• Justices ask if health care reforms are all or nothing
• Health care activists refocus after court adjourns
• Transcript of Day 3
• Day 2: Justices air doubts about health care mandate
• Day 2: Demonstrations intensify as health care hearings roll on
• Day 2: Audio, video and transcript
• Day 1: High court unlikely to delay health care ruling
• Day 1: Health care protests start small, expected to grow
• Day 1: Audio, video and transcript
The Supreme Court could redefine November’s presidential election in June when it rules on President Obama’s health care reforms. But even if the court strikes down Obama’s signature legislative achievement, it may not prove fatal to his re-election prospects, analysts said.
Obama’s health care overhaul both emboldened Democrats and enraged conservatives when it passed in 2010. And while its most controversial provision, requiring most Americans to buy health insurance, doesn’t even take effect until 2014, all of the Republicans seeking to challenge Obama in the fall are pledging to repeal the reforms before they can be implemented.
At the same time, most Americans have turned against the legislation — the White House contends they are just confused about the merits of the overhaul — prompting some progressive analysts to predict that a Supreme Court reversal wouldn’t necessarily doom Obama. Indeed, it could help rally former supporters who have grown disillusioned with the president over his first term, they said.
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” said Democratic strategist Doug Schoen. “It would provide a cause for the Left, a way to rally the troops.”
One of the reasons the Supreme Court decision on health care could be less detrimental than many reform supporters feared is that Obama could be running against Republican Mitt Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts implemented health care reforms very similar to Obama’s. And while Romney pledged to repeal Obama’s reforms, the White House has routinely tried to undermine Romney by calling him the “godfather” of Obama’s plan.
Democrats on Wednesday were already setting the stage for a showdown with Romney over health care.
“Gov. Romney was so much involved in creating just about this exact law that his attacking it now is going to have virtually no credibility,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
A Supreme Court ruling against the health care reforms could actually boost Obama’s argument for re-election, Democrats said, because such a decision could cause insurance premiums to soar and would eliminate the requirement that insurance companies provide coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions.
As part of its effort to promote Obama’s plan, the White House has highlighted some of the law’s more popular provisions, including one that allows children under age 26 to remain on their parents’ health care plans.
Administration officials on Wednesday dismissed talk of Obama benefiting from a Supreme Court reversal of his signature achievement and said they have no backup plan ready if the law is struck down.
“We remain confident they’re going to find the entire thing constitutional,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “There is no contingency plan that is in place.”
