Four Things You Need to Know About the Supreme Court’s Decision to Uphold Obama’s Health Care Reform
Yesterday, in a somewhat surprising decision, the Supreme Court voted five-to-four to uphold 'Obamacare'...the health insurance reforms created by President Obama and passed by Congress more than two years ago.
Here are the four important things you need to know about that Supreme Court decision and what it means to you.
#1.) THE SUPREME COURT RULED OBAMACARE IS CONSTITUTIONAL. The Supreme Court wasn't ruling on whether these reforms are good ideas or sound policies...they were just ruling on whether they're Constitutional.
That's why Chief Justice John Roberts voted for it. He's a conservative appointed by George W. Bush, but he voted to uphold health care reform because he felt it did NOT go against the Constitution.
The big debate centered on the wording of the bill, which said it would PENALIZE Americans who didn't obtain health insurance. Congress can't Constitutionally penalize anyone. But they CAN tax us.
Roberts believed the penalty was really a tax, based on the way it was structured...which is why he voted to uphold it. The four liberal judges also voted for it.
#2.) THIS STILL DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN COUNT ON OBAMACARE HAPPENING. Instead, this just makes it one of the central issues of the November election...if not THE central issue.
Mitt Romney has vowed to repeal Obamacare if he's elected. Yesterday, he said, quote, "What the Court did today was say that Obamacare does not violate the Constitution. What they did not do was say that Obamacare is good law."
If Obama's re-elected, he'll keep pushing it forward. Yesterday he said the Court's decision is, quote, "a victory for people all over the country."
If that does happen, and the health care reform continues going through, about four million people will pay the tax for being uninsured when it goes into effect.
#3.) SO, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU? The "Washington Post" put together a very simple but informative calculator, where you can roughly calculate what this will mean for you and your family financially.
I highly recommend checking it out.
You can find it here.
#4.) BOTH CNN AND FOX NEWS HAD MAJOR SCREW-UPS IN THEIR COVERAGE. It seems that when CNN and FOX News heard Roberts had written the majority opinion, they both naturally assumed Obamacare had been overturned.
Both of them immediately reported that the Supreme Court had killed health care reform, because of the individual mandate to get insurance. But that wasn't true.
Here's a video of both of their errors.
(New York Times / Fox News / CNBC / CNN / Gawker / Washington Post / The Blaze)