The United States’ Supreme Court Justices
U.S. Democratic President Barack Obama’s landmark and historic achievement would be his successful passage into law of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) on March 23, 2010. This law provoked national debate and controversy, creating the Tea Party movement, with 26 States and individuals filing court actions against the ACA. And on June 28, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ACA by a vote of 5-4, supporting the view consistent with that of several legal experts that the ACA is constitutional. Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John G. Roberts, Jr. ruled that the central issue in the ACA, the individual mandate calling for all Americans to purchase insurance or pay a fine, would be whether it would have constituted a breach of the Commerce Clause; but the Chief Justice further ruled that the fine is the same as a tax that the government has the authority to impose. And, therefore, the individual mandate can endure on that basis. This decision is a huge legislative victory for Obama, bringing sweeping health care reforms long overdue for more than 50 years. Shaping U.S. health care poignantly secures Obama’s place in American history.
This U.S. Supreme Court’s decision was presented to the dismay of those people who believe that the federal government should not use tax dollars to help those without health care. People with this mindset have little understanding of what inaccessibility to health care means for large numbers of minorities and poor and vulnerable people.
The U.S. with all its talk about fairness and justice has one of the most unequal health systems in the world. And President Barack Obama was baptised even as a socialist when in 2010, through the ACA, he tried to correct the disparities in health care. At 2010, about 50 million Americans had no access to health care and/or no health insurance. In fact in 2010, The New England Journal of Medicine explained that Americans received only half of the preventive services.
On April 14, 2012, I wrote the following: “President Obama currently is intensifying his re-election campaign and placing high stakes on his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that became law in 2010. Obamacare has a key focus on channelling government’s funds to help other people in need of healthcare, such as, those footing high healthcare bills, those with no employer health coverage, and those with uninsurable health conditions for some illnesses.
Obamacare would bring about 30 million of the 50 million Americans and 2.5 million young people without health coverage into the healthcare system, and would reduce prescription costs to older people, in addition to addressing the healthcare needs of the poor and minorities, insurance discrimination against sick people, and the provision of diversity and cultural competency training in healthcare.”
How did it all begin? The New York Times’ ‘A History of Overhauling Health Care’ was the source for this data. Obama started the health care ball rolling in his campaign bid for the presidency in 2008, when he vowed to reduce health care costs by $2,500 for the average family, and to have a health care plan by the end of his first term in office; people will recall that health care costs were $7,421 per person in 2006. In June, 2009, Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy distributed a health bill in Congress to provide “essential health care benefits” to all Americans.
Then in August 2009, Obama’s White House indicated that it might consider a non-profit health care cooperative as an alternative to Obama’s public insurance plan; this option created some confusion among Obama’s Democrats. Next, Chairman of the Finance Committee Democratic Senator Max Baucus presented a health care plan that would reduce health care cost to $856 billion; the three Republicans on that Committee refused to support the proposal.
After that, the Republican Party in November 2009 introduced its own health care plan as a counter to Obama’s health care proposal which would reduce the uninsured numbers and would enable small businesses to come together to purchase insurance. Subsequently in December 2009, Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman threatened not to support Obama’s health bill, unless Democrats would make some amendments; Democrats accepted Lieberman’s arguments and ditched the plan to purchase Medicare from age 55 and to abandon a government-run insurance plan.
Then, Obama held a bipartisan Summit in February 2010; the Summit produced even greater disagreements between Democrats and Republicans on the way forward for health care reform. And in March 2010 after a long, arduous battle, Congress approved the health care bill, considered a significant piece of social legislation over the last 50 years.
Organised resistance to Obama’s health care reform commenced in early 2009, with the emergence of the Tea Party movement spewing acrimony including racial slurs, and the judicial challenges by 26 States to the health reform law. Nevertheless, Obama is now quite set to win a second term, given this U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ACA, and that the ACA would bring access to health care to millions of poor and vulnerable Americans.