Why We are All Screwed When the Supreme Courts Rule (Very Soon) on Obamacare

Robert Reich explains why, regardless of what the Supremes rule, it will mean a more centrally planned medical system for all of us---which will thus mean, and Reich probably doesn't understand this, lower quality healthcare for all of us. Here's Reich:

Any day now the Supreme Court will issue its opinion on the constitutionality of the Accountable Care Act, which even the White House now calls Obamacare.

Most high-court observers think it will strike down the individual mandate in the Act that requires almost everyone to buy health insurance, as violating the Commerce Clause of the Constitution — but will leave the rest of the new healthcare law intact.

But the individual mandate is so essential to spreading the risk and cost of health care over the whole population, including younger and healthier people, that some analysts believe a Court decision that nixes the mandate will effectively spell the end of the Act anyway.

Yet it could have exactly the opposite effect. If the Court strikes down the individual mandate, health insurance company lobbyists and executives will swarm Capitol Hill seeking to have the Act amended to remove the requirement that they insure people with pre-existing medical conditions.They’ll argue that without the mandate they can’t afford to cover pre-existing conditions.

But the requirement to cover pre-existing conditions has proven to be so popular with the public that Congress will be reluctant to scrap it.

This opens the way to a political bargain. Insurers might be let off the hook, for example, only if they support allowing every American, including those with pre-existing conditions, to choose Medicare, or something very much like Medicare. In effect, what was known during the debate over the bill as the “public option.”

So in striking down the least popular part of Obamacare - the individual mandate - the Court will inevitably bring into question one of its most popular parts - coverage of pre-existing conditions. And in so doing, open alternative ways to maintain that coverage - including ideas, like the public option, that were rejected in favor of the mandate.

Bottom Line: Obamacare was set up from day one to be a centrally planned program. As Reich makes clear, a Supreme Court ruling against the current individual mandate is likely to result in an even more centrally planned program. This smells like it was designed by the evil bastard in the White House backroom, Cass Sunstein, the options that will be offered will all be bad and commie healthcare will come to America.