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President Obama signs the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. It's now up to the Supreme Court. (official White House photo by Pete Souza)
Taking a moment to look at the political implications from today’s Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act I think the best that can be said is that President Obama didn’t lose. The Court did, for the most part, rule in his favor. He has bragging rights, and importantly, it doesn’t mean Obama completely wasted most of his first term on something with nothing to show for it. That said, simply not suffering a big loss is not the same as scoring an actual political win.
I think it is unlikely this favorable ruling is going to change many voters’ minds about “Obamacare.” For the past two years public opinion towards the law has remained remarkably constant, with the law unpopular. I don’t see how anything short of full implementation of the law in 2014 will really move popular opinion one way or the other.
Even though today’s ruling is technically good news for Obama, it still guaranteed that the ACA dominated several political news cycles. Given the law’s unpopularity I imagine the Obama campaign would have preferred if everyone were talking about something else this close to the election. This favorable ruling still means that for two weeks everyone was constantly reminded that Obama included the extremely unpopular individual mandate in his signature law. A multiple-week discussion about one of your least popular decisions is hardly a net plus for any campaign.
While it is true this ruling now means the only way to get rid of Obamacare is to elect Mitt Romney, which might marginally help rally the GOP base, if you strongly opposed the law you were probably going to vote for Romney regardless what the Court did. The law has already been factored into most voters’ decision. When it is all said and done, today’s ruling basically just leaves the status quo mostly unchanged both on a political and policy front. Today Obama narrowly evaded a political loss, but simply not losing doesn’t mean he has gained much politically either.
75 Comments
I disagree, Jon. I think that, just like more people “voted” for the winner when polled three months after a presidential election than actually did, you’ll see the ACA gradually increase in popularity as we get closer to the election. This is especially true if Obama and his surrogates and fellow Democrats stick to the very simplistic explanation he offered today about the parts of the bill everyone likes.
Let’s face it, ACA is about the worst-PRed piece of legislation our government has ever passed. (Thanks, Democrats & Obama!) But now that it’s the “law of the land” — even though some CNN anchors named Brooke are determined to tag it with the pejorative word “tax” — and many Americans are seeing the benefits in their own homes and certainly neighborhoods, it’s gonna get more popular.
People won’t see their taxes go up. They will, however, hear about kids on their parents’ policies, and (eventually) people not disallowed for pre-existing conditions. I think that’ll go a long way to improving the law’s popularity.
Plus, of course — Americans like to back a “winner.” And the ACA, and Obama, are the winners today.
Jon, I have to disagree as well. I don’t think that most voters have any knowledge, understanding or interest in this law. As the election gets closer, I believe that a lot will feel that the Supremes said it was okay so it must be. Sorry, but I don’t ever assume that most voters are informed.
I just watched Obama speak today regarding the decision.
There were quite a few “tells” that he knew he wasn’t telling the truth.
This will help Romney who has already to make a key part of his campaign message to dump obamacare. He just has to come up with his own scheme that’s palatable without a mandate.
So far the Mitt campaign seems to be a little short on ideas. And he can’t articulate any idea when he thinks he has one.
I agree with the headline. Obama didn’t lose.
We did.
We are now officially a fascist country. Only a few minor details remain to be worked out.
There are two versions of what the acronym FUBAR stands for. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition or Fucked Up Beyond All Repair. I’m going with the latter.
Mark my words: in four more years, regardless of who is elected this fall, we will no longer recognize our former country as it once was. Look how far Pinocchio moved the ball to the right in just 3-1/2 years. Now imagine how much more he or Mitt can achieve using our current location as the starting point.
We.
Are.
So.
Fucked.
And we owe it all to the DemocRATS.
I agree with this. No one is going to change their vote over this, IMO. It will be the economy.
People are going to evaluate ACA by what it does to the quality of their medical care and what it does to the most visible costs.
The true cost of health care to an individual approximately equals:
1. Portion of ALL taxes going to health care: state local, employee and employer portion of Medicare (both are part of employee compensation), individual and employer share of health insurance, and all out of pocket expenses. (Ultimately, the measure will be change in % GDP spent on health.)
