For Obama, a pyrrhic victory on SCOTUS healthcare bill ruling

In the video, Obama denies the mandate carries a tax increase. Then when he realized the mandate wasn't constitutional within the Commerce Clause, Obama's attorneys at the Dept. of Justice called it a tax increase. Obviously, the president seriously misinformed Americans about his signature bill.

The U.S. Supreme Court aided the administration of President Barack Obama in a historic way. SCOTUS upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mandate, but not within the powers of the Commerce Clause.

For Obama, this is a pyrrhic victory because the fundamentals of the November election just changed.

SCOTUS ruled the Congress can levy a tax on you if you choose not to purchase health insurance. Obama publicly denied the mandate involved a tax; the original legislation called it a penalty. However, once Dept. of Justice lawyers had to defend what they knew was an unconstitutional penalty under Commerce, they asserted the penalty was, in fact, a tax.

That SCOTUS bought into this smoke and mirrors should give every American concern.

Personally, I would advise you ready yourself to shop for healthcare. Many large public companies will opt to pay that penalty now called a tax and kick employees onto the state health exchanges.

If you’re on Medicaid, or hoping to be, there’s still confusion about how your care will be funded. According to the SCOTUS blog, the court ruled states will lose new funding rather than all funding if the state chooses not to comply with the sweeping expansion of healthcare coverage.

I remember at least one federal judge buying into the false argument that the mandate prevents cost shifting. Why should you pay for your insurance when someone else doesn’t have to?

That’s beyond idiocy. We already share the costs of healthcare for each other, and we have no control over another’s destructive behavior. We share the costs for those born with genetic conditions they have no control over. Cost shifting has and will exist in any form of insurance.

PPACA, as most of my readers know, is a bill that I believe will benefit no one. The bill simply acts to raise revenue for the federal government who will then dole out funds to states to provide healthcare to all, even to those who do not want it.

Healthcare is rightfully a local issue, not a federal issue.

The Obama administration has now inserted the federal government into your healthcare. The elderly, the poor and the healthy young people will be hardest hit. Those sectors will bear the cost in terms of economics and competition for care.

Obama succeeded in socializing the U.S. healthcare industry. Meanwhile, the post office is broke, social security is reliant on federal IOUs, Medicare will come up short on funding and Medicaid will be a challenge as well. The treatment you receive will be dictated by bureaucrats and policy wonks in Washington. If you’re elderly, your treatments will be more limited. Socialists have never had much use for the elderly.

Ironically, SCOTUS also handed Republicans a gift. If the GOP is smart, they’ll make Americans aware of what is really in that bill Democrats didn’t read, and they’ll remind Americans Obama lied because he just levied a whopping tax increase he categorically denied as he promoted socialization of your healthcare.

Read related articles about ObamaCare in our archives.

(Commentary by Kay B. Day/June 28, 2012)