Of course, since so many liberals and liberal companies have already received waivers, it wouldn’t mean all that much to themselves
(Politico) Think the Supreme Court is where the future of President Barack Obama’s health care law will be settled? Think again.
The real verdict on the future of Obama’s signature achievement will come in November — and the law’s supporters say a Republican sweep could pose a bigger threat to the law than the nine justices ever could.
The court is expected to hand down its decision at the end of its term in June. But most legal observers doubt that it will strike down the whole of the Affordable Care Act, even if it finds the mandate unconstitutional.
In contrast, the Republican candidates are all on record as promising to scrap the whole thing.
Yes, they are, though I think The Politico is underestimating what a SCOTUS decision against the ObamaCare mandate would mean, since there is no severability within the law.
While a Republican president wouldn’t be able to hand out waivers for states to get out of all of the health law’s requirements, as some of the presidential contenders suggest, he’d be able to direct the new Health and Human Services secretary to slow-walk pivotal programs, dramatically relax the regulations and possibly defund the law.
Why not? Perhaps the Republican could give a waiver to right handed people on January 20th, 2013, and left handed people on the 21st. Let’s not forget that the waivers Obama has handed out have a limited time-span of a few years. They aren’t permanent.
Front-runner Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal the law, and his policy aides are figuring out just how much dismantling could be done through the White House and HHS, without congressional action.
Now that’s a good idea. I’ve said time and time again that the GOP cannot simply focus on defeating Obama, but must retain the House and retake the Senate.
And it’s unknown whether the Senate or House will be controlled by Democrats, who could stop legislative efforts to repeal or defund the law. Even if they lose control of the Senate, Democrats may still have enough votes to be able to slow down or block efforts to repeal the law signed by Obama nearly two years ago.
Obviously, the media and Democrats will all of a sudden have no problem with the minority party being “obstructionist”.
For those who listen to talk radio, especially Hannity, we get a constant dose of “this being the most important election of our lifetime” every election cycle. In this case, that’s correct: doing away with a law that affects every single one of us along with 1/5th of the US economy is, as Joe Biden would say “a pretty big f**king deal.”
Any GOP president would not be able to do away with all the provisions, as the article points out. But, that person can certainly do away with the most burdensome parts, such as the mandate, and work with Congress to enact real world fixes that help actually lower health insurance costs while extending the possibility of obtaining health insurance to the 30-45 million who are without, which, if you remember, was the original point of health insurance overhaul, before it truly became a step down the road towards single payer.
That said, how does Obama run on his “signature achievement”? Democrats, including Obama, declined to discuss the law in the run up to the 2010 mid-terms. How can he run on the need to give so many waivers, excluding tens of millions of Americans? How does he run on ObamaCare when the majority of Americans are against the law? If the eventual GOP is smart, he’ll almost immediately attempt to engage Obama on these issues.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