2. People will notice quality of care.
3. People will notice change in their own contribution to health insurance and out of pocket costs.
4. Most taxes are likely to blend into other spending.
How much people’s experiences change depends largely on how much employer behavior changes. That’s not clear, but could be bad. Fortunately for Obama, no one will know by November.
Since they did their best to front load popular benefits, it may get more popular by November.
Some new costs are possible to document. Adding children until 26 is thought of as a freebie. It’s a low risk pool and the costs aren’t huge, but you could see the cost if you asked your local school board to break out the increased cost of health insurance for employees.
The worst part is that it does so little for the under-insured. Maybe people will believe medical costs will go down after 2014. But medical related bankruptcies are going to keep rolling in.
It protects the pharmaceutical companies from provisions that make prescriptions a fraction of their US costs in other industrial countries and it hands out lots of subsidies to health insurers who could no longer pass their rate increases on to consumers and employers.
Classic Obama. Put a liberal veneer on a Republican bill and call it a smashing victory.
Oh, please. Yes, Romney/Obamacare is not the solution to the health care problem, and I would have much preferred Medicare for all, or a public option. But my own extended family has already benefited (two nieces working jobs with no insurance got to stay on their parents’ health plan), and when the rest of the bill kicks in I could become independent if I chose (with my pre-existing conditions no one would sell me individual health insurance at an affordable price under the pre-Obama rules). This is not fascism. It will improve the lives of a lot of people, and if the insurance companies abuse their new forced customers too badly, we could build on that to get a public alternative plan (or do it state-by-state in the blue states to begin with).
(Glenn Greenwald can explain what parts of Obama’s policies *are* fascism, and I agree with him, but that’s a different thread).
This is not good news for Mitt Romney. He has to explain why it was good to have Romneycare on the state level but bad on the federal level. His old argument was that the feds didn’t have the power. Today he tried switching to saying it’s bad policy. I might even have sympathy for that argument, but in that case his signature accomplishment as a governor is bad policy. This decision puts Romney in a pickle.
Regardless of what happened today, it’s still a S.H.I.T. (Save Health Insurance Today) Act that reinforces the idiotic notion that health care cannot exist without ‘insurance’.
The Maginot Line didn’t deter the Germans in 1940, and this legislation will not see off the continuing health care crisis.
No matter what Obysmal says.
Still going with the idiotic thesis that Obama is running from the law? How many times do you firebaggers have to be proven wrong until you accept the facts that 1. You don’t know what you’re talking about and 2. The President is a whole lot smarter than you.
The provisions of the law are popular Jon. They just don’t know what is in the law because people like you would rather misinform then tell the truth about the law.
But the truth is that- despite your best efforts- over 6 million kids between 18 and 26 have health care now.
Despite your best efforts, seniors are now enjoying the benefits of a closed donut hole.
Desptiet your best efforts over thirty million people will be able to get health care in 2012.
Despite your best efforts the insurance companies are now limited to an overhead of 80-85 percent and already folks are getting money back.
Despite your best efforts people are already enjoying the benefits of free preventive care.
We are much closer to single payer now because the bill was passed. The insurance company no longer has the millions to spend on lobyists because that is NOT a part of care. And despite the extra customers, because of the loss provisions it is no longer a cash cow.
So you’re just wrong. Obama has not run from the affordable care act, he’s actively campaigning on it. And he’ll continue to do so. Cause now when Romney says he’ll repeal the affordable care act in a debate Obama can simply say “Which part?”
If he says he’ll re-open the donut hole, he loses the senior vote.
If he says he’ll get rid of the children staying on your health plan, he loses what little he has of the youth vote.
If he says he’ll get rid of the end to pre-existing conditions he loses everyone else.
Even the mandate is only unpopular because people like you do a shitty as hell job explaining it. It only applies to people rich enough to not get subsidies and still refuse to get insurance. Less than 6% of the population. The tax goes to the fact that these people cost us a large amount of money each year due to emergency room visits.
So no, he’s not “running” from it. He’s putting it front and center. And he should. He’s saved a lot of lives with it.
