The Supreme Court and ‘Obamacare’

A bit of a long post but hopefully worth the read. Perseverance will have its reward!

This week will probably see the US Supreme Court ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known to pretty much everyone as ‘Obamacare’ or the US Healthcare Bill. The most notable point of this legislation is the arrangements surrounding health insurance, which would become mandatory for every citizen (a few exceptions are allowed). To get you up to speed I’ll quickly outline the build up to the present day.

In all honesty, I could start a long way back in history, but suffice to say a few Presidents have tried and all have failed. Most recently Clinton attempted similar legislation but faced a hostile Congress and it got nowhere.

The issue again flared-up during the Democratic nomination process for the 2008 election, with Obama and his then opponent, Hillary Clinton (remember when they hated each other?!) both proposing similar though slightly different healthcare plans. Obama won the nomination and the later election by promising to bring his healthcare plan into law (it was one of his 3 main election promises, along with closing Guantanamo Bay and bringing in environmental restrictions. It was an over-ambitious manifesto which I think in essence makes it fair to say that Obama lied his way to the Presidency, but that’s for another blog post!).

And so we come to March 2010 and the House of Representatives passing the Bill that was originally proposed to the Senate through some legal processes I won’t bore you with. Every Republican Representative voted against it and they were joined by a few Democrats. Obama signed the Bill into law later on that March and it was almost immediately challenged, finally being declared unconstitutional in a district court in February 2011. A whole load of legal challenges has led to the current US Supreme Court case whose decision we await.

So now I need to outline the workings of the US Supreme Court! The Court is the highest court in the US and is made up of 9 Justices (i.e. judges), each of whom holds their position for life/until retirement. After each case is heard each Justice votes and the Court abides by the verdict of the majority. Justices are appointed by the President, making the appointment process inherently political (West Wing fans will remember in Season 1 a Justice having deliberately put off retirement until a Democrat was in the White House to ensure he is replaced by a fellow liberal). It almost goes without saying that Republican President’s have appointed conservative Justices, whilst Democrat-appointed Justices are liberals. However, just to make it really interesting, the current balance is 4 liberals, 4 conservatives and 1 conservative-but-sometimes-liberal Justice called Anthony Kennedy. His vote, along with Chief Justice Roberts’, could prove crucial. I should add that the Court has already met, the proceedings are finished and the decision has already been made. No one outside of the 9 Justices however knows how they have individually voted and what their final verdict is. That ‘decision’, the announcement of the verdict, is what we are all (Obama and Tea Party-ers alike) are waiting for.

And so we come back to the present day and the fate of Obamacare. It really goes without saying that the decision of the Court will have a massive effect. Having been elected on the promise of universal healthcare and having delivered on that promise and defended it to the hilt against Republicans and the Tea Party, if the legislation is now found to be unconstitutional Obama’s campaign for re-election will take a massive hit. Mitt Romney will be able to seize the advantage in campaign ads and Republicans could reap rewards in local elections in November (for example in Maine, whose Republican Senator, Olympia Snow, who helped frame the legislation with Democratic assistance, is standing down due to serious disagreements with the GOP).

Alternatively, if the legislation is left intact then Obama will appear victorious and will be able to champion the laws as a vote winner. That will work with some people but, and this may surprise you, the law consistently polls as being unpopular with Americans, with 55% currently opposed to it. Forcing them to get health insurance is seen as an intrusion on their individual rights and, crucially, it is also unpopular with insurance companies, who may have to pay out without knowing individuals previous health problems. A complete victory might therefore be unfortunate news for the Democrats as it would be unpopular with the electorate.

So we are left with the third option, a decision resting on one or two votes, the option I think is most likely. The Court could split 5-4 or 6-3 in favour or against. A 7-2 decision either way is highly unlikely as it would appear very damning if against Obama (and therefore political) or very clear cut if in favour of Obama (something that would be highly unlikely in a politically-charged case which has made its way to the heart of the US legal system). If I were a betting man I would say it will be a 5-4 decision in favour with either Justice Kennedy or Chief Justice Roberts providing the crucial vote. A 5-4 against is also on the cards, as is a 6-3 decision in favour with both Roberts and Kennedy voting in favour.

The final thing I’d say is that the Court can pass the law but rule individual parts unconstitutional, something I think they are very likely to do if the verdict goes Obama’s way. The most likely parts to go would be the pork-barreling for Nebraska (extra funding inserted into the Bill to get a vote in Congress), the implications for the medical equipment industry entailed in the Act (a rallying cry for the GOP as a backdoor tax on patients) and some minor issues surrounding subsidies. These alterations wouldn’t satisfy anyone but would make any decision in favour of Obamacare more palatable for the Republicans.

So I predict Obamacare will make it through the Supreme Court but not in its current form. It will pass through the fire without a ringing endorsement, but an endorsement nonetheless, and with few branches burnt off. I could be entirely wrong though so we shall see what news we get from the good ol’ US of A in the next few days!

Debate warmly encouraged

My Family and Subtlety

I’m single. I.e. I haven’t got a wife, a girlfriend, a ‘significant other’ (yuck) or a ‘life partner’ (vomit). This is something I’m not ecstatic about but something I’m happy to say at the moment, trusting in the Lord’s goodness and provision of all I need, including singleness or marriage.

