Supreme Court
The Mandate After the Court
My colleague Yuval Levin and I have co-authored a new article for National Review Online about how the Roberts decision will affect Obamacare:
In the wake of the Roberts decision, participation in Obamacare’s insurance scheme is optional. Rather than a requirement to buy coverage backed with a penalty for violators, the law now offers Americans two equally lawful and legitimate options: buy expensive insurance (which Obamacare will make all the more expensive), or pay a modest (and still largely unenforceable) tax and just buy insurance for the same price later if you need it. Presented as a choice, not a command, this provision will invite a straightforward comparison, and for many Americans the choice it would pose would be a very easy one.
You can read the rest of the article here.
posted by James C. Capretta | 12:03 pm
Tags: Supreme Court, Yuval Levin
File As: Health Care
SCOTUS Post-Mortem
I have a column up at e21 on what today's Supreme Court ruling means for the future of Obamacare, and what opponents of that plan need to do to repeal and replace it:
You can read the rest of the article here.Still, there’s no question that today’s ruling provides a boost to the administration and to the long-term prospects of ObamaCare. The future of ObamaCare now rests in the political and legislative arena -- perhaps appropriately, as that is where the fate of most important policy matters should be settled. ObamaCare opponents should be optimistic, because the public remains firmly opposed to the law, but also determined, because it won’t be easy.
posted by James C. Capretta | 4:30 pm
Tags: Supreme Court, Obamacare
File As: Health Care
Obamacare’s Failings Go Well Beyond the Individual Mandate and Medicaid
I have a new issue brief at the Heritage Foundation on four of the worst problems with Obamacare that are not under review by the Supreme Court. Here’s one:
Obamacare will exacerbate the nation’s already alarming entitlement spending and debt crises. Already, the dramatic rise in spending on Medicare and Medicaid is pushing the federal budget to the breaking point. Obamacare makes the problem much worse by creating two new additional entitlement programs in the form of a massive Medicaid expansion and a new premium credit entitlement for households with incomes between 138 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level. These two entitlement expansions are expected to add a minimum of 35 million Americans to the entitlement rolls when phased in, at an expense of more than $200 billion annually by the end of the decade.
You can read the rest of the article here.
posted by James C. Capretta | 12:45 pm
Tags: Obamacare, Supreme Court
File As: Health Care
Supreme Suspense: Getting Ready for the Big Obamacare Decision
I have a new column up at e21 on how conservatives should be prepared for whatever the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare turns out to be:
...it’s possible to boil down the various scenarios to a handful that capture the most likely outcomes, and to examine the implications of those scenarios through both a policy and a political lens. Indeed, for those who have spent the past three years opposing ObamaCare, it’s critically important to be prepared for all eventualities because what the key players in this drama say and do in the days after the Court issues its decision could be just as important as the decision itself to the future of ObamaCare and American health care.
Scenario 1: The Court Upholds ObamaCare. What if the Court doesn’t strike down any provisions of ObamaCare? This is the scenario conservatives are loath to consider but ignore at their peril. It is certainly possible that the Court will find ObamaCare within the bounds of existing constitutional law, despite the many flaws in the administration’s legal defense that were exposed during oral arguments. If that happens, it will be seen as a severe blow to the ObamaCare opposition because so many conservatives have invested so much energy in the two-year-long legal case....
You can read the rest of the article here.
posted by James C. Capretta | 3:28 pm
Tags: Obamacare, Supreme Court
File As: Health Care
What Now for the Supreme Court?
Over at National Review Online, I’m one of several respondents to a symposium asking the question, “Now that the oral arguments are over: What should SCOTUS do?” Here’s the beginning of my short response:
Yes, Obamacare is “unprecedented” — an unprecedented federal power grab. If allowed to stand, the law would steadily shift immense control over the entire health sector from states, employers, private companies, and individuals to federal bureaucrats. And once the big changes scheduled for implementation in 2014 are set in motion, they will be very difficult to reverse later.
The rest of the response is here.
posted by James C. Capretta | 3:26 pm
Tags: individual mandate, Supreme Court
File As: Health Care
It’s Not Just About the Individual Mandate
I have a new Weekly Standard article on the need not to focus exclusively on the individual mandate in undoing Obamacare:
Obamacare’s individual mandate — requiring that all Americans purchase government-approved health insurance beginning in 2014 — has always been the law’s most vulnerable provision. It is incredibly unpopular, and not just among conservatives. Polls consistently show that a large majority of the electorate opposes it, including a good portion of registered Democrats....
[However], even if the Supreme Court were to strike down the mandate, much of the rest of the law would almost certainly remain in effect. That’s unacceptable. Obamacare without the mandate is nearly as bad as Obamacare with it.
In the end, the fate of Obamacare will almost certainly be decided in the political and legislative arena, not the courts, and the 2012 election is likely to be the decisive battle in that regard. Keeping this in mind, Republicans and conservatives should be doing all they can to make the 2012 election another referendum on the damage Obamacare will do to the American economy and health system....
You can read the whole article here.
posted by James C. Capretta | 2:04 pm
Tags: repeal, individual mandate, Supreme Court
File As: Health Care