So, for the fools who think the Democratic Party has any solutions for the life and death issues which plague our country; let me rephrase, THIS WAS A RED LETTER DAY. Well, whooppee dingo and yeeehah and all that shit. Since losing some things is now victory I can’t wait until The Cowboys win the Superbowl against the The Packers 7 to 31.
Just shows you can fool most of the people most of the time.
Sebelius, is that you?
Did you like it as much when Dole first proposed it? (Obama has noted the similarities of ACA to both the Dole bill and Romneycare.
If it’s so popular, why aren’t the polls picking it up?
Yeah, you’re right. It’s my job to explain it. That is insipid.
That’s just false. There is a cap on how much you can shell out based on your income. There’s also a minimum amount of coverage that health care must give, including mandatory payments of preventive care services.
It is a smashing victory. Not just for him but for the millions that are helped by the bill. It’s a smashing defeat for the baggers on the right and the left who’d rather people die if it means they don’t get their way.
I was addressing Jon, not you.
I am visiting my parents in Montana and EVERY television commercial break features at least one ad for Denny Rehberg. Montana’s lone (R) congressman running for Senate against Jon Tester (D). The anti Tester ads just pound away ar Tester’s yes vote for ACA.
I can imagine that the new strategy will be to maximize the hatred over the individual mandate as the most compelling reason to vote R: for the crusade to void Obamacare in its entirety in 2013.
If nothing else it will be a distraction and reminder at every turn at all levels
Short term ‘win’ for Obummer could be the long tail of his defeat and down goes the hopes for Dems holding the Senate and recapturing the House. The rural hatred I see for this President is staggering.
There are massive roadside Billboards saying Anyone But Tester & Baucus. It’s almost a hysteria out here. and think of the millions of Koch ads fed into the system.
This ruling is going to be an albatross all Dems are on the hook for
But in the short term attention span of the Corporate Media I’m sure we’ll be on to several more silly outrages that pushes Obamacare off the chatter wire
And don’t forget, still to come is Obama’s October Surprise!
Right. Government subsidies to health insurers, provided by taxes, make up the difference. Take from what used to be the middle class and give to the poor. Be still my heart.
Oh, so it’s Jon’s fault that 70% of folks wanted it overturned? Jon failed Obama? WTF?
RT-tv does a better job at explaining it than any U.S. media.
Not to mention that any program centered on the poor is high on the priority list for dismantling all together.
It’s one of the fave techniques in the current political system. Started with welfare queens. Reached a culmination, naive me, I thought, in blaming the poor for the housing bubble.
But I was wrong. There are so many more things the poor can be blamed for. Like getting sick. Like murdering each other (more guns in the ghetto would surely solve the problem).
But I do run on. The pattern seems clear.
“How many times do you firebaggers”
Hasn’t it occured to you that by posting here that you are a firebagger?
“The provisions of the law are popular Jon. They just don’t know what is in the law because people like you would rather misinform then tell the truth about the law.”
Provisions of most any law are popular. Look at how much the Democrats are arguing to keep provisions of the Bush Tax Cuts.
“The insurance company no longer has the millions to spend on lobyists because that is NOT a part of care”
Nice to meet you Pinnochio!
“Even the mandate is only unpopular because people like you do a shitty as hell job explaining it. It only applies to people rich enough to not get subsidies and still refuse to get insurance.”
Actually what you are saying – that only 6% of the population will be able to get insurance that costs less than 8% of their income per year – is amongst many reasons why Obamacare is unpopular. You’re saying taht people should be thrilled that one way or the other insurance companies are getting a huge chunk of their income.
Why does it matter who proposes the thing? It saves peoples lives and lowers the cost of health care. It’s a good thing.
Plus let’s dispense with one idiotic notion. It is now a Democratic bill. Not just because a Democrat passed it but because the parties have changed. The Republican party is now the party of the teabaggers because the teabaggers took it over.
Conversey the folks that make up the majority of this board have made theirselves irrelevant because you’ve left the Democratic party. Dennis Kucinich lost, and lost BIG. He lost not to a Republican, but to another Democrat.