My family aren’t quite so keen about it. It’s not that it’s a failing, more something I could improve on by ‘bringing a nice girl home’. I was made particularly aware of their feelings this past weekend when I went home for my lovely niece’s christening. She is 3 months old and, completely objectively, the most beautiful baby on the planet. Fact. The weekend was fantastic – my Mum organised a great party with enough pork pie to solve the food crisis and amounts of quiche that could only imply a lot of tired chickens were having a well deserved rest.

So a lot of partying was had by all and the baby-focused frivolity naturally led on to people talking to me about my being single and childless. To understand the ‘chats’ I had, you have to understand that my family are not subtle. Well, to put it another way, they are subtle, but subtle in the same way that dynamite is subtle with cliffs, or in the way Manny Pacquiao would be subtle with his fist in my face.

So, below are the top three lines used by my family in their hunt (using that word deliberately) for my future wife, all of which were used in the past 3 days:

3. At three we have the small talk comment made over pre-party cupcake production. Whilst talking about the colourings used (pink and white for a girl, naturally), my mother looked longing at me and said ‘of course, one day we’ll need blue colouring for your baby boy’. I just said the colouring would run out of date before that happened. Either Mum knows something I don’t (!) OR she’s already bulk buying blue and pink food colourings for my future children. Maybe I’ll catch her out and adopt a slug. They’re hermaphrodite

2. In at two we have my mother AND my sister scouting out a wife amongst my sisters friends. ‘She’s a lovely girl [good], she’s a Christian [good, and praise God you understand that’s important for me – see http://politicstheologyandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/reationships.html as a sign of answered prayer] and you really should talk to her [ok]. Of course, if you married her you could move to Sheffield [WHOA THERE!!]’. I’m all for meeting nice girls, but perhaps advanced life-planning is a tad presumptive when I’ve yet to say hello to her! As if you even care, she was lovely but wasn’t my type.

1. However, miles in front of the others is my lovely grandmother. Her tactic is by far the most direct of the three. Wandering around the church flower festival (how English are we!) she proceeded to introduce me to her church friends as ‘this is Mark, my grandson. He’s still not got a woman yet you know’. Along with the image that formed in my mind of a caveman dragging ‘his woman’ back to his cave (we’re back to wife-hunting!) I was a bit caught out. I’m keen to find a girl, but I might draw a line at my grandma advertising my singleness to her old married church friends. Maybe I’m too picky.....

I absolutely love my family to bits and know they only want the best for me but I should probably advise that they change tactics on me. Now I’m sure this is an issue others have faced, so feel free to make comments and share stories

Debate (and funny stories) warmly encouraged

US Election Update: Romney is rich, Obama appears confused

Whilst campaigning continues in the US it is a mostly hum-drum affair as both candidates give in essence the same speeches at large and small venues with one running the free world and the other trying to point out why he should do it instead. However two stories have stood out recently.

Firstly Romney finally told us how rich he is. He had revealed some numbers in September but only became clearer on things when he became the candidate and HAD to reveal his earnings. The debate was never if he was rich (his family background in automobiles and his work in management consultancy for Bain never left that in doubt), but more how rich. Now, having refused to show his financial results for ages, we have found out that he is worth up to $250m after selling most of his overseas shares. That, I don’t need to tell you, is a massive amount of money and it means he is able to contribute large amounts to his election war chest.

That for me though is not the issue. Last month Romney actually outdid Obama in fundraising for the first time in the campaign (an ominous turn of events for a President who is well known for his fundraising abilities) and so money is not an issue for him (clearly!) or his campaign. For me the greater issue is the contrast with Obama, whose net worth is between a mere $2.6m and a much larger $8.3m. Whilst not even close to an average person’s wealth, Obama will still be able to play the ‘Romney is out of touch’ card with these figures. A man with such wealth (and who earlier on, in the primary campaign, placed outrageous wagers and talked about the cars his wife owned) cannot be in touch with the common American. In contrast, Romney could bury the story or, more likely, use his wealth as the sign that he is the man to hold the tiller of the SS US Economy as it goes near rocky territory.

The second story reported on Friday is Obama’s loose tongue on the economy. In a laid back moment he stated that ‘the private sector is doing fine’, a ludicrous comment when workers in the private sector has faced pension cuts, job losses and personal bankruptcy and when the federal jobs survey recently reported the weakest one-month job growth in a year. Clearly wanting to deal with the issue Obama held a press conference as soon as he could to try and communicate what his comment meant and others, including David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign manager (his Bruno Gianelli for you West Wing fans) were mobilised on damage limitation duty with major media outlets. Granted Obama can claim that the private sector has shown some positive signs but his comment has been used well by the Romney campaign which has already produced 2 videos highlighting the issues and claiming Obama is out of touch. All this has not been helped by former President Bill Clinton making similarly outlandish statements whilst claiming to be well informed.

This election will be about the economy, what the candidates have done in the past, how they understand the situation now and what they plan to do in the future. Both have recently faced problems in this area. Only time (and an election!) will tell us what the American people think and what direction their country will travel

Debate warmly encouraged