Don't make Justice Roberts into a hero.
While it's hard to gauge exactly why he chose to uphold the ACA, one thing you can be sure of, it wasn't to make liberals and moderates happy. It wasn't to reach an olive branch out to President Obama as a court divided in favor of corporate interests and right-wing ideologies moves further and vocally to the right.
If we look into the history of the individual mandate, a part of the ACA that was seen as a poison pill since its inception, the IM was a policy pushed by right-wing interests like the conservative bastion the Heritage Foundation. In fact, it was placed into two bills in 1993 by Republicans.
The IM is a win for the insurance companies. It is what we got when an intransigent Republican contingent said "Hell No!" to single-payer. It is, in fact, a Republican victory that the Chief Justice of SCOTUS, who is a Bush II appointee, voted "no" against repealing the ACT.
And now the IM is being pushed as an Obama victory? Obama should make it clear that it was not his administration that the required the IM in order to pass the ACA. It should be clear to the public that the this was not what the Democrats wanted.
Otherwise, the fallout will be placed solidly on the left of the political spectrum and the corporate interests will have yet another reason to laugh at the ignorance of most voters.
= new reply since forum marked as read
