The Supreme Court of the United States is hearing oral arguments over the next three days over the constitutionality of President Obama’s signature Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (AKA health care reform or the recently administration-embraced “Obamacare”).
SCOTUS will hear three days of arguments over the central provision of the law, namely the individual mandate and the constitutionality of whether the commerce clause which regulates trade among the states can be used to force citizens to purchase a product from a private company. Legal experts appear split – some believe that the mandate will be upheld while others think the Supreme Court’s perennial swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, would side against the mandate.
Whichever way the court decides on the matter, a decision that is expected to come in the early summer, it will have a significant impact on the 2012 elections. Here are some ways the court’s decision could impact American politics ahead of November.
Health Care Mandate Found Unconstitutional:
The individual mandate is struck down. This non-severable part of the health care law that makes the whole thing possible then goes back to Congress to determine what happens to it.
Republicans Benefit: The fundamental premise of the Republican argument against health care reform is confirmed by SCOTUS: the health care law overreached and was unconstitutional. The president’s signature domestic achievement heads back to Congress where it will languish until 2013. The president is robbed of a major pillar of his campaign and is reduced to justifying a second term on the stimulus (e.g. the bailout of the auto industry—the rest of the stimulus is toxic for the president) and the killing of Osama bin Laden. The first has a decidedly mixed record while the second would have been engaged under the same circumstances by any in Obama’s position. The president’s political position is significantly weakened.
Democrats Benefit: Freed from the burden of defending the consistently unpopular health care law, Democrats can charge that they will head to the table in a second Obama term and get health care reform done the right way. Furthermore, Congress now holding the reins of reforming health care will be put into public focus even more. Yes, Democrats still control the Senate but they have managed to get away with painting the Congress as being in Republican control since the start of the 112th Congress. Democrats could emerge from the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate with an even stronger foil in the form an even more important Republican House.
Health Care Mandate Found Constitutional:
The mandate is constitutional and implementation of the law will continue apace.
Republicans Benefit: Republicans, particularly the eventual GOP presidential nominee, that only a Republican president and a GOP-dominated Congress can repeal the massively unpopular law. Yes, it is constitutional – that does not change that consistent majorities favor repeal. The GOP hand may even be strengthened by health care reform’s constitutionality. It keeps the argument in the center of the conversation into the fall and forces Obama to defend his signature achievement in office whereas if the mandate had been found unconstitutional, Obama could have shifted the discussion to other issues.
*Bonus benefit: Republicans can run against the Supreme Court which upheld the massively unpopular law and the GOP presidential nominee can run on the justices he would appoint in office.
Democrats Benefit: The fundamental premise of Republicans opposition to health care reform has been proven groundless. Their signature argument having been struck down, Democrats can ask the public if they feel the Republican party is equipped with the correct judgment to lead. Democrats can promote the most popular aspects of the law, like the provision allowing parents to keep their 26-year-old offspring on their insurance plans secure in the knowledge that the Supreme Court has blessed the individual mandate as the means of paying for such benefits.
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Follow Noah Rothman @Noah_C_Rothman
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