Thank you, Justice Roberts, for energizing the conservatives in the 2012 election. I think even non-conservatives may begin to see what a nightmare Obamacare is as the lawsuits against the recent policies implemented by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius continue.
Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article on-line about today’s decision. Included in the article are the following paragraphs:
However, the ruling may give more leeway to states that don’t want to cooperate with the law by letting them avoid punishment for refusing to expand Medicaid.
Currently, states and the federal government split the costs of Medicaid, which provides health insurance for the poor. Under the health-care law, the federal government is set to pick up most of the cost of expanding Medicaid, but states would eventually have to chip in part. If states refused to pay their part, the law allowed the federal government to threaten to withdraw all Medicaid funding.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote that such a threat would amount to a “gun to the head” and effectively let Washington commandeer state spending. He said that kind of coercion was unconstitutional. But the remedy he adopted was relatively modest: He said the federal government could expand Medicaid so long as it didn’t threaten states with the withdrawal of all Medicaid funding.
The chief justice added that that the problem with the Medicaid language “does not require striking down other portions” of the law.
Twenty-six states filed suit the day Mr. Obama signed the health-care bill into law in March 2010. Lower courts issued conflicting rulings on whether the law’s insurance mandate was constitutional.
No matter what the decision was, this fight was not going to be over. The decision reached simply assures that the fight will continue at least until November. The Supreme Court did not bow to public pressure on this issue, but we need to remember that a strong majority of Americans do not like Obamacare. If those people vote in November, Obamacare as it now stands will be over.