So this is not a Republican bill anymore because the Republican party is now a crazy for coco puffs party. That’s because the Tea Party folks when they got mad they mobilized they ran for office they showed up to vote. When you guys got mad you stayed home to “Teach Obama a lesson” and you went camping on a city block.
Well, the lesson is that a single person in a voting booth is more powerful then a thousand people occupying Wall Street. The Republican party no longer represents the Bob Doles or the “old” Mitt Romney because the Republicans got active. The democratic party does not represent Jane Hampshire or Jon Walker anymore because they got lazy, and dressed their laziness up as principles.
It doesn’t do a thing to lower the cost.
Actually it is paid for by an increase in taxes on those making over 250k and the mandate. So, once again, you’re wrong. Maybe you sould just read the bill instead of what Jon spoon-feeds you about it?
The ghost of Ronald Reagan is here to praise a conservative healthcare plan hatched out of the Heritage Foundation.
“So this is not a Republican bill anymore because the Republican party is now a crazy for coco puffs party”
So you’re for tired old Republican plans because you’re a Dole Republican. It’s too bad you don’t want change, but instead want moth-eaten Repbulican plans from the past.
It doesn’t lower total costs of medical care nationwide. It will make insurance possibl,e with government subsidies, for some people who don’t have it now and make it possible for people with preexisting conditions to get insurance with the government picking up a good portion of the tab. Life insurers would insure death row inmates if the government paid premiums based on actuarial assumptions of life expectancy. Since it doesn’t control rates of increase for health insurance or prescription drugs, all it does is use tax dollars to pick up more of the costs. Would you care to guess who will pay the taxes?
Do you wonder at all why Bill Clinton, not the most progressive guy in most rooms, rejected it as worse than nothing?
It won’t lower the costs at all. It will merely raise med ins profit margins by the amount of premiums healthy younguns are forced to pay for the privilege of consuming no medical services. That was the whole purpose of the bill.
Very few people, including the people who voted for it, have read every page. Since you have, could you cite the page where school districts are reimbursed for the added cost of insuring their adult children. In my ignorance I thought the cost was showing up in local property tax bills.
I told you guys,scotus struck nothing,be ready to scratch yours pockets by 2014,the bigger sold out in America’s history,done by Obama and Corporations,insurers are happy,i feel like shit,my feeling of freedom was taken, copy and out.
“It won’t lower the costs at all”
I’ve actually worked in an environment with the 80/20 split and far from cutting costs, it encourages wasteful spending and overpaying. The more hospitals and others in the medical lobby charge the insurance companies for their services, the more profit there is for the insurance companies because that increases the size of their 20% share. In the past insurance companies profited by negotiating providers down, but now the insurance companies profit by letting providers charge as much as they want without any negotiations.
Yow are absolutely correct. It’s a negative incentive. But you don’t need to convince eCAHN. You need to convince insipid.
It’s the same principle as “cost plus” contracting for military hardware. The more it costs, the more they make.
I’ve been watching this for 21 years.
The med ind charges whatever it wants because customers can’t fight back. Knowledge gap betw buyers & sellers is primary reason; secondary reason is vulnerability of customers; tertiary reason is third party payment.
Whatever scheme you devise, MoI (mafia of the intelligentsia) will figure out a way around it.
Meetings of stakeholders, the former European soln, to determine prices that will satisfice providers, govts, customers, comes as close as humans have been to reasonable soln of the horrible economic structure.
But now that Adolf & Eva’s daughter is in charge of Europe (what could possibly go wrong with that), Europe is rapidly following the U.S. down the rat hole.
Your toe is making you feisty. Happy to see it!
I would not go that far. It does provide coverage for millions that never had it before. One thing I haven’t heard anyone say is it frees some people up. There are those who simply cannot afford to get another job bc they may not be able to get insurance anymore. That changes when the law goes into effect. Maybe a few slave owners will have to lighten up?
Cost is the big problem. But to some extent we have been dealing with that all along. Companies pay most of the cost today and it increases a lot every year.
Either a day away from the salt mine has increased my energy or the invasion of the Obamabots is getting on my nerves. Probably both.
