First, I have to disagree with Linda Greenhouse. We should be worried about Burwell vs King and since We the People have no power to tell SCOTUS justices they should worry about the verdict of history, the fact that four them granted cert for Burwell vs King should be a worry about the future of Obamacare.
That's the biggest thing. If Greenhouse honestly thinks the Court "should" this or that because precedent says it "should" this or that, then I've got some Nebraska beachfront property to sell her.
Beyond that, the Chief's very narrow ruling in favor of O-care itself means that he could vote in favor of thinking that "state" means one of 50 states and not bat an eyelash.
John Roberts probably will gamble on a GOP win in the preznitzy sweepstakes in 2016, less than 2 years from now, and not worry that "the court is in peril"!
At the same time, it's becoming ever more clear that the actual law being worried about is more and more a neoliberal POS, even more if you're self-employed. Given the current political climate, there's no way to fix all or even part of the listed problems.
I mean, the fact that doctors can cycle in and out of your particular "network" at any time in a coverage cycle is flat-out ridiculous. What we have is the worst of HMOs on steroids, patched over with plaster of Paris and Band-Aids, and with government subsidies for some people to buy a cheap version of this POS.
As for "regulators"? Hah! Dear Leader opted for Net 2.0 neoliberalism to claim that O-care wouldn't need regulators. The magic of electronic patient records is supposed to solve all, along with "evidence based medicine."
Speaking of, does O-care have a board of examiners to look at individual procedures and say, "This is evidence-based medicine, that is not"? What if Orrin Hatch starts waving a bottle of supplements?
Back to regulators and that word "state." States that didn't implement their own state networks aren't going to have new regulators at the state level for O-care. These are in general states that have lax state-level regulatory frameworks as is. And, at the national level, again, what new regulatory agency did Obama get passed to go with O-care?
None.
Beyond that, in addition to wanting some "health care security," people were tired of the paperwork hassles of both insurers and doctors + hospitals. And, O-care did nothing to address that either.
Maybe SCOTUS would do us all a favor by the five conservatives on fiscal-related issues all playing to type, ignoring Linda Greenhouse and saying that "state" is one of the 50 states.
Then, after the wingnuts running today's GOP Bedlam do nothing to fix it, maybe voters would insist on single-payer national health care, which Dear Leader never seriously considered and never wanted to seriously consider.
Otherwise, on Dear Leader himself, his stance on the "individual mandate" in the 2008 primaries says it all.
Was he really that clueless to think that a private-sector set of "reforms" that included required buying of insurance would really succeed without a mandate? Or was he that disingenuous and thinking the average Democratic primary voter was clueless enough to let it slide?
It's its own version of "Is George Bush really that stupid ... " when you look at it enough. Of course, speaking of Shrub, regular readers know my contention that Obama's a clear beneficiary of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Finally, having read a new book about Gary Hart's abortive 1988 campaign, and knowing that Obama, like him, probably is an introvert in many ways, it makes me wonder if that's not part of the problem with his presidency.
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