Individual Mandate

OK, who wants to bet that the same people who are cheering because judges are ruling that President Obama's "individual mandate" is unconstitutional are the same people who complain that they're paying for people with no health insurance going to the emergency wards? Mark F. Walker, Philadelphia

WATCH Republican opponents of the Affordable Care Act clutch their chests at the thought of Americans' being forced to buy health insurance and you would never guess that the idea was originally dreamed up by Republican economists. In fact, three serving senators - Orrin Hatch (Utah), Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Richard Lugar (Indiana) -were co-sponsors of a 1993 bill that would have required an individual mandate to have health insurance or pay a fine. Oh, but that was then - when at least a few Republicans felt the need to do more than obstruct efforts to fix our badly broken health-care system.

THE letter by Dee Adcock ( "Rep. Schwartz Misguided on Health Care" ) is full of contradictions. Candidate Adcock decries people being forced to buy insurance and then makes the dishonest argument that if insurance companies are forced to cover people with pre-existing conditions, "people can now wait until they get sick before they buy insurance. " This is not true in any way, and why there is an individual mandate so people can't wait until they get sick to buy insurance. The individual mandate was a Republican idea from the '90s.

Here are the big takeaways from Thursday's historic Supreme Court decision on President Obama's 2010 health-care law: If you already have health insurance, your everyday life isn't expected to change much. If you don't have health insurance, you can be covered even if you have a pre-existing condition. Or you could choose to go without coverage and pay a tax penalty. And if you're staying at a job you hate just for the good insurance benefits, you can jump ship without paying an arm and leg to keep yourself covered.

It's the meme of the moment. Remember that famous 1948 shot of President Harry S. Truman holding up the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman"? Journalism gone wrong. Now, thanks to Photoshop and a clever man named Gary He, we have the image of President Obama gleefully holding up an iPad bearing the headline "Mandate Struck Down" from CNN's website. That image, tweeted and posted across the Web, captured much of what happened Thursday, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Care Act. By 10 a.m., a storm front of anticipation had built around the decision two years in the making.

In a precedent setting decision that likely will reverberate through election day and beyond, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision Thursday upheld President Obama's health care overhaul including a requirement that all non-exempt Americans buy health insurance. The court said the law's requirement that individual Americans purchase insurance or be subject to a penalty levied by the IRS was constitutional. It also upheld a provision greatly expanding Medicaid, the health care program for the poor jointly financed by the state and federal governments.

IT'S GROUNDHOG DAY! . . . for health-care reform, that is. Just as the calendar never flips for Bill Murray's character in the classic 1993 movie, the defining legislation of President Obama's tenure goes up and down - passed and repealed, enacted and blocked - but rarely forward. The latest? A federal judge in Florida declared the entire measure - aimed at overhauling U.S. health care and adding millions to the insurance rolls - to be unconstitutional, setting the stage for legal and political Armageddon at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The essence of conservatism Chief Justice John Roberts, in writing the majority opinion to uphold "Obamacare," showed the real meaning of conservatism ("Health law upheld," Friday). First, Roberts stated that it is not the job of the court to look for ways to overturn laws. In fact, Roberts referred to former Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in stating that you should err on the side of upholding law if you can find any reason to do so. This is the opposite of a judicial activist who believes the court should, in effect, create new law. An even more conservative position was Roberts' statement that we get the government we elect and have to live with the consequences of the actions of those who legislate.

AMA to review mandate support CHICAGO - A divided American Medical Association will consider withdrawing its support of a key tenet of the health-overhaul law that requires Americans to buy an insurance plan. The Chicago-based national doctors group, which represents nearly a quarter-million physicians, is being asked by several medical societies within the AMA to change its stance in favor of the "individual mandate. " A formal vote comes up at the AMA's annual policymaking House of Delegates meeting Saturday through Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration defended the health-care overhaul in a filing Friday with the Supreme Court that calls the law an appropriate response to a "crisis" in the health-care market. The administration filed a written submission in the court's biggest case this term, with the potential to affect President Obama's reelection bid. The government called on the court to uphold the core requirement that individuals buy insurance or pay a penalty. One federal appeals court struck down the so-called individual mandate as exceeding Congress' power under the Constitution.

