The John Roberts’ Supreme Court has made some questionable calls since the W Bush years. The biggest and most blatant injustice towards the citizens of the United States was its ruling on the perversion of free speech in campaigns and unlimited political donations from the rich and corporations. Today, the court looks poised to strike down all or part of the Affordable Care Act. It will only be the beginning of the trouble.
If only support for Obamacare was this robust
As we have seen, the Supreme Court gets to evaluate how it feels about certain laws and programs, without ever having to understand or plan out the consequences of what follows a ruling. In the case of the health care act, the Justices will say that citizens cannot be regulated or forced to purchase anything, less they face a fine. The broken health system — which is already the most expensive in the world per capita, piling up debt, depressing our nation’s preventative medicine, and effectively killing our citizens — will go right back to the way it was; a fast track towards a health apocalypse.
Republicans hate Obamacare because it came from Obama. Mitt Romney created an identical legislation when he was governor of Massachusetts, but has separated himself from the initiative that he championed. There is no single reason to oppose Obama’s health care bill, except for the inexplicable idea that the government is forcing people to do something they don’t want. This is ludicrous. There is not a single citizen of this nation that does not eventually need health care.
Republicans themselves are also a giant part of this problem. Ballooning waste lines, skyrocketing diabetes, all-you-can-eat-buffets; Republicans are rapidly pushing the limits of elastic pants, with foreseen consequences that in the near future will mean a huge portion of our population managing multiple chronic diseases and trying not to lose their limbs. Why Republicans, who dominate the fattest states, would not want some system to help to manage their self-inflicted conditions, is startlingly unknown and reflects the same “me, now” mentality that led to their obesity in the first place.
Moreoever, why Republicans think that health insurance companies are the answer should be an important question, but Obamacare eliminates the need for it because it keeps the system of private insurers in place! Even the executives of insurance companies love Obamacare, because it means more customers! So there is no reason that anyone who is happy (ha) with their insurance coverage should have to change.
If the Affordable Care Act is struck down today, there will be retaliation. It will not come from the wounded Democrats, or the great thinking minds of today. It will not come from rationality or reason. It will come from the bankrupting of this country to pay for the poor decisions and laziness that we as a rich nation have come to expect. The cost of health care will continue to skyrocket until we approach the edge of the heliosphere, and even at that point, there is nothing to stop it from continuing to increase.