tough game to play.
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