Supreme Court Ruling on Obamacare: What's Next?
The Supreme Court just saved Obamacare - for now. What's been interesting so far is all the "shocked" media commentary about how Chief Justice Roberts sided with the liberal justices in the majority decision. They ruled that the so-called "individual mandate" will stand.
While Roberts siding with liberals seems surprising on the face of it, my first reaction is to discount the media's response. Always discount the media's response if you want to keep your own reasoning capactiy intact. Just a suggestion.
So what do we know about what just happened? One thing we know is that starting in 2014 you will have to pay a penalty if you don't buy health insurance.
Oh, I'm sorry. It's not a penalty. It's a tax. Excuse my mistaking a tax for a penalty. Of course, when the law was passed by Congress, it was specifically called a penalty and not a tax. Indeed, even the President publicly announced that the penalty you will have to pay - er, right, I mean the tax - if you don't buy health insurance isn't a tax (er, wasn't a tax then, but is now...Is that right?).
So the President who proposed the law and Congress which passed the law, both of which adamantly insisted that you will not pay a tax if you don't buy health insurance, but what you'll pay is a penalty, were wrong. The Supreme Court has corrected the President and the Congress and informed them that it's not a penalty after all - it's a tax.
Are you following all this?
You should follow it, because starting in 2014 you will pay a penalty-or-a-tax-or-whatever-else-you want-to-call-it if you don't purchase private health insurance. Oh, and the health insurance you purchase will be even more strictly regulated by the government from now on, under Obamacare. So you'll be purchasing private health insurance from a private company that will be providing a product that must meet strict government standards. Mind you, you won't be buying a product provided by the federal government. You'll be buying a product provided by a private company that was designed by the federal government. So you can rest easy about that...right?
Is this starting so sound confusing yet?
You do have to take a deep breath at this point, like I'm going to do right now. Ahhh...
There, I feel better already. Now I'll be waiting to read through all the commentary in the coming days - maybe I'll even try to read the ruling itself. (You can find it by clicking HERE.) I'll be calm and reasonable, calling upon all my intellectual powers, my common sense and my most charitable words and behavior to be sure not to start ranting and raving that my rights are being trounced on, how our country has slipped to yet another level of abrogation of rule of law, or that the next thing you know we'll all be told we have to buy insurance that forces us to support practices that violate our religious liberty (as I've previously explained).
The only thing I can say for sure right now is that Chief Justice Roberts, in his ruling for the majority, does specifically state that the Congress, in originally passing the law, was not acting within its powers under the Commerce Clause - which I think means that this decision indeed does not give Congress unlimited power to force us to buy anything we don't want to buy, as some had feared. (I did read some of the ruling already.) At least that's what I think his ruling would mean (and not being a lawyer, I'll defer to some lawyer telling me otherwise).
On the other hand, with all my reason intact, my common sense holding my mind steady, and my Christian charity governing my sometimes unruly emotions, I may find out that our liberties have indeed been further endangered despite the fact that the Commerce Clause was not destroyed as some feared. And I may find out that this ruling does nothing to address the gross injustice of abrogating our Constitutional right to free exercise of religion (which you can read about by clicking HERE).
Indeed, while I expect to find many opinions, I'm hoping that I do find as well any number of facts that will enhance my knowledge of exactly what this ruling means to you and me.
Maybe it's not such a big deal. Really. Don't just take the media's reaction to this as a reason to get all worked up. On the other hand, maybe it's time to get my pitchfork from the shed and get ready for a fight.
We'll have to wait and see.
While Roberts siding with liberals seems surprising on the face of it, my first reaction is to discount the media's response. Always discount the media's response if you want to keep your own reasoning capactiy intact. Just a suggestion.
So what do we know about what just happened? One thing we know is that starting in 2014 you will have to pay a penalty if you don't buy health insurance.
Oh, I'm sorry. It's not a penalty. It's a tax. Excuse my mistaking a tax for a penalty. Of course, when the law was passed by Congress, it was specifically called a penalty and not a tax. Indeed, even the President publicly announced that the penalty you will have to pay - er, right, I mean the tax - if you don't buy health insurance isn't a tax (er, wasn't a tax then, but is now...Is that right?).
So the President who proposed the law and Congress which passed the law, both of which adamantly insisted that you will not pay a tax if you don't buy health insurance, but what you'll pay is a penalty, were wrong. The Supreme Court has corrected the President and the Congress and informed them that it's not a penalty after all - it's a tax.
Are you following all this?
You should follow it, because starting in 2014 you will pay a penalty-or-a-tax-or-whatever-else-you want-to-call-it if you don't purchase private health insurance. Oh, and the health insurance you purchase will be even more strictly regulated by the government from now on, under Obamacare. So you'll be purchasing private health insurance from a private company that will be providing a product that must meet strict government standards. Mind you, you won't be buying a product provided by the federal government. You'll be buying a product provided by a private company that was designed by the federal government. So you can rest easy about that...right?
Is this starting so sound confusing yet?
You do have to take a deep breath at this point, like I'm going to do right now. Ahhh...
There, I feel better already. Now I'll be waiting to read through all the commentary in the coming days - maybe I'll even try to read the ruling itself. (You can find it by clicking HERE.) I'll be calm and reasonable, calling upon all my intellectual powers, my common sense and my most charitable words and behavior to be sure not to start ranting and raving that my rights are being trounced on, how our country has slipped to yet another level of abrogation of rule of law, or that the next thing you know we'll all be told we have to buy insurance that forces us to support practices that violate our religious liberty (as I've previously explained).
The only thing I can say for sure right now is that Chief Justice Roberts, in his ruling for the majority, does specifically state that the Congress, in originally passing the law, was not acting within its powers under the Commerce Clause - which I think means that this decision indeed does not give Congress unlimited power to force us to buy anything we don't want to buy, as some had feared. (I did read some of the ruling already.) At least that's what I think his ruling would mean (and not being a lawyer, I'll defer to some lawyer telling me otherwise).
On the other hand, with all my reason intact, my common sense holding my mind steady, and my Christian charity governing my sometimes unruly emotions, I may find out that our liberties have indeed been further endangered despite the fact that the Commerce Clause was not destroyed as some feared. And I may find out that this ruling does nothing to address the gross injustice of abrogating our Constitutional right to free exercise of religion (which you can read about by clicking HERE).
Indeed, while I expect to find many opinions, I'm hoping that I do find as well any number of facts that will enhance my knowledge of exactly what this ruling means to you and me.
Maybe it's not such a big deal. Really. Don't just take the media's reaction to this as a reason to get all worked up. On the other hand, maybe it's time to get my pitchfork from the shed and get ready for a fight.
We'll have to wait and see.
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