With the Obama administration asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of the national health care law’s individual mandate, it’s likely that the matter will be resolved by next summer, right smack in the middle of the 2012 election. Over at Red State, Ben Domenech explains how a decision could hurt Mitt Romney. I don’t disagree with the analysis, but I also see a way in which a decision could be a big help to the former Massachusetts governor turned presidential candidate.
Let’s just say that the Supreme Court issues a decision striking down the mandate next June (as would be the case under the best-guess scenario), and by that time, Romney is the presumptive GOP nominee. As we know, Republicans are hoping to run against Obama on the health care law, but the big problem with having Romney as the nominee is that Democrats can neutralize the issue by noting the similarities with the law Romney signed in Massachusetts, which also included a mandate. However, if there’s a major, well-publicized Supreme Court ruling against the Obama administration, Romney can respond to any attacks by saying: “My law was constitutional, the Supreme Court just has ruled that Obama’s was not.” The fact of the matter is that states have general police power that was not granted to Congress, allowing them to pass all sorts of awful policies.
As I’ve written a number of times, just because states can impose government-run health care, doesn’t mean they should. So Romney doesn’t deserve a reprieve on this issue as far as the merits are concerned. That said, from a pure political perspective, the constitutional vs. unconstitutional argument would be an easy one for him to make to the average voter who isn’t well versed in health care policy.
For more on this issue, check out my posts on the top five failed defenses of Romneycare, why I doubt Romney would repeal Obamacare and a detailed explanation of why Romney was lying in his health care answer given during the last GOP presidential debate.