Yes, you got that spot on as they say. The poor are just people to be manipulated according to the dominant neo liberal program.
I would have said she is leading us all down the wormhole. There was a time , before the eu, when Europe was something of a shining light. Now the lights are going out all over the place.
No, i’m a Democrat. A lifelong Democrat. I’m just saying the way it is. You can’t pretend that Bob Dole represent what is today’s Republican anymore. Saying that it is a Republican Bill because the Republicans of twenty years ago supported it is dihonest.
The Republican party doesn’t represent the Bob Doles anymore because the Right wing got active. If the Democrats don’t represent the frustrati, it’s because they got lazy.
Believe it or not, your goals and my goals are probably the same. You just see this as something preventing single payer, i see this as a first step towards that goal.
Here’s hoping you are right but it will be years, if at all.
As costs have increase employers have responded by shifting more of the costs to workers or dropping health insurance. The % of the population insured has been dropping. The old model was broken. The heath insurers had to have subsidies. That’s what should have given O the leverage to get something decent if he hadn’t already been bought and paid for.
Finished reading R&F. I guessed the ending before I read it. :-)
My inbox has been full of OFA emails today.
Waiting until about 10/10 to remove my name & hoping I can get a lot of other people to do same on same date.
Cost is the big problem. But now there is at least the chance it will be addressed. It has become political now. It can now move votes. Something new in the world.
Being a lifelong D is your problem.
I have never voted for a prez. Only ever voted against the other guy. Usually that has been the D, bankrupt as that choice has been.
No more.
It would be nice to have stats on the increase and cost shifting. Do you have any of it? I only hear about it anecdotally.
I hope you are right as much as you hope insipid is right at #42. I just doubt it.
When you increase subsidies to the health insurance industry, it seems to me that you take pressure for reform off.
Good night all. Thanks for the discussion.
Suggest you are not reading evidence with a clear eye.
Neither R nor D does anything to reduce cost.
What diff does it make if med cost has become a political matter. Do either Rs or Ds pay any attention to what voters want?
O is throwing crumbs to big donor Ds with specific issues like LGBT. Other than that, he’s indistinguishable from Rs.
His PhRMA, med ins secrud meetings at the beginning of his term are no diff from Cheney’s meetings with HC execs.
I am not that cynical. I fully agree these guys will try to increase their cost. But those costs will be seen by voters?
Three cheers for fascism!!!!
“You can’t pretend that Bob Dole represent what is today’s Republican anymore. Saying that it is a Republican Bill because the Republicans of twenty years ago supported it is dihonest.
The Republican party doesn’t represent the Bob Doles anymore because the Right wing got active.”
I made no such claim. What I claimed was that you champion tired old Republican plans. I said you are a Bob Dole Republican, which you are trying very hard to argue against a strawman. Anyway, celebrate away with moth-eaten Republican plans while the rest of us actually want change, not Bob Dole.
Anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. I haven’t tracked it, but try goolging co-pay chart & see what comes up.
I sent my RA to a NYSSA meeting in 1991 about FAS 106. (NYSSA=New York Society of Securities Analysts; FAS106=Financial Accounting Securities standard 106 that req corps to account for the PDV (present discounted value) of future cost of med benies to future retirees.
This was around the time when the problem showed up on my radar.
My RA reported back (Walter Wriston type execs on panel) that the execs were outraged. I asked her: So what do these execs think? That it won’t cost them anything?
Within a decade, almost every corp (except a few unionized inds) stopped the practice of promising med benefits to retirees.
Didn’t save them. I might check Physicians for Social Responsibility. If I wanted figures I could count on, I’d ask a member of congress to send me information from Congressional Research Service to answer the questions. They do non partisan work.
You mean price, not cost, I presume.
And what will voters do?
Vote for the Ds who court PhRMA & med ins corp donations, or vote for Rs who do same.
The Democrats do try and hide the ball on things, but people know what their net take-home pay and standard of living are. Also I expect Republicans will make it clear for months on end how Obama is raising taxes on the middle class with Obamacare, which that is basically what the SCOTUS ruling is saying. Very little was said at the time, but in the courts up through SCOTUS, Obama has been arguing that Obamacare is a tax while in public denying it. Perhaps Obama’s double-dealing will catch up with him as he can’t hide any longer given how that was the very basis of how the mandate was declared Constitutional.
