Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is going to Washington to sit in on the arguments being made in the Supreme Court for and against the Affordable Health Care Act. Schmidt is one of 26 Republican state attorneys general who filed challenges to President Barack Obama’s health care reform legislation.
Unlike some of those 26, Schmidt thinks the decision could go either way. If the court focuses on the nation’s health care needs, the court may allow the law to stand. If it dwells instead on the power it gives the government to require individuals to buy health care insurance or face a fine and requires the states to greatly expand the Medicaid system to cover those who do not have it, then it may void those particular parts of the law, he said.
Schmidt, like many other Republicans who sought election in 2010, used his opposition to the law as the main plank in his platform. It is not a coincidence the states that filed challenges to the law all had Republican governors and/or attorneys general. Perhaps no election since 1860 has been so dominated by a single issue.
Still, one must trust that the nine justices will weigh the arguments on precedent and the legal principles involved rather than their Nov. 6 druthers.
Does the law’s future (2014) requirement that everyone be insured or make a contribution amount to an undue federal infringement on personal liberty? Can the government require states to expand their Medicaid programs without violating states’ rights?
Starting with the tax laws, the federal government limits individual freedoms in a great many ways. By their very nature, laws at every level limit freedom. From traffic laws to the military draft, state, local and national laws impose requirements that range from minor fines to being required to put one’s life on the line. All of these laws require individual citizens to take actions they may very well not choose to take on their own volition.
How much power over the individual should government have? Since 1776, Congress and the courts have answered that question by saying, it should have enough power to do the greatest good for the greatest number. That majoritarian argument hasn’t always carried the day. Exceptions are made when edicts require individuals to violate their religious convictions to comply. The majority also has been told no when it makes prejudicial legislation based on race, creed or social status. But with the exceptions provided by the Bill of Rights, government has been given the power it needs to meet the expressed or apparent needs of the population.
Which brings us back to health care and AG Schmidt’s thoughtful observation.
If the court truly focuses on what our nation must do to see that good health care should be available to every American and that U.S. health care costs must come down to rich-world levels, then it is likely to declare the Affordable Health Care Act constitutional.
It is, however, not the responsibility of the justices to decide if the AHCA can do what needs doing. It probably will fall far short of that goal. But if it survives past this election, it will give the nation a vehicle in which to start the journey; a vehicle which can be traded in next season on a model that works.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
