Yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. The majority of five which prevailed on the questions of law before it can not be said to be homogenous, for among them is the Chief Justice John Roberts.
Pundits will of couse (including myself) mark the occasion as a triumph of governance in which the Court sat astride the stallions of the Executive Branch, Congress, and public opinion and brought them in mutual accord, or not.
But the decision preserves the Court's power as an arbiter in ways to resonate down the ages (even help reverse the onus of its politically expedient Bush v. Gore decision of 2000 in which it can arguably be said that the Court elected the President of choice of the majority of Justices on the Court at that time [true or not besmirching the reputation of the Court as a panel of jurists of probity]).
So, the Chief Justice became my Chief Justice today and I will began to see him more subtlely and as a true Chief Justice. That is not to say he will go unscathed in my appraisal of his time on the Court. Then I dare say he perhaps will never know of me or my criticism, good or bad. Such is the fate of the glebewise commentator.
As to the Affordable Care Act, the law of the land, I wish it well and God speed. It is not the universal care (single payer) system which rightly should and ultimately will prevail and is afforded by taxation of the wealth of this land we call our America. Capitalism and its beneficiaries include the rich and poor alike, but it is supremely immoral to conclude that its outcomes are not capricious and self-serving and in many instances vile. Only the income tax fairly imposed on the wealth of the nation can save us from the extremes of socialism or capitalism while incentivizing participatory democracy in profound ways (and not so profound ways such as the expansion of the self serving ways of those who can afford lawyers and lobbyists).
As a Chrisitan and a citizen, anyone who would have my vote must have my confidence that he will regard the premise enshrined in the Constitution in that a government of laws is by consent of the governed. To have my political consent, the "governors" of the land must be judicious which our Chief Justice showed himself to be yesterday (judicious and wise). He has proven himself to be a John Marshall and a federalist of the highest order with a true understanding of the limited government concept, but as well a high regard for legislative made law and executive enforcement of those laws as is required by our Constitution. In other terms, he abides by his own tenet that the Court should in its role advoid being an activist court (a conclusion reached typically by those who disagree with its reversals of past decisions or what is generally known as controlling precedents).
For the medical industry, the Court's decision is now a final peg in its goal in lobbying Congress to have a steady stream of income to procure a high standard of living for care providers (principally doctors) and investors in the industry, including medical device industry. There will be other winners. Time will tell if Congress crafted legislation that will endure. Time will tell if those left out of the solution set for the medical industry includes a sufficient number of losers (which losers would have had coverage under a plan of universal care). I believe the number of losers is a minority by design of Congress (hence by the design of the medical and medical device industry), and only the ACLU will give this minority its day in Court.
A possible loser is the medical insurance industry but no industry is better suited to line the pockets of its executives (the true death tax beneficiaries inherent in the pre-ACA days) for it will seek modification of the ACA with abandon. Their profit taking in the extreme may lose steam for a bit, but just a bit! Trust me the medical insurance industry will own the Republican Party as it must block citizen initiated refinements of the ACA and possibly even supersede or void the ACA by amendment or otherwise. The insurance industry will adjust and recover and even potentially coalesce in the wisdom of the ACA, but only if public pressure is built for universal single payer coverage.
No comments:
Post a Comment