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.
