America’s Judas

The conservative John Roberts, the Supreme Court justice nominated by George W. Bush, unexpectedly sided with the Court’s four liberal justices. As a result, the controversial Affordable Care Act was upheld 5-4.

“Traitor” is one of the delicate epithets that has been lobbed at Chief Justice John Roberts as a result of the Obamacare case. After the ruling, angry right-wing talk show hosts ranted and raved so angrily at the ruling that it was almost possible to hear them tearing their hair out on the air. (Of course, the biggest American radio guru is bald.)

All of this anger was a result of Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision to side with the liberal justices in upholding Obamacare. The amount of anger generated by this case was akin to the 2000 ruling that decided the presidential elections that year.

Indiana representative Mike Pence likened the ruling to the September 11 attacks, which he later recanted. At the crux of the argument is the supposedly liberty-crushing “individual mandate.” Either American citizens buy health insurance or are forced to pay an astronomical penalty equal to 2.5 percent of their yearly income!

The individual mandate does not affect the right-wing radio pundits, who are already privately insured. It doesn’t affect the poorest Americans either, since their healthcare was already covered by the government. The individual mandate affects the citizens belonging to the lower middle class, or those who barely manage to make ends meet and forfeit insurance in order to save a couple hundred dollars annually. It is these Americans who go bankrupt in the eventuality of contracting serious illness and are then forced to pay out of pocket. Annually, there are about 1.5 million recorded cases of this happening.

That’s right. In the United States, a million and a half Americans are forced into bankruptcy every year in order to save their health or that of a loved one. The right-wing radio jockeys have nothing to say to these kinds of people except for “too bad.” This phenomenon is more akin to something from a 19th century Dickens novel, a time period that no doubt appeals to the American right-wing and their billionaire supporters.

The main argument against the individual mandate is that the state forces a citizen to buy a product, which in this case is insurance. Under this logic, “you can make people buy broccoli,” said Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the representatives of the American right in the Supreme Court. John Roberts, the traitor, decided that while the government cannot force a citizen to buy a product, it can levy a tax if such a product is not bought. That’s not force. The citizen can decide what to do: Either buy insurance or pay the tax.

The four dissenting justices wrote in their opinion that Justice Roberts’ attempt to legitimize the law “carries verbal wizardry too far, deep into the forbidden land of the sophists.” Indeed, the opinion can be a bit tricky at times to fully understand.

On the other hand, a penalty in the form of a tax is, mathematically speaking, entirely justified. It is standard practice in America for uninsured citizens go to the emergency room, where they are admitted regardless of whether they can pay or not. If they are unable to pay the bill, then local, state and federal authorities pick up the tab. Therefore, there is already a tax for being uninsured, it’s just that it is hidden and paid by all Americans, regardless of whether they are insured or not.

It remains a mystery as to why conservatives, for all of their talk of individual responsibility, insist on upholding a system where all Americans are charged for the E.R. visits of those who game the system. Obama’s healthcare reform is more honest, as it levies a penalty on those who try to get away with others paying their medical bills.

Of course, the most fair healthcare system is one where poor people don’t get treated at all and die in front of hospitals like animals. Then again, there will be those like Justice Roberts who make sure that kind of justice is impossible to get.