Chief Justice John Roberts
The healthcare industry wins again. The Affordable Care Act — designed, written and financed by the healthcare industry — was pushed through Congress by showering both Democrats and Republicans with huge campaign donations to ensure that the 99% got royally f-ed.
The corporate media naturally hailed this Supreme Court decision either way as ‘proof’ that we live in a democracy and the greatest country on earth. Now Republicans and Democrats can argue that we don’t need to discuss so-called “healthcare reform” anymore because Obama passed his “socialist agenda” giving the American people what they really wanted. And now this administration can focus on the other main issues that the American people want, such as eliminating corporate taxes, expanding our wars in resource rich countries, privatizing social security and public education, “reforming” Medicare and Medicaid, gutting our Postal Service, cutting welfare (except corporate of course!) and unemployment insurance and destroying Labor Unions.
The mainstream media will follow this SCOTUS decision as a victory for the people. Dozens of “experts” will argue for and against the decision (but never for universal healthcare), framing everything in a Democrat vs. Republican setting while avoiding a real public debate on the now passé single-payer healthcare at all costs. Politicians will receive extra airtime as they praise or denounce the ruling. Lackey’s from both sides of the aisle will claim victory or predict doom and gloom on today’s result. And one thing for sure: Obama’s re-election campaign will experience a sizable “bump.”
Let no one be mistaken. This was not a unanimous decision by the SCOTUS! Obamacare survived by the skin of its teeth and did so not because the public mandate was ruled constitutional under the regulation of interstate commerce, but rather by defining the penalty for not procuring insurance as a tax! In other words, as it was written the mandate was unconstitutional! So the court had to come up with some way to justify passage of that part of the law. A new interpretation of the wording and, viola, victory…not for the people but the Insurance industry and big Pharma.
Looks like Chief Justice Roberts took a fall for both his corporate constituents and his partisan pals who are the unabashed champions of corporate power. If Roberts had sided with the other “conservatives” on the court, to nix the whole law, then Republicans would have been twisted up in an election year trying to satisfy both their far-right base and most other voters who want real healthcare reform. That would have widened the political opening for progressives to rally around Medicare-for-All.
What Roberts did instead was rule that the AFA is constitutional under the federal government’s taxing authority. That works out better for Republicans because all they have to do now is chant “Repeal and Replace Obamacare,” knowing the mandate to buy private insurance remains widely unpopular. Republicans can also shake their fingers at Democrats who promised not to raise taxes on the middle class. All while private health insurers expand their market.
In spite of this, Michael Moore is upbeat about the Supreme Court decision. In a post to fellow corporate watchdogs Moore cites several much-touted reforms within the AFA.
One reform that has received less attention jumped out at me. The new law caps the amount of money that private health companies can extract from customers for profits and administrative costs. According to Moore, some private insurers have been taking over a 30% cut. The law now says they can’t take more than 15% (for large employer plans) and 20% (for plans sold to individuals and small employers).
Those takings stand in sharp contrast to Medicare, which Moore says allocates only 2% of the total percentage of their budget for administrative costs. Has the performance of Medicare been hampered in some way by that cost savings?
If not, then public leaders could make the Affordable Care Act more affordable by bringing the cap on profits and admin for private health insurers closer to that of Medicare. I could get energized, thinking about that improvement of a flawed law. Of course there’s little chance of that kind of thing happening if Republicans regain control in November, and if Democrats fail to grow some spine.