I’m sitting in a meeting, prepping to be a live Blogger during the RNC (scheduled to be held in Tampa). And, during the meeting, I’ve been following the anticipated Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Healthcare Act (its being covered live here). It looks like a win for the poor, tired, and yearning to be healthy.
It is a good day to be an American.
UPDATE: A Plain English Interpretation by Anne Howe:
Amy Howe: In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.
