Democracy
Life After the Health Care Ruling
New York Times Discussion - Within the next two weeks, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision on the Affordable Care Act. If they accepted jurisdiction, the justices could uphold the law entirely or strike it all down, or they could zero in to reject the most controversial aspect, the mandate that individuals must have health insurance. What would the future hold if the individual mandate were struck down?
Good Could Come From Striking the Mandate
Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. – The individual mandate is so essential to spreading the risk and cost of health care over the whole population, including younger and healthier people, that some analysts believe if the Supreme Court nixes the mandate it effectively spells the end of the law. [More]
Expect Big Changes, No Matter the Ruling
Michael F. Cannon is the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. - No matter the outcome, the Supreme Court’s ruling on the health care law’s individual mandate will be seismic. To strike the entire law would badly wound a sitting president and the century-long campaign for universal coverage. To uphold its intensely unpopular individual mandate would turn the U.S. Constitution on its head, and spark a backlash by independents and Republicans that could replace this president with one who has vowed to repeal the law. [More]
The Right Thing for the Wrong Reason
Marcia Angell is a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School. - If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to buy insurance, it will have done the right thing for the wrong reason. The court’s Republican majority will have used the Constitution as an excuse to undermine President Obama. (Anyone who still thinks the Supreme Court is not a political body hasn’t been paying attention.) But the mandate is a terrible idea. It requires people to buy a commercial product from investor-owned businesses at whatever price the companies set. [More]
The Court Should Strike It All Down
Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a nonprofit research organization focusing on free-market ideas for health reform. - Here’s a quick checklist of the 10 worst things that will be left in the law if the Supreme Court voids only the individual and Medicaid mandates: [More]
Don’t Count on Congress to Help
Maggie Mahar is a writer for HealthInsurance and the author of “Money-Driven Medicine. - If the court overturns the mandate requiring that most Americans buy insurance — or pay a penalty — we must find other ways to persuade as many people as possible to sign up for insurance. Reformers can do this by launching aggressive, televised marketing campaigns highlighting the many provisions in the Affordable Care Act that make health insurance both more affordable and better. [More]
Rejection Would Hurt Uninsured and Elderly
Kevin Pho, a primary care doctor in Nashua, N.H., blogs at MedPage Today’s KevinMD.com. - In this election year, the Supreme Court’s judgment on the Affordable Care Act will be interpreted through a political lens. But the decision will have real-life consequences on patients, whose voice won’t be heard through the ensuing partisan din. [More]
There’s a Better Way
David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler are internists and professors of public health at the City University of New York. - Occupy Wall Street wasn’t born in time for the 2009 health care debate. But that debate was a quintessential display of the power and privilege of the 1 percent. Drug and insurance firms dictated the terms of reform: “do it our way or do nothing at all.” The result was a lopsided bargain: [More]
Focus on Health, More Than Health Care
Louis W. Sullivan was the secretary of health and human services under President George H.W. Bush, and chairman of the National Health Museum… - No matter what the Supreme Court decides, the transformation of America’s health system is already under way because of new technologies, financial pressures from continually rising costs (for individuals and businesses) and increasing awareness of the nation’s health care crisis. [More]
The Court Can’t End the Pressure for Reform
Elliott S. Fisher is the director for Population Health and Policy at the Dartmouth Institute. - From a safe distance — such as when you are driving by a billboard promoting your nearby hospital’s beautiful new cancer center — the U.S. health care system looks pretty good. But patients and policy makers have a different view. When sick, Americans receive care that is too often impersonal, unsafe and uncoordinated. And high and rising health care costs pose a threat to everyone, undermining schools, devouring government budgets and keeping wage growth flat. [More]
