The US: An Attack on Health Care Reform

Since Monday [March 26], the United States Supreme Court has been reviewing different aspects of health care reform law launched by President Barack Obama. During the three days of hearings, the nine senior judges of the Supreme Court exchanged and listened to opinions about the most controversial topic of that law: the obligation to have medical insurance or pay a fine if you don’t.

The discussion took place in the second day of hearings. Five out of the nine judges that make up the highest court, all of the five conservatives, complained about the attempt of intrusion from the government into a private activity. They agreed that if you allow the government to impose having health insurance, there is no reason not to allow them anything else afterward.

What does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act intend to solve?

With the health care reform bill, Congress tried to break a vicious circle: 50 million Americans lack health insurance; when one of them needs medical attention, the insurers must pay the hospitals, and to cover those expenses, they raise the policy costs of those who do have it. The government estimates that the average family pays approximately 1,000 dollars extra each month to cover that gap. The price is so high that many citizens can’t afford it, especially if they are unemployed.

The conservatives have posed this debate about the reform as a duel between freedom and totalitarianism.

The attorney for the 26 states that denounced the government, Paul Clement, claimed that forcing citizens to buy anything, even health insurance, is unconstitutional because it violates the most basic individual rights.

The government’s advocates, on the other hand, argue that it is a different market from any other: “At some point, everyone will need health care during their lifetime.” “If a person chooses not to participate in the insurance market, he or she is making it more expensive for people who do,”* in reference to the price hikes that insurance companies impose.

The government argues that it included the individual mandate to guarantee that all citizens are insured at all times and to fill a budget gap of $43 billion generated by uninsured people.

It argues that health care accounts for 17 percent of the country’s economy and that people who don’t have medical insurance also participate in it, either paying for medical coverage with money out of their pocket or simply not paying at all.

The state’s main attorney, Donald Verrilli, said that this imposition (the mandatory medical insurance) is indispensable to sustain the health care system.

It is estimated that 9 million Latinos in the U.S. will be able to get health insurance once the law is completely implemented.

Over the decades, different presidents have tried to reform the national health care system and failed. In [2010], the Obama administration, without Republican support, made Congress pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Since this major reform to the health care system was passed two years ago, there has been a change in the way the legislative branch is made up, with Republicans balancing the benches in the Senate and winning the majority in the House of Representatives.

As a consequence, 26 states legally challenged the act, which brought the historic hearings to the Supreme Court. The most vocal detractors of this act belong to the conservative tea party.

The court concluded its third day of hearings about the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday. During its last session, the court debated in what state Obama’s bill would remain, and whether the requirement to have medical insurance would be eliminated.

“My approach would be to say that if you take the heart out of this statute, the statute’s gone,” stated the conservative judge Antonin Scalia, advocating that, if the requirement to have insurance is suppressed, then the whole legislation should be branded unconstitutional. Scalia held that it wasn’t realistic to think that this tribunal could go over each line of the bill and decide which ones where related to the mandate and which ones weren’t.

The two judges that are considered to be more moderate within the conservative group, John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy, showed doubts about the convenience of keeping the law if the requirement is suppressed.

Nevertheless, there wasn’t a clear consensus about the fate of the bill if the judges decide to reject the mandatory insurance.

The verdict about the reform will come in late June, when the presidential race is in full swing.

The White House still hopes this verdict is auspicious.

*Editor’s Note: These quotations, while accurately translated, could not be verified.