Supreme Choice

From the BBC:
"Obamacare subsidies preserved in US Supreme Court ruling"

 

The US Supreme Court has upheld a key portion of President Barack Obama's healthcare law, preserving health insurance for millions of Americans. In a 6-3 decision, the justices said that tax subsidies that make health insurance affordable for low-income individuals can continue. The ruling preserves the law known as Obamacare, which Mr Obama considers a major part of his presidential legacy. Republicans have vowed to continue fighting the law. "We've got more work to do, but what we're not going to do is unravel what has now been woven into the fabric of America," Mr Obama said. The case, known as King v Burwell, was the second major challenge the law has faced in the US's highest court. Unlike in many other western countries, the US does not have a single-payer healthcare system. Private companies, rather than the US government, provide health insurance for US citizens.  The enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - one of Mr Obama's most significant and controversial domestic achievements - in 2010 mandated that every American had to purchase private insurance. It provided the subsidies to allow many to do so. In 2012, the mandate portion of the law was challenged in the court. The justices ruled to preserve it. In that decision, as in the decision on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts surprised observers by siding with his liberal colleagues in support of the law. "Congress passed the Affordable Care act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion. Justice Anthony Kennedy dissented in 2012, but sided with the majority on Thursday. Had the court made the opposite decision, an estimated 8.7 million people in the US would have been at risk of losing the aid that makes healthcare affordable. 

 

Obamacare by the numbers

• citizens in 37 states depend on federal subsidies to make healthcare affordable
• cnly 13 states and Washington, DC have established their own exchanges
• over 10m people have purchased coverage through one of the new exchanges - federal or state
• on average, the federal government provides a $272 (£173) monthly subsidy

 

^ People should know that it was the US Supreme Court that once said "separate, but equal" was constitutional allowing for the racist Jim Crow laws to be made after the Civil War and lasting until the 1960s. The Supreme Court almost 100 years later declared that segregation (ie separate but equal) wasn't constitutional. With that in mind the Court declaring that Obamacare is constitutional (as well as the subsidies) now could be changed by the Court in the future.  It's not that I am against universal health care. I am against how Obamacare is set-up. It forces every American to get health insurance or be fined. I would support the way it is done in Canada - the Canadian Government (through the provinces) gives health care to its citizens. There is a big difference between giving and forcing. Obamacare also doesn't change the whole healthcare system to make it more modern and better suit the medical needs of the millions of people that use it. It simply puts a Band-Aid on a decaying and overworked system. It forces millions upon millions of new people into the "dying ship" that healthcare in the US has become rather than giving it the fix from the ground-up that it needs. The US has the world's best technology, best doctors, best researchers, etc and yet its healthcare system is becoming that of some Third World country. ^

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33269991