A Virginia judge has cleared the way for a partial strikedown of Obamacare in the Supreme Court. But there could be problems with a partial victory against Obamacare. Big problems.
Yes, it would send a signal – loud and clear – that the Constitution still has some ability to check power. Yes, it would be useful for smearing those Congressmen eager to run roughshod over America’s sacred rulebook. Yes it would strke down one of the most illiberal aspects of the legislation. But the individual mandate was designed by technocrats to keep the monstrous new Obamacare system from getting too expensive. Let me explain.
Now that insurance companies can’t turn away people with pre-existing conditions, premiums are going up and may skyrocket. The technocrats know this. So, the idea was, they had to force the young ‘invincibles’ into the insurance pool. (You know, those crazy kids with their good health and low risk.) They only had to borrow an idea from Gov. Mitt “MassCare” Romney.
The young invincibles are people who think “because I’m young and healthy, I’m not willing to pay $100-$400 a month (depending on the state) to have health insurance. If I get sick, I’ll pay out of pocket.”
This rationale keeps healthy people out of the risk pool, which means premiums get higher for everyone in the pool–particularly older, sicker people. The technocrats knew that if they could get more young people into the risk pool — by force of law — they could stave off the “death spiral,” which all of Obamacare’s other godawful mandates will hasten.
But if the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate, the death spiral will come as night follows day. As premiums go up and up, people — especially people just starting to earn on the income ladder — will forego health insurance. Only the sick and injured will remain and premiums will be even more expensive than they already are. The army of uninsured will remain or they will all turn to the federal “exchange” – i.e. the proto-public option.
Obamacare will remain awful — just like the Massachusetts system — only Massachusetts has an individual mandate keeping kids in the pool. So while Obamacare’s individual mandate is illiberal and probably unconstitutional, it is probably the only thing that would have kept premiums down. Strike it down and premiums will soar. Health insurance costs will continue to inflate. And the vice will tighten.
Maybe it will get so bad that people will agitate for repeal in Congress. One can only hope. But a victory in the Supreme Court will be a pyrrhic victory. And healthcare will continue to cannibalize any future growth we’re able to muster in the wake of everything Bush II and Obama have wrought with this economy.
In a moment of lucidity today, Sarah Palin wrote in support of Paul Ryan’s Roadmap for the Wall Street Journal. This passage on healthcare is relevant:
On health care, it would replace ObamaCare with a new system in which people are given greater control over their own health-care spending. It achieves this partly through creating medical savings accounts and a new health-care tax credit—the only tax credit that would be left in a radically simplified new income tax system that people can opt into if they wish.
Sounds great. It’s market friendly. It gives people access to healthcare. And of course, this is what we should have done from the start. But Congressional Democrats and the Great Technocrat himself, pushed forward headlong into a monstrous piece of social engineering that has its tentacles in everything. The goal? A single payer system or the purchase of a thousand new special interests. Or both.
In short, Obamacare cannot be allowed to continue without full repeal. A partial strikedown will only make it hurt more. So, while we can celebrate winning a battle against socialized medicine, Obamacare has made other inroads. There are many more battles. We may be fighting this healthcare trench war — while paying terrible premiums — for a long time to come.
Max Borders is a writer living in Austin. He blogs at Ideas Matter.
