Health Care and the People

I am supposed to be a neutral and un-biased participant, engaged in helping others resolve whatever issues brought them to me. If truth be told I don’t believe that any one can be “neutral”, we always have an opinion, but I can be fair and impartial when I’m working as a mediator.

One of the tricks of mediation I use is never to jump to a conclusion, think about the issues, consider the arguments advanced by the parties, contemplate options, visualize end points and only then start to guide the conversation towards a solution. The important thing is to be deliberate in the process and never rush to a decision. It doesn’t work every time, I am after all subject to human emotions and have been known to make mistakes. But slow and steady is usually a good way to go. And when it comes to the governments “Affordable Health Care Act” also known as Obama-care, it pays not to hurry to a conclusion.

The decision of the Supreme Court that the legislation is essentially constitutional energized some and enraged others. Very few people don’t have an opinion, and it's usually a strongly held opinion. But after thinking about the decision and doing some research I’ve reached the conclusion that the Supreme Court decision was a brilliant step that is designed to encourage the parties to further dialog and an eventual resolution that will allow the parties to be content with their decision.

There are key elements in the Courts decision that I see as essential to the future of this Republic. The administration pushed the legislation under the 14^th Amendment (known as the Commerce Clause) but this argument was set aside in the majority opinion that stated that a mandated penalty levied on individuals who declined health insurance was not appropriate but that it was within the power of Congress to levy a tax on people who declined to purchase health insurance. So it seems that it’s no longer possible for Congress to pass legislation based on 14^th Amendment arguments. It must now pass any future legislation that establishes penalties solely on its ability to tax…and that’s a much higher and more complex bar to surmount when Congress establishes ways to fund the laws it passes.

Personally Le Conteur and I pay a monthly premium of about $800 for a very good comprehensive family health care plan. Under Obama-care it was mandated that the penalty for the uninsured should be $95 per year. Having to fund the program via taxation will certainly change that figure to something closer to what we now pay for our insurance and I shudder to think what will happen to my taxes when the costs for the half of the population that doesn’t pay any taxes are lumped into our annual tax bill. I think the conversation on the health care bill has really just started and that the administration will be hard pressed to defend the program when the true costs are calculated and become public knowledge.

In addition the decision stated that it is not constitutional to penalize states who decline to participate in the program by cutting off the funding for other federally supported programs. In effect, the tiger is now toothless since 25 states were party to the suit that came before the Supreme Court. There are also interesting ramifications such as if a state were to decide that it is ok for its citizens to drink at age 18 it could no longer be penalized by the loss of all highway funds…I think we will be hearing some interesting and long winded Congressional debates in the future.

In effect the court tossed the problem back to the administration and Congress saying “Here are the problems and now you have to fix it” So for those who have issues with the Supreme Court decision I will merely say that ultimately it will be seen as a brilliant maneuver to get Congress to do the job as set forth in the Constitution.

My own opinion is, to paraphrase a long dead Roman:

                           Obama-care delinde est.