Laying Bare Obamacare

Keep Moving. Nothing to see here folks, just me and my dog.

Thus endeth the second day of arguments in the US Supreme Court hearings regarding the Affordable Healthcare Act, AKA Obamacare.

From the UK Daily Mail:

It is a tad unfortunate that just days after the White House embraced the term "Obamacare" - previously regarded on the Left as a pejorative label - a majority of the nine Supreme Court justices have given strong indications they will rule it unconstitutional.

Even more ironic is that the justices, or five of them at least, look like they might force President Barack Obama back to the drawing board partly on the basis of the argument one Senator Obama made against then Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008.

At issue today was the so-called 'individual mandate" - the federal government's act of compelling Americans to buy health insurance. It is the centrepiece of the Affordable Health Care Act - aka Obamacare - which is the signature achievement of Obama's presidency thus far.

But back during the 2008 campaign, Obama argued strenuously against the individual mandate. In a debate in South Carolina, he said: "A mandate means that in some fashion, everybody will be forced to buy health insurance. ... But I believe the problem is not that folks are trying to avoid getting health care. The problem is they can't afford it. And that's why my plan emphasises lowering costs."

In February 2008, he said that you could no more solve the issue of the uninsured with an individual mandate than you could cure homelessness by ordering people to buy a home:

[...]But the most fundamental problem for the President is that if the heart of Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional then he will be left empty-handed after spending two years and virtually all his political capital on jamming through the bill without a single Republican vote.

In short, it will make him look like a loser - not a quality Americans value in their presidents. And the fact that the Republican nominee will be able to quote Obama's own criticisms of the individual mandate against him will be the icing on the cake.