Today the High Court will hear arguments over Florida vs. Sebelius. That’s right. We’ve finally reached the ninth inning of the legal battle between 26 states and the Administration, over the constitutionality of the health reform legislation.
I covered the first hearings on this case back when it was filed in Federal District Court. When Judge Roger Vinson later ruled to overturn the health law it sent out quite a shock wave, surprising the White House and its supporters. Few imagined the legislation would be so vulnerable to legal challenges.
In retrospect, the fact that the legislation wasn’t perfectly formulated shouldn’t have been such a surprise. It was 2,300 pages long, filled with dozens of political favors, policy ideas, and power plays.
The hole in the bill was in a very specific location. By using a penalty structure to enforce the requirement that everyone must buy health insurance, President Obama may have been able to more easily sell it. And the Congressional Budget Office was able to score it more favorably. But the penalties also appeared to overstep the President’s Constitutional power.
But I’m not a lawyer (proud to say!) so I’m reluctant to make legal arguments against the bill.
Instead here are three more practical reasons why the Supreme Court should join lower courts in overturning the law. For those readers who (like me) can be flexible in their thinking also check out: Three Reasons The Supreme Court Should Uphold The Individual Mandate and Three Reasons The Supreme Court’s Decision Doesn’t Matter.
ObamaCare Is Intrusive
You probably know that the bill forces you to buy insurance or pay a $700 penalty. The penalty is $2,000 for a company that doesn’t offer a plan to its workers. The bill also says exactly what kind of insurance you must buy. You have to buy expensive first-dollar coverage for virtually everything–even if you’re young and healthy. Let’s say you don’t want to insure yourself against the possibility of needing drug rehab. Too bad. It will also intrude into your benefits at work. The bill encourages your employer, in some cases, to withdraw insurance in favor of pushing you into a government run exchange where you will likely have to fend for yourself.
ObamaCare Is Unaffordable While Not Achieving Its Own Objectives
Folks, last year we had a $1.3 billion budget deficit. This year the federal government will spend 31% more than it takes in. That was without ObamaCare. Given the likely to never-be-enacted Medicare cuts and other financial contortions that were used to score health reform’s future deficit effects–coupled with the country’s inability to otherwise raise revenue–we’re digging ourselves into a major hole. Meanwhile, the bill will still leave 25 million uninsured, fails to control aggregate health spending in any meaningful way, and raises private health premiums substantially.
ObamaCare Will Politicize The Doctor-Patient Relationship
Since the health care exchanges will be run at the state level, specific decisions about what health insurance covers and doesn’t cover will be made in reaction to lobbyists representing various medical industries, patient groups, political causes, and so forth. The lamentable birth control debate was only the first round. Get ready for California to ban circumcisions but cover New Age healing, for the Deep South to impose the abortion debate on top of its health exchanges, and for more liberal, spendy states to mandate that insurance cover anything and everything. And if that’s not enough mixing of politics and health care, there’s always the IPAB. The independent payment advisory board will get to decide when to block coverage for certain medical procedures deemed either unproven or too expensive. Then, Congress will rush to the rescue, aided by lobbyists. Left behind in all this are patients and doctors, who will rapidly lose control of their health care decision-making ability to a group of strangers.
David Whelan, Contributor
Health care cost and quality, entrepreneurship, and business stories.
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