Despite an economy in real trouble, President Obama spent much of his first two years in office getting his health care plan through Congress. Passed with no Republican votes whatever, the plan was deeply unpopular with the public and has only gotten more so. Now the country awaits a Supreme Court decision on its constitutionality with a level of interest unseen since Brown v. Board of Education 58 years ago.
For all the speculation on whether the law will stand or fall, there has been almost as much on what the political impact of the decision will be in this presidential election year. If it is upheld, it would be a vindication for the president, who badly needs a political boost right now. But it is also likely to galvanize still further the opposition, which is already highly motivated.
On the other hand, if all of the law or the individual mandate provision is struck down (which would mean in all likelihood that the whole law is infeasible), the president will be seen as having wasted his own political capital and the country’s time when there was much economic distress and fiscal problems that should have been dealt with instead. He will be perceived as having been politically incompetent.
Yet, the death of Obamacare would lift a vast amount of uncertainty from the marketplace, and uncertainty, even more than bad news, depresses markets. As Betsy McCaughey pointed out recently in IBD, the requirement that employers with 50 or more employees provide a specified level of health insurance beginning in 2014 or pay a $2000 fine per employee will greatly increase labor costs, by an average of $1.79 an hour for each employee. That would be the biggest government-mandated labor cost hike in American history. This has made employers reluctant to hire, as their future labor costs are to a significant degree currently unknown. And those firms with nearly 50 employees have been very reluctant indeed to cross that threshold, for fear of becoming subject to the mandate.
With that uncertainty suddenly removed, there could be an immediate marked increase in hiring, leading to a fall in the unemployment rate. That would be a Godsend to the Obama campaign.
With the chattering classes collectively holding their breaths, the decision could come Monday. (Actually, I’m betting against Monday. At the penultimate sitting of the Court in June, the chief justice usually announces that the next sitting will be its last before the Court recesses for the summer. Chief Justice Roberts did not make such an announcement last Thursday, and so Monday probably won’t be the last decision day this term. The biggest decision of the year—in this case, the biggest decision in decades—is almost always announced on the last day of the term.)
But if it does come Monday and you want to get the news first, log onto scotusblog.com at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. They’ll be liveblogging the decisions being handed down at that time. The health care opinion is likely to be written by the most senior justice in the majority and so will be among the last to be announced, as decisions are read beginning with those written by the most junior justice. If Chief Justice Roberts is in the majority—which most likely means all or part of the law will be struck down—it will be announced last.
For what it’s worth, the Intrade odds as of Sunday morning are at 78.2 percent that the individual mandate will be thrown out, better than 3-to-1 and up sharply in the last few weeks.
Here's a bunch of reasons not to vote for Barry nNobel Peace prize nPrice of Gas nJobs nThe stimulus nKeystone Pipeline nDead Voters nFast n Furious nOil leak nCap n trade nStart treaty nHealth care nCard check nArizona border nGlobal warming nNASA nAcorn nh1n1 nSoros nElectric cars nSupreme court appointments nDestruction of the Military nNo Women's Health Care Till its to late nZero Foreign policy nEducation Dept nSolendra nMF Global nEric Holder nFast Furious nBl_ck Panthers nIRS nWelfare nEntitlements ……
And then there's" n nJohn Corzine non-prosecution nBlack Panthers voter intimidation nmore "flexibility" in a 2nd term nan autobiography that is more fiction than fact nbogus assertion of executive privilege noff-shore drilling moratorium nTrayvon Martin
Not to mention leaking Stuxnet, Flame, the identity of the team that took out Bin Laden, and the kill list. And then, of course, there's also energy from algae …
Maybe it helps him, but if economic improvement is clearly linked to the demise of Obama's most cherished legislation, the one real "accomplishment" of his first term, I don't think so. I don't think anything similar has ever happened to an American president before – and in the midst of an election campaign to boot. (Marshall may have humiliated Jefferson with Marbury, but Jefferson could hang his hat on considerably more than just his efforts to thwart last minute Federalist appointments.) nIsn't it just as possible that people will notice that it is the repeal of the left's dream that unshackles the economy? To buy your argument, Mr. Gordon, one has to assume that after three years of debating health care reform, and 2+ years of increasing anger over the resultant reform, Americans will suddenly become stunningly ignorant about what this political firestorm signified. nPerhaps, instead, this could be one of the greatest "I told you so" moments in political history.
