Is the Affordable Health Care Act ruling really a ‘Trojan Horse’ that could undermine future decisions? | The Labor Tribune

Is the Affordable Health Care Act ruling really a ‘Trojan Horse’ that could undermine future decisions? | The Labor Tribune

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UPHOLDING THE ACA: A TROJAN HORSE

The decision to uphold this Act is a Trojan horse in that it is not the gift to the Progressives that it appears to be on the surface.

Why? Because the High Court’s reasoning in upholding the ACA is based on a narrow interpretation of the Act and a broad butrestrictive vision of the law as it relates to the taxing power of the United States.

The key provision is the individual mandate. This requires a tax or penalty to individuals who do not secure health care coverage through alternative sources, like insurance, Medicare or employer or union sponsored health plans.

This individual mandate that requires covered participants to purchase health care was proposed by Republican congressional leaders as early as 1989 for the express purpose of bringing individual responsibility to the issue. At present, even with the individual mandate, the Act still excludes well over 20 million Americans from coverage under the ACA according the Congressional Budget Office. The U.S.A. may have come a long way but it still has not achieved universal healthcare and that now appears to be a mission impossible for Congress to undertake considering the practicality of the legislative constraints in the Roberts’ decision.

Justice Roberts refused to uphold the law until the presentation of the Obama Administration’s last alternative legal point before the Court — the taxing powers of Congress to fund the ACA saved the Act. The Court allowed a penalty or “tax” to stand against those who fail to purchase health insurance to prevent those who intend to use the system without paying for it from driving up health care costs for those who pay for coverage. The Roberts Court found this penalty to be within the taxing and spending powers of Congress and thus, upheld the law.

The Trojan Horse in the ruling is that it gives with one hand – upholding the legality of the mandate and thus the ACA law itself — but with the other hand the decision attempts to clearly limit the traditional power of Congress to govern by, and through, the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. This is a setback in American jurisprudence and is extremely dangerous!