Roberts, SCOTUS Approve Affordable Care Act

   Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and the moderate wing of the Supreme Court handed the Obama Administration and our entire country an unexpected and mostly-welcome victory last Thursday. By upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the battle has been framed (as if it wasn’t already) between the Mitt Romney and Barack Obama camps in this important election year.

   On one side are Americans who have decried for decades the spiraling costs associated with hospital care and citizen’s rights to it that have made even basic healthcare coverage unattainable for millions, and who understand what "Gross Domestic Product" means and why reining in medical costs is absolutely essential without even adding in the altruism factor.

  And on the other side remains the crowd that has swallowed the Sarah Palin/Mitch McConnell/John Boehner anti-Obama rubbish for the past 3 ½ years (death panels, anyone?), and would’ve found nothing to praise in the legislation unless it was initiated by the GOP. Which we all know wouldn’t happen in a million years, despite McConnell’s ludicrous posturing last week after the decision about the necessity of repealing Obamacare and engaging in new discussions re: the national healthcare problem, legislation that his Republican Party has stonewalled since the Richard Nixon years.

   Here’s some more good news for proponents of the approved bill : a new national poll yesterday by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that about 69% of Republican voters predictably still want the politically-motivated fight to continue in Washington. But only 35 percent of Independent voters and a minuscule number of Democrats were still interested in the ongoing taffy pull, instead urging Washington to move on and concentrate on other issues like job creation. The overall total of these adult voters was 56 percent to accept the Supreme Court decision and 38 percent to continue the partisan hostilities.

   Statistics like this demonstrate conclusively how important it will be this November for Democrats and Independents to show the same voting zeal that the right wing manifested in 2010 that paved the way for the conservative Tea Party legislative takeover across America on both state and federal levels. Because we will all be back to square one on this issue and millions of relieved families will be devastated if GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney were to win the presidency this November and repeal the approved law.

   Romney’s ongoing hypocrisy, which anyone following his political career for nearly the past two decades is well versed with, continues to amaze. He spent half of his four years as Massachusetts governor gallivanting out of state using his office as a springboard to travel the country badmouthing Bay State legislators and citizens, never planning on running for a second term, while laying the groundwork for his 2008 presidential run.

  And ironically the one positive legislation the absentee head of state can legitimately point to is the tremendously-successful state healthcare law he signed in 2006, with a beaming Ted Kennedy beside him. But now he finds himself sprinting away from his own signature achievement in his bid to placate all the Tea Partiers he has to impress for the November election. The approved national law was based almost entirely on his Massachusetts template, despite his continuous and disingenuous running away from the fact.   

   America’s healthcare GDP bite is currently 18 percent, and will rise to about 34 percent by the year 2040 if unchecked. The conservative solution to this conundrum, as their solutions usually are from climate change to job creation programs, is to boot it down the road for succeeding generations to fix. But the tragic stories of so many millions of our citizens being dropped by insurers after getting sick, prevented from getting coverage due to pre-existing conditions, unable to afford insurance, etc. are legion, and will continue to be unless the ongoing ameliorations of the ACA are implemented.

  And we all realize there’s a segment of society that can afford insurance but deliberately forego purchasing it, playing Russian roulette with their health as well as relying on hospitals being legally forced to treat them if an emergency develops. These are all unacceptable circumstances in a nation that is supposed to be the world’s richest, especially when you look at the superior systems that exist in many other developed nations.

   And the major fact that is being misrepresented on a daily basis by Romney and the GOP in Washington is that NOBODY with health insurance will lose it, or will have to change it in any way. No one’s going to "pull the plug on Grandma." Most of us will be unaffected by the new regulations, whether you purchase your own policy and are happy with it, or are covered by your place of employment. But many Americans, some who face unimaginable financial and emotional hardship daily, are currently being assisted by the already-implemented facets of the law (keeping your children on your policy until they’re 26, lower drug costs for seniors), and they and millions of others can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel as more ACA statutes are phased in through 2020.

  Their covered preventative care will save billions of dollars annually that would’ve gone out to treat major illnesses that weren’t detected. Healthcare freeloaders will no longer be able to have the taxpaying public pick up their tab every year. But most importantly virtually every American will have some level of medical insurance benefit, arguably the most necessary one of all.