What It All Means
I'll have a piece later about the politics of the Supreme Court's PPACA decision, but right now I want to highlight something you've probably already read--because I think it's the most important thing anyone has written about it. Here's Dave Weigel, in a piece on
the crowd's reaction:
I heard a peal of delight and turned around -- that's the picture at the top of this post. Hilary Matfess, a young policy analyst, was jumping up and down, yelling out details.
"The mandate is constitutional! It was upheld! Roberts went for the swing vote! Yes! Oh my God! The individual mandate survives as a tax!"
Did you work on passing the bill? I asked.
"No!" said Matfess. "I just have lupus!"
That's it right there. Those were (and remain) the stakes in this fight.
3 comments:
Yep, that's it in a nutshell. And it's the perfect contrast to Rep. Jean Schmidt, who gets Cadillac health coverage courtesy of the taxpayers, cheering when she thought the mandate was overturned.
Yes, Mean Jean looked like the ass she is when she had her very public orgasm as she heard the incorrect version of the decision.
I wish someone had some video of her reaction when she realized what a fool she'd just made of herself.
For decades, I used to disagree with Conservatives - but I never thought they were evil people.
Over the last two decades, I've come to realize that they really are.
They are evil to the core.
Well posted, Tom, and well commented. As Kathy said, you nutshelled it.
I'd add that IMO, as cobbled together, hobbled, entangled with various corps, compromised and generally Frankenstein's-monsterish as the PPACA may be, its enactment was a major accomplishment and its full implementation (to the extent that can be made to happen) will be vastly beneficial in human terms as well as macroeconomically. I still honestly don't see how anything like single-payer was ever going to make it past the '09-'11 Senate - but down the road, as the PPACA becomes part of the accustomed landscape (again, if it does), it may prove to be the essential transition to single-payer. Even if not, it gets us far ahead of where we were.
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