Does the Supreme Court's Healthcare Ruling Help Obama? >
Obamacare Is Now Roberts-care
The fact that the most conservative justice upheld the healthcare law is a major win for Obama
June 28, 2012
About Brad Bannon:
Brad Bannon is president of Bannon Communications Research, a political polling and consulting firm which helps labor unions, progressive issue groups, and Democratic candidates win public affairs and political campaigns.
Don't you just love it? Obamacare just became Roberts-care.
American government and politics are full of ironies and that's what makes the process so fascinating. The most conservative chief justice of the Supreme Court since the 1930s just handed President Barack Obama a big policy win, legitimized the iconic achievement of his presidency, and paved the way for the biggest expansion of federal power in decades. Only in America.
By a 5-4 majority, the court ruled the individual health insurance mandate is constitutional. Four justices (Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg) ruled that Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce justified the mandate. The fifth justice, Chief Justice John Roberts, disagreed but said the law was legitimate by virtue of Congress's authority to levy taxes. All that matters is that the justices said the mandate was constitutional. It doesn't matter that the justices traveled on different roads as long as they got to the same place.
[See editorial cartoons about healthcare.]
Since the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land, a plurality of Americans consistently indicated opposition to the law. But if you read the fine print in the national polls, the level of opposition is misleading. Most of the features in the act are in fact quite popular. Americans overwhelmingly supported the parts of the law that stop health insurance companies from treating their customers like diseased cattle. The feature that polarized opinion on the law was the overwhelming opposition to the individual mandate. So Roberts has legitimized the only part of the law that Americans dislike and left intact the features of Obamacare that Americans value.
I'm sure that nobody game planned the battle over healthcare reform, the way it played out. But the White House has good reason to spike the football today.
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- Other Arguments
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#18735
No — The presidential election will be a referendum on Obamacare
FORD O'CONNELL, Republican Strategist, Conservative Activist, and Political Analyst
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#27038
No — Republicans will organize around opposition to Obamacare, which means trouble for the president
STEPHANIE SLADE, Project Director at The Winston Group
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#34017
Yes — Healthcare ruling will energize Obama's Democratic base but won't necessarily win over swing voters
JAMIE CHANDLER, Political Scientist at Hunter College
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#42517
No — Republicans will oppose healthcare law as "the largest tax increase in history"
LARA BROWN, Author of 'Jockeying for the American Presidency: The Political Opportunism of Aspirants'
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#52121
No — Obamacare crystallizes the president's "nanny state" approach to government and the economy
MICHAEL MARSHALL, Communications Director to former Sen. Bob Dole
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#71624
Yes — The president and the country win as the court upholds the Affordable Care Act
PETER FENN, Democratic Political Strategist
