Tag: slate

Roberts Prevents Single Payer

Matt Yglesias makes a strong case re: the likely philosophical underpinnings of Roberts’ joining the more liberal members of the court to uphold the mandate. Namely that, in the absence of mandate, the Democrats would begin campaigning for Medicare for All. And they’d get it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but almost certainly within a millennium or two, and then for a long time.

But! I don’t think nearly that long of a game is needed, though. Presuming Roberts was never going to gut the whole bill, knocking out just the mandate within the political system as currently figured does nothing so well as guarantee the end of the private insurance system we all know and love within 5 or 10 years. This is because, without a mandate, healthy individuals would have powerful incentive not to buy insurance until they are sick. Since the ACA already prevents insurers from refusing coverage for any reason, you’d simply buy insurance on the day you started needing it. That is, to say the least, an unsustainable business model. Some even called for a “poison pill” in the original law designed to create this situation such that even a GOP government would be forced into extending Medicare to all the moment even their constituents could no longer afford insurance premiums.

Roberts knew all of this. He knew he likely couldn’t simply gut the law without adversely affecting the public’s opinion of the Supreme Court in general and the Roberts court in particular, knew he furthermore couldn’t simply kill the mandate without also killing private insurance (gridlock essentially ensured this outcome), and decided the least of these was simply keeping the mandate and letting Congress sort it out. Which, as it happens, was exactly the right decision by any reading of the Constitution and precedent that my not-a-lawyer eyes can detect. Huzzah for democracy.

Roberts Prevents Single Payer

I Think He’s Got It!

Dave Weigel points out the lesson from Iowa and, as I read it, the broader outlines of the GOP primary thus far:

Four years ago, a depressed GOP went to the precinct caucuses, very well aware that Democrats had all the energy. The total GOP vote: 119,188. This year, Republicans should be psyched about the chance to uproot Barack Obama. There will be something above 122,000 total votes. An improvement, right? Well… in 2008, 86 percent of the people who chose the GOP caucuses were Republicans. This year, 75 percent of the electorate was Republican, with the rest of the vote coming from independents and Democrats. What the hell happened?

What happened is those independent and non-GOP folks are Ron Paul voters; also, pretty much anybody under 65 in the room. So, in what should be a high voter interest year, in the “early” state with the most potential to generate that largely white, evangelical, “Obama is ruining the country” style fervor that the GOP counts on to win its national elections you get…depressed turnout, most of which has no interest in the frontrunner and a large chunk of which isn’t really even interested in your party, much less your presumptive candidate.

So far, Mitt is right where he was in 2008. That’s your story. If there was a true frontrunner here he would have, again, finished well back and would (again) be poised to under-perform in his “firewall” of New Hampshire. Instead, he’ll under-perform and but also win there. That will soften the inevitable South Carolina blow, keep things just interesting enough for the media circus to stay engaged, and only serve to delay the inevitable “well, I guess we have to nominate him now” triumphant GOP convention moment down the road in Tampa. Mitt Romney, reporting for duty! I can already smell the rising tide of national excitement.

I Think He’s Got It!

Jon John: Cornyn and Thune

Reporter 1: Senator Thune, I was just looking at the list of earmark requests that you requested this year [in the Omnibus spending bill] and it adds up to over a hundred million dollars
Thune: I support those projects, but I don’t support this bill [to which my own earmarks are attached; I do not support it because of earmarks.]
Reporter 2: Going through this bill, there is earmark after earmark from the both of you, millions of dollars in earmarks, why do you have any credibility on this?
Cornyn: Because we’re going to vote against the bill.
Reporter 3: It appears like you’re saying one thing and doing another.
Cornyn: Not at all,
Thune: [also stepped in to defend their stance on the Omnibus]
GOP aide: We’ve got to leave it there – we’ve got to get going.