My comments have nothing to do with cynicism. Since I developed my hypothesis 21 years ago, I have yet to see a shred of evidence disputing it.
I agree with that. My company cut back on retiree health care. If you are over 65 they basically dropped it. While I was working I saw annual increases of fifteen percent. Our company once paid around ninety percent but over time it was reduced to seventy five percent and the co pay increased. I don’t know where it is today. But cost was and still is a very big problem. But I can say the insurance companies we had were not increasing their profits by fifteen percent per year. I guess I just assumed the providers were getting it. In that vein, I know a young man who just tore his Achilles heel and he says the surgery was thirty five thousand. Got that? Insane. And he has a brace now that cost a thousand. So do insurance companies and providers rip you off? You bet. I also noted that the amount paid is never what is first billed. Why is that do you suppose?
One more thing before I skip out of here. Without insurance you get to pay the first billing and or they just don’t treat you. That is how people go bankrup or die. Maybe this lousy bill will help prevent those crazy bills and bankruptcy.
But I am all for repeal and replace with Medicare for all. Where do I vote,for,that?
That may be a good thing. Can’t hide what this thing is going to,cost us.
You are right. I have noticed a certan consistency In your perspective. Ok by me. Keeps us all honest.
You don’t get a vote on that.
When there are such private econ malfunctions in the system, there is no out for the individual unless govt decides to weigh in on side of individual.
Since USG has decided (Ds & Rs, SCOTUS) to weigh in on corp side, you are screwed. Unless you are willing to undergo a revolution & I see no signs of that in U.S. or Europe.
What happened to insipid?
oOPS I need to correct that fifteen percent. I just looked at some old papers I had and one year there was nine percent. Still pretty high. Damn memory going to hell.
Probably grew weary of defending himself and went off to put out the fires.
Ditto moi.
Gdeving all.
Good night, eCAHN.
Ezra has a column to work on for tomorrow, I guess
Nothing bad enough.
BTW, his/her screen name pretty much says it all.
me either. I am done being a stooge to the corporate democrats and especially Obama’s murderous regime. the Wisconsin betrayal was the confirmation of that Party’s irrelevance to the middle class.
fock your lesser of two evils.
And what about the millions and millions of Americans who have to watch every dollar and still can’t make ends meet, and can’t possibly afford insurance, and will be slapped with a tax penalty probably amounting to triple digits?
Frankly, even if you are correct and many people will be helped by this legislation, to me this pales before the disgusting principle that the government is mandating a purchase from a private company. The Supreme Court decision today was the third of a catastrophic trilogy of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. Bush v. Gore was a coup against our democracy. Citizens United made corporations into people, and now today’s ruling makes individuals the slaves of corporations by forcing them to buy their products or suffer a penalty (and contra Roberts, this is a true penalty). Dred Scott has been reincarnated in a new guise and the Confederacy has risen again!
So far insipid hasn’t answered @32.
That said, how would this work in CA where we can’t raise revenue? You see, in the 70′s a simple majority decided that their vote counts twice as much as the rest, that is, in effect it now takes a 2/3 majority to provide social services. As far as taxes goes, a NO in the hand is worth two YES in the bush.
I hear BP. The dems fucked us while their apologist revel in cheerleading them. Again, a reminder of these words from Padme in Star Wars:
So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.
I’d say it’s faith-based naivete to believe the ACA is the road to single payer. Your free to vote for the Democrat wing of the Republican Party all you like, though. I can’t deny that they’ve been having success.
If the Democrats and Obama’s plan to fix/strengthen ACA is the same as their plans for Social Security and Medicare, then you are truely deluding yourself.
Also no matter how far right the Republican party has gone,it does not excuse the Democratic party moving to the right and occupying that space while abandoing thier Liberal principals of the past. I did vote in the 2010 elections and I will vote in November’s elections. But I will not vote for sell out Democrats who sell us crappy Republican plans and then insult us for wanting better.