Big news today as the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's health care plan (that some people call Obama-care), including the mandate where everyone has to have health insurance. Some people found this to be too intrusive (we want the liberty to not have health insurance!), while others saw that as necessary to helping create a more equitable health care system. This argument echoes a lot of what we'll see throughout history, as people complain about the government doing too much, or not enough.
Read a short (1-paragraph!) summary of the court's decision here and more thorough coverage here. Let's focus not on whether the Court's decision was the right one or not, but how this will effect the future of the law and the presidential campaigns. Does it strengthen Obama's position? Or will it just increase Republican resolve? What do you think?
The unprecedented constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is a positive step towards bipartisanship in the United States. The swing vote of Chief Justice John Roberts, who has traditionally voted conservative and who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, reminded Americans that the Supreme Court is a non-partisan body who focuses on constitutionality, rather than on politics. However, the constitutionality of the law is slim and somewhat sketchy, as Obama himself has stated in the past that the penalty for not having health insurance is not a tax. Nevertheless, the court’s decision will prevent the political crisis that would have been if the Democrats tried to pass the law again in today’s gridlocked Congress.
ReplyDeleteAlmost certainly, the court’s decision will benefit President Obama the most. Few presidents have gotten the chance to pass a major healthcare reform act, so Obama will likely go into the history books, along with FDR and LBJ. Although some Republicans claim to be the true victors and have vowed to challenge the law, they are powerless in a divided Congress. The law will now most likely go into effect in 2014, as the decision of the top federal court is highly respected.
Everyone knows about our country's increasing debt problem. We're almost at 16 trillion dollars in debt now and every second it's still increasing. The leading contributor to our debt is Medicare/Medicaid with 802 billion dollars in debt. The Affordable Care Act only adds to the country's debt problem by expanding Medicaid which, in effect, brings our country closer to bankruptcy. Depending on how the approval ratings play out for the Affordable Care Act,(which right now is below 50%), determines who this historical Supreme Court decision will help in the coming election. If the media leads people to believe the the Affordable Care Act will be good for the future of America, then Obama will benefit from the Supreme Court decision. If the reverse happens, Romney will benefit simply because no one would vote for Obama anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court finding the Affordable Care Act to be constitutional is a big win for President Obama, due to it being the landmark legislation of his first term. There is little chance for the law to be repealed before it goes into affect in 2014, even if Mitt Romney does win in the up coming election. The reason why I say that is new legislation would have to passed to cancel the law, and that would be extremely difficult with a divided Congress. So no matter what happens in November the president has made his mark on healthcare and public policy.
ReplyDeleteBut besides helping Obama, just the fact that Obamacare is a national issue is a problem for Mitt Romney. He's in a delicate position right now because he introduced a similar healthcare plan while he was the governor of Massachusetts, and it worked. He'll never admit it, but Mitt Romney helped create Obamacare. He has to differentiate himself from Obama to appeal to his Republican base, but to say that the Affordable Care Act should not be enacted or repealed is rather hypocritical.
With the Affordable Healthcare Act ruled constitutional, it seems like a win for Obama, but no one can really predict if it will work in his favor. If the law has good results, then Obama may benefit, but currently rather than convincing Americans who are on the fence, the decision seems to just be working up and aggravating Republicans against the individual mandate. It will be no easy battle to change their minds seeing as there was already an expectation that the mandate would be struck down judging by multiple networks jumping the gun and wrongly reporting the Supreme Court’s decision. As with any law that requires people to abide by some order, there will be no shortage of unhappy Americans, I think that Obama’s success depends on the media’s ability to bring attention to and blow up these situations. People are easily influenced by the negative media so it seems highly likely that any benefits of the Affordable Healthcare Act will be ignored come election day.
ReplyDeleteAs Lucy said, the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act may seem like a victory for President Obama but most likely will not give him any advantage in the coming election. The decision does however weaken the position of his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. Even if Romney did win the election, his pursuit to overturn the Court's decision would be highly improbable, given the current state of Congress. Although the approval ratings for this decision play a major role in who will be elected, the outcome of this case almost guarantees a continued presence of President Obama regardless of the result of the election.