With the economy still struggling, it's tough to predict how big a role the new health-care law will play this November. But now that the Supreme Court has spoken, this much is clear: This election should matter deeply to anyone who embraces the goal of expanding access to health care, as well as to anyone who thinks it's a misplaced priority. Beyond the spin and confusion, that's what this is about. For all its shortcomings, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — the 2010 law that nearly everybody calls Obamacare — represents the largest stride ever toward universal coverage, a goal of Democrats for more than half a century that has already been achieved by every other industrialized nation.

The essence of conservatism Chief Justice John Roberts, in writing the majority opinion to uphold "Obamacare," showed the real meaning of conservatism ("Health law upheld," Friday). First, Roberts stated that it is not the job of the court to look for ways to overturn laws. In fact, Roberts referred to former Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in stating that you should err on the side of upholding law if you can find any reason to do so. This is the opposite of a judicial activist who believes the court should, in effect, create new law. An even more conservative position was Roberts' statement that we get the government we elect and have to live with the consequences of the actions of those who legislate.

From the day in 2010 that President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a legal fever gripped much of the country. Was the "individual mandate" — the requirement to buy insurance if you weren't already covered, a key pillar of the law — constitutional? Would a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees toss it out, no matter what? You know how that fever finally broke. In a 5-4 decision that surprised both sides, Chief Justice John Roberts ditched his fellow conservatives to conclude that Congress and the President acted within their authority, not under the Commerce Clause, but because the penalty for violating the mandate was permissible as a tax. Within hours, the body politic was gripped again, this time with a fever bound to last till Election Day — or well beyond — over a role Roberts disowned: weighing the law's "wisdom or fairness.

It's the meme of the moment. Remember that famous 1948 shot of President Harry S. Truman holding up the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman"? Journalism gone wrong. Now, thanks to Photoshop and a clever man named Gary He, we have the image of President Obama gleefully holding up an iPad bearing the headline "Mandate Struck Down" from CNN's website. That image, tweeted and posted across the Web, captured much of what happened Thursday, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Care Act. By 10 a.m., a storm front of anticipation had built around the decision two years in the making.

Well, now. So how's that hope and change thing working for us? I'd say, after Thursday, pretty darn good. The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to uphold President Obama's besieged signature legislation - the Affordable Care Act - constitutionally validated the law that cleared the path for providing universal health care for everyone. Which should be as American as apple pie. You'd think. Yet since the historic law passed two years ago, conservatives have spit out "Obamacare" as if the very word were arsenic.

Area health-care leaders said Thursday that implementation of health reform will pick up speed now that it is clear where the U.S. Supreme Court stands. The momentum, they said, could make it harder for Republicans to dismantle all or part of the law if they prevail in the fall elections. For their part, politicians and advocacy groups reacted along predictable lines. The biggest question is what will happen to the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor.

In a precedent setting decision that likely will reverberate through election day and beyond, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision Thursday upheld President Obama's health care overhaul including a requirement that all non-exempt Americans buy health insurance. The court said the law's requirement that individual Americans purchase insurance or be subject to a penalty levied by the IRS was constitutional. It also upheld a provision greatly expanding Medicaid, the health care program for the poor jointly financed by the state and federal governments.

By Ilya Shapiro The Supreme Court's health-care ruling displayed an unfortunate convergence of two unholy strains of constitutional jurisprudence: liberal activism and conservative pacifism. Liberal activism, typified by the four Democratic-appointed justices, finds in the Constitution no judicially administrable limits on federal power. Conservative pacifism, a knee-jerk reaction to the liberal activism of the 1960s and '70s, argues that we must defer to Congress as much as possible, presuming its legislation to be constitutional.

WHEN Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices in an attempt to save his legacy, something extraordinary happened. A conservative justice by the name of Roberts swung to the left on a key decision, thereby preserving a crucial element of the New Deal.   Owen Roberts' vote was called the "switch in time that saved nine," the "nine" being the justices already firmly ensconced on the bench. FDR's unconstitutional plan failed. History has forgiven him this trespass, and so it could legitimately be said that Roberts, a Pennsylvania native, saved the president's hide.

Inquirer staff writers Allyn Gaestel, Meeri Kim and Jessica Parks went to three locations Thursday to gauge reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling on the health-care law. Joy in Camden Cries of "Amen!" "Alleluia!" and "Praise the Lord" rang out in front of St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Thursday morning as members of Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP) praised the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. "It's a death sentence lifted for me," said the Rev. Marilyn Dixon-Hill, a CCOP member.