I think that another factor supporting your thoughts is that relief over such an economic turnaround would raise people's spirits and they would be more vocal in their criticisms of Obama's policies — which I think would create an avalanche of momentum. Has anybody actually (metaphorically) stood up and said, "Can you stop blaming Bush now, you idiots?" No, it's the Obama MSM doing all the talking!
I doubt as well that throwing out ObamaCare would have the stimulative effect as employers, such as myself, will still be staring at Taxmageddon on 1/1/13. Given Obama's tin ear, he will no doubt announce, shortly after the downfall of ObamaCare, that his Administration will continue to implement *all* of the requirements of ObamaCare other than the individual mandate, thus redoubling the fury of the public.
I know this is an unpopular thing to say, but no one knows what is going to happen. Can't we just wait and find out what SCOTUS ordains?
You have a point.
Killing Obamacare would be a very good thing for productive The Forgotten Taxpayer who works, saves and invests to pay for these Statist schemes that are controlled and operated by the few powerful bureaucrats who believe themselves to be technocratically expert enough to manage a system that consists of millions and millions of individual and idiosyncratic decisions.
Not so fast. I predict right here and now that Obama is going to issue an edict via Executive Order that the Supreme Court decision to strike down Obamacare is unconstitutional. He will order HHS to implement Obamacare in full. n nTime to draw up articles of impeachment.
I wonder what would happen if he did? When the courts overturned his Gulf drilling ban, he just ignored them … and no one seemed to care or mind. If anything, Obama's experience teaches him he can throw out whatever any court says!
No need for El Presidente to declare the Supreme Court ruling unconstitutional. He can direct HHS et al to continue to implement ObamaCare regardless of the SCOTUS ruling. Who is going to stop him? Not the lilly-livered GOP in Congress. Not the Courts.
As the author noted the unpopularity of Obamacare continues to grow, thus I am hard-pressed to see how its defeat in whole or in part by the Supremes could benefit politically the Prez in 2012. The majority of the population recognize that the country cannot afford ObamaCare. The CBO projects its cost at $1.7 trillion to tax payers. Even this sum is understated. If only the mandate is struck down then the actual cost will balloon to $5-9 trillion. Calling Greece! n nIt is true that employers will be pleased if ObamaCare is defeated. However, it is highly unlikely that they will commence hiring until they are assured that the 13 different taxes imposed by the law, effective 2013, are removed from the books. The majority of these tax increases will be paid in whole or in part by employers. So employers will commence major hiring sometime in 2013. And the unemployment rate will not change by much before November. Further, there are a myriad of other non-ObamaCare regulations that have contributed to employers sitting on a large amount of cash. So until those too are relaxed then employers will continue to be reticent to hire new employees.
There's not just all the rest of Obamacare and the Bush tax cuts, there is also all the EPA regulations going into effect and a rising cost of energy that businesses have to be leery of (and, I don't believe, voters can even imagine the huge increases in utilities that lie ahead). I think those that are holding on to what they've got, rather than taking risks now, will wait until after Obama is out of office (or at least until they can be confident in anything staying the same for any length of time).
So you don't like the individual mandate in the health care law. nFine. nWhat would you replace it with? nWhy do you think Newt Gingrich back in Hillary's days was for it — after they had looked at everything else? nThere was no way around it. n"The insurance mandate is socialism, plain and simple." nIf it's socialism, you'd have to buy it from the government, which would also tell you what doctor or hospital to go to. But you can buy health insurance from anybody, and you can get treated by the doctor and hospital you want. What's socialist about that? n"Can't you see, the government is making us buy insurance. We have no choice in the matter." nDo you have a choice not to get hurt, or not to get sick? Why then do you want a choice not to have insurance to pay for it when you do? nStates in fact already have an individual mandate for car insurance, and they have been putting uninsured drivers in jail for years. n"That's different. Driving is a privilege." nThen free health care must be a right in your book. Maybe this idea came from hospitals continuing to treat the uninsured the last half century. nThe tradeoff to us living in a civilized society is that we have to follow rules we don't agree with. In return, we get great many things, including goods and services that otherwise would be unavailable. But, we still have to pay for them. The mandate makes sure that we do. nWhat's wrong with that? n