ReplyDeleteThis health care plan has me on the fence and I do believe that health care is abused by many people in this country. Not so much medicare as medicaid. Even though there are poor people that do abuse is, there is a great deal of people who need medicaid because they don't have enough money to pay for food, or a mortgage, and definitely not health care. I do think Obama is trying to make life easier on the less fortunate by giving them a fair healthcare plan that will allow them to get the care they need. However, this country is getting closer and closer to bankruptcy and the Affordable Health care act is only going to make our nation go more into debt. The court's decision that the Act isn't unconstitutional may help Obama's campaign for right now, but in truth the media is going to persuade people to believe whether the Affordable care act will be helpful or hurtful and there's no telling how things will turn out.
ReplyDeletethe health care plan also know as obamacare i think is unconstitutional. people should have the choice to have health care and the american people should not be paying for people to have it. I think you should be responsible for yourself and take care of yourself. America gives everybody the opportunity to succeed so we should have to pay for people to get health insurance. Also Obama even said its not going to be tax but the court ruled it was going to be instilled as a tax.so its unfair to middle class adding another tax.
ReplyDeleteBy the Supreme Court upholding the Care Act as constitutional, this decision could change the way the law is looked upon and how the presidental campaigns play out. In my opinion, by requiring citizens to buy health insurance is a word I call "control"; forcing citizens to pay or be penalized. So of course people will change their opinions about Obama, but choosing between Obama and Romney, Obama would probably still stay on top, due to Romney financial failure, costing a state billions in debt, in the past and also one of Romney's solution to education. Because of Obama's move in health care, he could lose many votes, so this move will not strengthened his campaign, but only a minor decrease; favoring the Republican side a little.
DeleteAs the election grows closer, middle-of-the-road voters will eventually be pushed to one side or the other. Obama's Affordable Care Act being upheld in the Supreme Court may be an event that does just that. On one hand, the fact that the Supreme Court decided to take a look as to whether it was constitutional or not, may push voters towards Romney's side. On the other hand, because the Supreme Court upheld the act, as well as Romney's own healthcare reform, as Stephen said, that might have been an example used to create "Obamacare", could push voters towards Obama. I agree with Lucy that it will not be until we see the healthcare reform play out, will we have a definite answer as to whether this is a positive or negative for both parties.
ReplyDeleteThe affordable care act is a good idea, but not perfect in execution. The upholding of this act is just a foot in the door for Obama. What he will need to do over a long period of time is change the plan to fit Americas needs. I believe this strengthens his position in the presidential campaign by saying that he is here to stay. This will affect the future of healthcare in America, and hopefully bring in a new era of hope for people without means to pay for expensive medical care. Right now, it is an optimist's act. Like Amanda said, there are people who will abuse this act for their own personal gain. Once this act has been tailor fitted to the needy, I believe it will be just what this country needs.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, making citizens pay a tax for not getting health care is contradictory to what Obama said in 2009; "For us to say that you've got to take responsibility to get health insurance is absoluely not a tax increase, what it's saying is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you". This hypocrisy may lose voters. I am against the tax for not having health care, because I dont think people should have to pay to not get a service. It just dosent make sense. However in a political sense, Romney is screwing himself because the Affordable Care Act is amazingly similar to his own philosophy on health insurance, and by continually bashing ObamaCare, he is essentially bashing his own philosophy. Basically both candidates are hypocritical, and we must choose the lesser of both evils. Obama 2012.
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme courts ruling of "Obamacare" being constitutional is a huge victory for Obama, and I believe it will seriously help him in the 2012 election. If you look at what could have happened if it was ruled unconstitutional it is easy to say the Romney would have a sizable advantage and lots of ammo for his campaign. Seeing that this piece of legislation by Obama, some would say, was his only monumental bill since he had been in office, if it had been ruled unconstitutional critics would say how he hasn't passed anything of significance in the past 4 years. But since it passed Romney will probably return to bashing it like he has been doing for the past 6 months. But if I was Romney, like Rishi said, I would shut up all together in criticizing the bill. As we all know, his plan in Massachusetts was the blueprint for The Affordable Care Act, and by him continuing to condemn it he is only losing votes due to his hypocrisy. Obama's victory in the supreme court is nothing short of just that, a victory, and it should only do positive things for his campaign.
