That is basically correct. The ACA law does not force Americans to buy health insurance. It just taxes us if we don’t buy it. You won’t go to jail IF you pay the tax, and that is just like federal income taxes. It sounds to me like this ruling is legally correct. It’s tough medicine for America in the short run, but probably better for this country in the long run because the ruling demonstrates that we can’t rely on the courts to overturn really bad legislation passed by nasty socialists like Obama, Reid, and Pelosi. This ruling shows that Americans have to vote for better people to serve in the legislature if we want really good legislation to be enacted.
Contrary to what many people (including some amateur DNC operatives) have written on this thread, Romney will sincerely make every effort to repeal the ACA law if elected. He will campaign on repeal of ACA and if elected he’ll have to support repeal to maintain his support among Republicans in congress. Even if Romney wins, if may not be possible to repeal the entire law because of democrat opposition in the senate. But with Romney in the White House I have no doubt that enough senate democrats will vote to repeal most of ACA piece by piece, by voting for new legislation that replaced major parts of the ACA law.
The MA health care law that Romney signed is not a significant political problem—Romney can just say that he has learned that some of the MA law isn’t working well, and he supports repeal of ACA because it’s terrible legislation that forces a very costly and poorly designed system on all the states and takes away the freedom of choice by individuals to buy the kind of health insurance that each individual needs. There are real problems with the current health care system that need to be fixed, in the right way. Denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions is just too tough on people who have a medical condition and then lose their job and coverage. That can amount to sentencing people to bankruptcy. But we still need strong incentives for people to buy health insurance and not wait until they have an illness. Romney has to find the smart middle ground on health care policy. Go Mitt Go!
Interesting take on it. I’m abroad (in Spain) right now, and people are very confused by this ruling, because rightly or wrongly, they take it as the approval of a socialized medicine system which is one of the very things that has gotten them into trouble here. In fact, just yesterday, the government announced that they were going to stop covering things such as ibuprofen and laxatives, and people are calling for Rajoy’s head - and then we go and approve a system that will be exactly the same as europe’s failed system.
That said, I think Roberts was so afraid of being viewed as political that he just viewed it through the narrowest legal lens possible. I do think this gives the GOP every reason to revisit it, though, especially since Obama argued on more than one occasion that it was NOT a tax.
Sadly, I don’t have any confidence in Romney. He’s a big government, statist member of a theocratic cult, and this shows in his Romney Care for Massachusetts.
If anybody else were our candidate, I’d say this would hand him the election. But not in the case of Romney. The GOP elite always picks the losing candidate, and they had picked Romney since the day after the last election.
Interesting take on it. I’m abroad (in Spain) right now, and people are very confused by this ruling, because rightly or wrongly, they take it as the approval of a socialized medicine system which is one of the very things that has gotten them into trouble here. In fact, just yesterday, the government announced that they were going to stop covering things such as ibuprofen and laxatives, and people are calling for Rajoy’s head - and then we go and approve a system that will be exactly the same as europe’s failed system.
That said, I think Roberts was so afraid of being viewed as political that he just viewed it through the narrowest legal lens possible. I do think this gives the GOP every reason to revisit it, though, especially since Obama argued on more than one occasion that it was NOT a tax.
Sadly, I don’t have any confidence in Romney. He’s a big government, statist member of a theocratic cult, and this shows in his Romney Care for Massachusetts.
If anybody else were our candidate, I’d say this would hand him the election. But not in the case of Romney. The GOP elite always picks the losing candidate, and they had picked Romney since the day after the last election.
But we still need strong incentives for people to buy health insurance and not wait until they have an illness.
Isn’t the first step to some sort of honest tax reform, Fair tax, where EVERYONE has skin in the game?