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July 2, 2012

Other Views: Court ruling ups the ante

The Eagle-Tribune, North Andover, Mass.

“Perhaps it’s a dream,” muses Basil Fawlty, the harried innkeeper of the BBC’s “Fawlty Towers.” After banging his head on his desk, Fawlty concludes, “No, it’s real. We’re stuck with it.”

That rather aptly sums up the reactions of American conservatives after a supposedly conservative Supreme Court somehow discovered in the Constitution that the federal government has the right to compel everyone to purchase health insurance.

The 5-4 ruling in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius upheld the “individual mandate” that is essential to the rewrite of health care laws in the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare.”

The Supreme Court decision now amplifies the importance of the November elections. It is up to the American people to decide if they want to continue down the path President Obama has set us on or opt for a different course. The focus of the Supreme Court’s ruling was the individual mandate, which beginning in 2014 will require those not covered by an employer- or government-provided plan to purchase health insurance or face a penalty assessed by the Internal Revenue Service.

Government lawyers argued that the mandate was permissible under the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause, which gives Congress the authority to regulate trade between the states.

Here, the high court drew a line in the sand, with Chief Justice John Roberts arguing with a majority that the commerce clause cannot be used to force individuals to purchase a product they would not otherwise buy.

But having denied the government’s commerce clause argument, Roberts joined with justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in upholding the mandate under the right of Congress to levy taxes.

But in fighting the constitutional challenge, the government was quick to argue that, should the commerce clause argument fail, then yeah, sure, the penalties were indeed just another tax.

The minority of justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito argued that while Congress indeed has the power to tax, the Affordable Care Act was written with penalties for noncompliance. The majority’s acceptance of this argument amounts to a rewrite of the law.

The Eagle-Tribune, North Andover, Mass.

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