ReplyDeleteFor years there has been a sense that if all else fails, take it to court. However this feeling may have been changed in the recent decision regarding the Affordable Care Act. The ruling that; the so called individual mandate requiring all Americans to buy insurance or pay a fine, failed to pass under the constitutions “commerce clause” however the penalty operated as a tax so was proper under the “Taxing clause”. This view point is wrong, a tax should not be considered a penalty, and never has. Taxes do not arise in the occurrence of someone doing something wrong, they occur because the government creates them in order to pay for various projects. However Justice Roberts opinion (not mentioned in article) makes a fine point when he says “it is not the job of the courts to avoid rejecting the act of congress” for the court is not around to just clean up the mess left behind by the other two branches. it was however the right move for the courts to take however. There is already enough political turmoil that if this law were to be found unconstitutional on all grounds, partisanship would become much more intense, and the courts would have been seen as partisan themselves and not reliable as the independent branch. Therefore it didn’t strengthen Obamas “cause” or anything like that, in truth all it really does is keep partisanship low and put the decision back into the hands of the people when election rolls back around.
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court ruling that the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act is constitutional will help President Obama's positions throughout the later stages of the presidential campaign and boost voter confidence of him. As of right now there are several swing states that either Obama or Governor Romney could win electoral votes in. Various polls that have taken place in these states have indicated that healthcare is one of the most important issues to potential voters when deciding who to vote for president. When voting many of these people will look back at the Supreme Court's decision and decide that Obama is dealing with healthcare well. This conclusion would create confidence in the voter that Obama can and will do a better job on healthcare issues than Romney in the next presidential term. The poll also showed that the participants believed that Obama would deal with healthcare better than Romney. This confidence in Obama could be because of the ruling the Court made on June 28th.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama’s new healthcare act gets the attention of many low income Americans who are unable to afford healthcare insurance on their own. Morally the Affordable Care Act is trying to help those who need it, yet financially, the Affordable Care Act is burdening the United States’ budget. Obama hopes the people who benefit from the act outweigh those who side with Romney who is opposed to the act. Romney represents “freedom of choice” in what type of insurance one can choose. Those who don’t directly benefit from Obama’s healthcare act tend to side with Romney. Obama, on the other hand, is attending to the less fortunate, which I think has a greater number. Therefore Obama will benefit in the election because more people are in favor of his health plan. Bosses, executives, and the upper class are the people who won’t feel the positive results of Obama’s healthcare, while the numerous blue collar working classes are the ones who gain from the mandated insurance.
ReplyDeleteI believe the Supreme Court's decision will both help and hurt both sides. On one hand I believe that many Upper Class Moderates will look to Romney to repeal the action. He will also likely throw around the words “Socialized Medicine” scaring people into voting for him so we don’t become a socialized state. While that classification is far from true, he will gain many votes from people who still remember the Governments anti-socialism propaganda from the cold war.
ReplyDeleteThere are, however, more lower and middle class people who benefit from this legislation. This may not end up translating into votes for two reasons. The lower class typically votes less, so even if they do appreciate how this helps them, they may not vote. I also think that there will be a lot of people who either don’t realize they benefit, or they resent the fact that the government is telling them what to do. I think all of these factors will translate to Romney gaining an upper hand on this issue.
The recent confirmation of the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care legislation is a strong victory for his reelection campaign. Possibly the most controversial legislation of our time, so-called “Obamacare” calls for a required health insurance for every eligible American citizen. The Republican Party has boosted the theory that this requirement allows the government too much interference with their citizens, however the Supreme Court’s decision ratifies Obama’s legislation and allows the citizens to believe that if the most impartial and all-powerful court in this country supports it, then maybe it’s okay if they do too. While health care continues to be a heated debate, this case result quieted the Republican Party’s theory long enough that the citizens were allowed to come to their own conclusions, independent from whatever party they support.
ReplyDeleteThe United States economy is a hot issue for the presidential elections. There is no doubt that the United States is deep in debt, mostly due to the broken healthcare system. Medicare and Medicaid are mostly responsible for this debt, amounting to one of the highest program cost in the United States budget. The Affordable Care Act is aimed mostly at decreasing the number of uninsured Americans and reducing the overall cost of healthcare. The Affordable Care Act will be popular among low income families who cannot afford healthcare since it provides cheaper healthcare and allows more people to qualify for free healthcare who cannot afford it. However, some lower income families lack the stable jobs which mean their future security is uncertain. When jobs are unstable, parents often lack the time or the care to follow politics. The approval rating of the Affordable Care Act was below 50% when it passed so it depends on whether or not the public opinion changes during Election Day.
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