I haven’t done politics on the blog in a while but since the SCOTUS upheld Obamacare, there is an opportunity for comment.
Despite the uproar over Justice Robert’s “betrayal” I think he did the right thing. If the penalty for the individual mandate is a tax, and the government lawyers defending Obamacare said it was, and Congress has the right to raise taxes then the darned thing is constitutional. So there’s that. But there is a rub to that definition. The House has to originate tax bills and Obamacare originated in the Senate. So there is still an opportunity to overturn it on a technicality. I’d rather that didn’t happen.
Why? Since the court ruled the law as constitutional, the fight goes back to where it belongs: with the electorate. If you think the individual mandate is a good thing, vote for those who support it. If you think it is a bad thing, vote for those opposed. This should not be something that the American people are subject to but not involved in. I’m glad we’re in an election cycle right now.
My opinion is that Obamacare did the wrong thing. Our healthcare system is out of whack and all Obamacare did was force everyone to be part of a broken system. It didn’t actually fix anything. What the government needs to do is to follow the money in the healthcare system and fix that drain. Who is making all the dough? Why is healthcare so expensive? Find that and fix it then you probably won’t have to force people into the system. And why do employers have to provide healthcare insurance? What is the connection there? No one asked that, it is the way it is and so we’ve encoded it. But that isn’t the best way to provide healthcare insurance; when employment changes, why should someone be cut off just because their job went away? That is another part that doesn’t make sense and yet isn’t being questioned.
Just to be clear, I don’t think the Republicans are going to do the right thing either. Romney has said that he wants to repeal and replace Obamacare but I’m not sure the Republicans have looked at which sinkhole the healthcare money is disappearing down either so who knows what they’ll come up with.