The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding the core of the Affordable Care Act is good news for the court and the country. Chief Justice John G. Roberts was statesmanlike in choosing to side with four more liberal justices in finding that the law’s most controversial provision, the mandate that individuals obtain health insurance, was a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power “to lay and collect taxes.” That solution allows the main provisions of the law to take effect. Even more important, it is respectful, as the court should be, of congressional authority and the democratic process that underlies it. Many Americans were watching the court to see whether, at a time of extreme partisanship, it could craft a decision that impressed as an act of law, not politics. In our view, the court passed that test of legitimacy. Now the arguments over Obamacare can continue where they are best fought out, in the political arena. – Washington Post
If there is a modicum of hope in Chief Justice John Roberts’s inglorious one-man opinion, it is that Americans were reminded again that they cannot count on others to protect their liberty. Certainly judges aren’t reliable. They can be turned by the pressure of the media and the whims of vanity. If Americans want to repeal Obamacare, their only recourse is to demand it at the ballot box in November. The Affordable Care Act is more unpopular now than when it passed, yet it will grind on toward implementation in a second Obama term. The president made that clear in his remarks Thursday, deploying the usual half-truths he used to jam the law through Congress. He continued to claim that no one will lose his current health insurance, though millions are sure to do so as they are dropped from business coverage and tossed into Medicaid or government exchanges. – Wall Street Journal