Health-care reform survives
In the unlikely event you missed it, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate—a central piece of the 2009 health-care reform law—in a 5-4 decision today. Read the decision here (pdf) and, if that doesn't keep you busy, follow SCOTUSblog's live blog for ongoing analysis.
Whatever this decision means for the presidential election, future SCOTUS decisions, or future health-care laws, it's important not to lose sight of its most important effect: millions of people will have health insurance who otherwise likely would not have been able to acquire it. If you believe, as I do, that basic health care is a right and not a privilege, that's unqualified good news. Though less so, as Bryan Cones points out in agreemeent with the Catholic bishops (no everyday occurrence, that) if you're an undocumented immigrant.
Garrett Epps spells out how this decision affirms that Chief Justice Roberts—not Justice Kennedy, as the conventional wisdom has maintained—defines and controls today's court. Roberts is playing a long game, Epps maintains, the results of which may far outweigh today's win for supporters of universal health care and for the president. Adam Serwer takes a somewhat rosier view, calling Roberts health-care reform's "unlikely savior" and recalling the time when then-Senator Obama explained his vote against Roberts's place on the Court:
