Now that I’ve calmed down quite a bit from the shock of today’s ruling — a shock exacerbated by the fact that Fox, reading the opinion as written, initially announced the mandate was struck down — I’ve taken a look at both Obama’s and Romney’s statements about the ruling.
As for Obama, he continues to tell us that we can all keep our insurance, that our insurance companies won’t increase our rates “for no reason,” that in 2014 states will be offering us “an array of quality, affordable, private health insurance plans to choose from,” etc., etc. These are all the lies we’ve been told since the democrats started working to pass this monstrosity.
But what’s more disturbing is this statement from Obama: “Today, the Supreme Court…upheld the principle that people who can afford health insurance should take the responsibility to buy health insurance.” He taught in a law school, right? I think I read somewhere that he even taught Constitutional law. The Supreme Court did not uphold the principle behind the Obamacare legislation. All it did was (perhaps erroneously) uphold this legislation as constitutional. And here is our President, treating today’s ruling as if it’s a mandate for Obamacare as policy! He must be delusional.
And yet, the delusional candidate we don’t know, Mitt Romney, isn’t much better. Watch his brief reaction to the ruling, on this video:
How does Romney propose to mandate that insurance companies accept subscribers with pre-existing conditions, and ensure “access to affordable health care,” without increasing the size and scope of government? Without having “the federal government get between us and our doctors”? In his remarks, he says he plans to do this. I’d like to see precisely how. Obama and his democratic allies found it necessary to force a bunch of young, healthy people into the insurance market, in order to create the pretense of “paying” for goodies of the type that Romney promises.
Take the requirement that insurance companies accept subscribers with preexisting conditions. Why don’t the insurance companies do this already? Because they will lose money. So, if Romney is going to mandate that they accept these subscribers, he either needs to find a way to compensate them, or the companies will go out of business. Same with ensuring access to “affordable” health care. If it was profitable to provide whatever Romney thinks is affordable, then some company would be doing it already. So this, too, will need to be paid for somehow. As we all know too well, Obamacare attempts to “pay” for such goodies by forcing people to buy something — insurance coverage — that they would not otherwise buy. And even so, as Romney himself points out, Obamacare will cause a massive increase in deficits and total debt, because the money brought into the insurance market won’t be enough. Does Romney have superpowers? Is he able to make money grow on trees? Am I missing something?