CMC Professor: Republicans "Have Nothing to Put on The Table" For Health Care Reform

While pundits and politicians across the nation have given their opinions throughout the day on the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act, at least one political expert closer to home has had somethign to say as well.

Fred Lynch, an accomplished author and associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said Republicans in Congress who are against President Obama's health care measure have a lot of work to do if they want to succeed in repealing the act.

"[The Supreme Court decision] probably helps President Obama," he said. "Now I think for [Republican presidential candidate Mitt] Romney, I think he not only has to go against the whole act itself, but against the Supreme Court decision. The real problem for Republicans all along has been that they have nothing to put on the table."

Neither Congressional Republicans nor Romeny have offered a health care proposal that has matched the Democratic plan in scope.

Lynch, an expert on the American Association of Retired Persons, said this group would likely soon come out with a campaign supporting the reform. 

"I think you're going to see AARP come out with a full on campaign to explain the healthcare reform, which they should have done in the first place. They were one of the first of the biggest backers of the health care reform." 

Lynch also said that he believed Cheif Justice John Roberts' decision to side with the liberal majority in the 5-4 ruling was in part based on the jusitice's fear that the court was losing its standing.

"I think among several things the court has gotten concerned about is its legitimacy," he said. "There was a poll that came out in the last month indicating that public approval for the Supreme Court is pretty much at an all time low."

He noted that Roberts also likely saw that most of the provisions of the act were not controversial.

"The health care law, and I think the court understood this, is very popular in some of its components, like the inability to deny insurance because of preexisting conditions and things like that. If you called the whole package Obamacare, then people were negative against that," he said.

"But I think the court listens to public opinion, and I think they were very carefully reading the overall public reaction and the fact that the opposition to this legislation was not a rejection of the whole thing. The major parts, people liked."

Lynch is the author of "One Nation Under AARP: The Fight Over Medicare, Social Security, and America's Future," and was written editorials for The New York Times.