Pro/con: Should Supreme Court uphold health care law?

Two years ago, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a landmark, once-in-a-generation legislation that was decades in the making.
Having lost that argument through the democratic process, the Republicans and their allies are now seeking to have the Supreme Court overturn the ACA by judicial fiat.
That’s right – the same people who complain endlessly about the overreach of “activist judges” now want to use the highest court in the land to reverse the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives.
The Affordable Care Act is not even fully implemented, yet it’s already making a powerful difference in the lives of the American people.
Today, already 2.5 million young adults have gained health coverage, thanks to the ACA provision that allows them to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26. And last year, 3.6 million seniors saved a total of $2.1 billion on pharmaceutical costs, with the closing of the “donut hole” coverage gap written into the 2003 Medicare Part D prescription drug bill.
And there are more benefits to come, if the Supreme Court upholds the law and allows the bill to take full effect. By 2014, at long last, your insurance company will no longer be able to discriminate against you because you have a pre-existing health condition.
It is wrong-minded to dismantle or undermine a plan that will work.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional down to its very DNA. The Supreme Court can save itself and the country years of litigation by striking down the entire law when it issues its decision this summer.
The individual mandate should be struck down because it isn’t protected under the Commerce Clause.
The law also requires states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover families earning up to $30,000 a year. Lawyers for the 26 states that are challenging the law will tell the court during oral arguments this violates the Tenth Amendment’s protection of states’ rights.
The Affordable Care Act bashes into the Constitution at every turn because it is fundamentally in conflict to the essential founding principles of this country – freedom and the sovereignty of states and citizens. It turns control over one-sixth of our economy to the federal government, ceding life and death decisions to the state.
The law is wrong for America, and the sooner the Supreme Court overturns it, the sooner we can get on the path to patient-centered reform that fits our economy – and our Constitution.
Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute