Victory for Obamacare!

Today Obama can celebrate as he has won a major victory over his Republican rivals.

Obama’s landmark domestic legislation, the Affordable Care Act, was challenged as unconstitutional by 26 states and Republicans. The Supreme Court decided that the provision in the Bill that requires nearly all Americans to buy health insurance was constitutional as it amounted to a tax. The decision has surprised a lot of people, most believed that the provision would be struck down by the Conservative majority on the bench, but of the nine judges, five voted in favour of the provision. The four liberal judges were joined by the conservative John Roberts, most people believed that if anyone was to vote in favour of the provision it would be the “swing vote” of Anthony Kennedy.

This is the biggest decision the court has taken since Bush vs Gore in 2000, in which the court controversially decided to hand the presidency to George W. Bush.

So what exactly is the Affordable Care Act anyway? Well it is basically an attempt to extend medical coverage to all Americans; right now around 50 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. The Bill has a number of proposals, firstly that health insurance companies cannot discriminate against people who have pre-existing conditions, and they have to provide them with coverage at the same price as a healthy person. The problem with this is that it pushes premiums up slightly for everyone, so some healthy people decide not to buy health insurance, which in turn pushes up premiums for the remaining people. This causes another batch of relatively healthy people to decide not to purchase health insurance, which again drives up premiums for everyone else. This continues until premiums are ridiculously expensive and most people cannot afford to buy them. This is where the individual mandate comes in to force; by requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance, premiums are kept cheap and affordable. This isn’t even theory, in states that introduced the first condition (no discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions) without introducing the individual mandate their insurance markets were destroyed. On the other hand in states such as Massachusetts, which introduced both conditions, have the cheapest health insurance in the USA and most people are covered.

What I find most amazing about the whole health insurance debacle is the fact that Republicans oppose it. They have been claiming over the past couple of years that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and morally wrong. It just shows that the Republicans have no conviction. The individual mandate is a Republican idea. Not only is it a Republican idea, it’s something they’ve believed it for decades, right since the 1990s. In 2006 Mitt Romney introduced it to Massachusetts! The fact that they have changed their minds just because Obama supports it shows that Republicans cannot be trusted.

Today has been a significant victory for the Democrats and a major boost before the November election! Good luck to them.