For those who loathe ObamaCare, for months the Supreme Court has loomed as the deus ex machina — the god who appeared at the end of an ancient Greek drama in a contraption rigged to descend from above to resolve all the action in an inarguably divine way. The high court would descend, declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional in whole or in part, and save the country from disaster.
Well, it didn’t turn out that way, and it only goes to show once again that one should not look to false gods for salvation. That message may prove as true for liberals and President Obama as it did for conservatives yesterday.
Boy, talk about a false god! Like many people who read yesterday’s decision, I will go to my grave unable to reconcile the plain fact that on page 15 Chief Justice John Roberts says the bill’s mandate to buy health insurance isn’t a tax — only to say on page 35 that it is a tax.
In a beautiful turn of phrase, the four dissenting justices said Roberts’ contortion on this matter “carries verbal wizardry too far, deep into the forbidden land of the sophists.”
Roberts’ grotesque offense against elementary logic is so bald-faced, I’m almost tempted to believe he left it there on purpose, either out of perversity or as a not-so-hidden message that he had ulterior motives for upholding the constitutionality of ObamaCare.
He did get the four liberal justices to agree to the first serious limit on the power the court has assigned to the Constitution’s Commerce Clause in 75 years. And he basically gutted the bill’s ability to force states to enlarge the size of the Medicaid entitlement.
But the act stands, and this is the bitter pill conservatives have had to swallow. Liberals had their day in court and prevailed; the taste of victory must be sweet indeed.
But Roberts had a not-so-veiled warning for them, too: “The court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. . . Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.”
And therein lies the danger for President Obama. For while it can be said “the people” acted when their representatives passed the law and the president signed it into law, “the people” have issued their judgment on ObamaCare both before and after its passage in ways that suggest the president’s victory may be Pyrrhic.
Forget what gleeful pundits are saying about how the court’s ruling is a game changer that will suddenly make ObamaCare popular. The president hardly ever mentions this signature piece of legislation, and for good reason. Even yesterday, in welcoming the court’s decision, he spoke for a mere seven minutes, then hastened away.
I’m not even talking about the polls, which have shown a consistent majority in opposition to expanding federal control of health care. This week, opponents outnumber supporters by 55-38 (ABC News) or 49-39 (Fox News) — dreadful numbers for legislation that has already passed and that one party is vowing to repeal.
Forget the polls; consider instead the direct and inarguable political consequences of Obama’s advocacy of the bill and its passage.
ObamaCare was the chief subject of the town halls that electrified US politics in the spring and summer of 2009, giving rise to the Tea Party. This created an entirely new grass-roots force in American politics — and brought back a Republican Party that had been gasping for life in intensive care.
In early 2010, Massachusetts unexpectedly elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate in a landslide because he promised to be the vote to block ObamaCare.
The president didn’t let that stop him; he muscled the bill through a few months later. So ObamaCare became the signature issue of the midterm elections that November. We saw the most lopsided national midterm wave against a president since 1928; Obama himself called it a “shellacking.”
This November won’t turn on ObamaCare as the 2010 election did. But it has now become a centerpiece of the discussion going forward. Obama will implement ObamaCare. Mitt Romney will work to repeal and replace it. A stark choice, and one from which Obama can’t hide.
It would’ve been worse for him to lose yesterday. Presidents who look weak and ineffectual might as well send for the tombstone engraver. But, to indulge in my own bit of Roberts-like logic, it was also worse for him to win.