The Secret Plan of the Supreme Court

The three days of debate before the nine justices of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the law requiring all Americans to have health insurance is actually hiding something else. First, the law known as the Affordable Care Act is an idea concocted by the conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation and tested and implemented by Mitt Romney, then the governor of Massachusetts, who is now trying to promote the idea that, in reality, the law has nothing to do with “Obamacare.” Ironically, the idea of mandatory health insurance for all persons residing in the United States was originally a way of trying to control all those who took advantage of the U.S. health care system (read: foreigners, the poor) without paying insurance. The case may be brought before the Supreme Court by 26 states (including 25 ruled by Republicans) and a coalition of ultra-conservatives, including the Thomas More Law Center* (which presents itself as the “Christian response to the American Civil Liberties Union,” an organization defending freedom of expression) and the infamous Jerry Falwell University, founded by the extremely conservative Jerry Falwell. If it is brought before the Court, it will be because, in reality, something else is at stake in this case.

That this issue will be debated before the Supreme Court reveals the extraordinary political activism of this court, which seats not only John C. Roberts, the chief justice appointed by George W. Bush, but especially Justice Clarence Thomas. That Thomas is seated in this august body is in itself unlikely. He and his allies deny the government and Congress any right to extend the role of the state. That 62 percent of bankruptcy cases in the United States are due to medical care issues is of no interest to Thomas.

Virginia, the wife of this mediocre lawyer (who was accused of sexual harassment during his [Supreme Court confirmation] hearing in front of the Senate), is a passionate proponent of the war against the government. She created a political action committee called Liberty Central to finance the opposition to the law on health care reform. Worse, at demonstrations of all sorts that it organizes, Justice Thomas not once has had the decency to at least not participate. A flagrant lack of judgment, not to mention ethics, should disqualify Thomas from participating in the current debates on the subject before the Court. It has not even crossed his mind that he is at war against the very government he is entrusted to protect.

If the Court finds the law on [mandatory universal] health insurance unconstitutional, it is actually a series of important laws that will be threatened, according to Patricia J. Williams, law professor at Columbia University: the act establishing Social Security, setting the standards for air pollution, the law on equal pay or the anti-trust laws, to legislation on the equal civil rights between whites and blacks. The Supreme Court is involved in a fight against the very foundations of American society. It’s the return of McCarthyism under a different mask.

*Editor’s note: It is the Thomas More Law Center, rather than “Moore,” as it is spelled in the original article.