The Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) today. Let’s do act like adults and call it by its proper name, rather than “Obamacare.”
Do I agree with Roberts’ decision? No, but here we are. Reaching back to 1895, he finds that
The elementary rule is that every reasonable construction must be resorted to in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.
So, he went looking for a reason to uphold the individual mandate. In the end, he found it justified by virtue of being a tax, rather than doing so through a tortured reading of the Commerce Clause. We would have been far worse off if he’d found his authority there.
If the Republicans mean that stuff they’re pounding their chests about (and if their supporters can be troubled to show up at the polls this November), it’s a bump in the road in any case. Continued...