NRL News
202.626.8824
dadandrusk@aol.com

Countdown to Supreme Court ObamaCare Decision

Jun 26, 2012

 


By Dave Andrusko

   Talk about coming full circle. Many years ago, 23 to be exact, it was the first day of National Right to Life’s annual convention and we strongly suspected the Supreme Court was about to hand down its Webster abortion decision.  This was back in technological Stone Age so there were sizable obstacles to securing the lengthy opinion and then being able to talk coherently about what the Court had held.
   Now it could be Friday, but everybody seems to be in agreement that the Justices will render their ObamaCare decision this Thursday—the opening day of the 42nd annual NRLC convention. And since the convention starts at ten and the Court releases its opinions beginning at ten, we are the brink of a momentuous, if hugely chaotic, convergence.
   As single-issue pro-lifers our specific concerns are not often discussed in the avalanche of coverage/media speculation.  But they are plentiful and important.
   Pro-lifers oppose ObamaCare because it is rife with provisions that will allow the administration to subsidize abortion via insurance coverage, as well as promote euthanasia through health care rationing. We have also seen how there are carte blanche provisions which the Obama Administration has used as justification to  mandate that religious institutions and individuals of conscience pay for health insurance plans that cover medical procedures and drugs contrary to their religious beliefs and conscience. No telling to what nefarious purposes Obama would put that to if he is re-elected.
   As we look forward to Thursday, it is essential to remember that while pro-lifers are determined to repeal ObamaCare for our own reasons, the public as a whole has steadfastly opposed ObamaCare. This has always been the case and contrary to early predictions by Obama partisans, the public never warmed to a law that would remake the entire health care system which accounts for about one sixth of the U.S. economy.
   To give just two recent examples,  the Kaiser Family Foundation’s May update found 44% of respondents were unfavorable toward the law to 37% favorable while a June 14-18 AP/GfK poll found 47% opposed to the law compared to 33% in favor.
   Handicapping the odds of which way the High Court will rule has provided many scribes with a living. Two circuit courts of appeals declared ObamaCare constitutional—the 6th and the District of Columbia. One deemed it unconstitutional—the 11th circuit–-while one (the 4th circuit) said until someone was forced to pay the penalty for not purchasing insurance, a challenge could not be brought
   As we’ve talked about on many occasions in this space, the options for the Justices range from upholding the law in its entirety to gutting ObamaCare—and every combination between.
   Most attention has been, is, and will be paid to what the Justices say about the individual mandate–whether the requirement that virtually everyone has health insurance is (as the plaintiffs argue) an unconstitutional burden on people who do not want to buy insurance. The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit held that it is when it struck down the provision.
   And then there are a raft of other complicated issues. They include the question of should the mandate be declared unconstitutional, can this one provision be “severed” so that the rest of the law (or some or most of the rest of the law) still stands?
   And how about ObamaCare’s expansion of the Medicaid program (which is jointly funded by the states and the federal government). CNN’s Bill Mears has described the question this way: “Can states be forced by the federal government to expand their share of Medicaid costs and administration, with the risk of losing that funding if they refuse?”
  And so forth and so on. The tension and the suspense—very high now—will only grow over the next 36 hours.
  I hope many of our NRL News Today readers will be attending the convention in Crystal City, Virginia, this Thursday, not just to hear about the High Court’s decision, but to be a part of THE pro-life educational event of the year.
   It’s not too late to sign up. Just go to www.nrlconvention.org.
Your feedback is very important to improving National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha

 

Categories: ObamaCare