Is Healthcare At The Crossroads?

Emerging decisions will impact you and everyone you know.

Whether you call it Obamacare or the Affordable Health Care for America Act; whether you’re a supporter or a detractor; and whether you’re an employer, an employee or even unemployed, the healthcare reform law is bound to have significant impact on your life.

Its second anniversary was Friday, March 23. And on Monday, March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court began deliberating its fate. The most contentious provision — the individual mandate that would force all Americans to buy insurance or pay a penalty — will be the Constitutional lynchpin that the high court, in all likelihood, will vote up or down.

The arguments are clearly drawn, which is surprising for such a complex law — most of which hasn’t even gone into effect yet. Does the Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution) empower the federal government to require citizens to purchase specific goods or services — in this case, health insurance?

If the Court says no, it might choose to sever the individual mandate, leaving the rest of the law intact. The danger there is self-evident: the uninsured will have no incentive to purchase health insurance until they actually need it. The law’s system of affordable health-insurance exchanges, in that scenario, becomes unsustainable.

But healthcare prior to the law’s passage was likewise unsustainable, with 20% of our population without health insurance coverage of any kind. Annually, the uninsured consume more than $100 billion in healthcare services, with more than $60 billion of those costs going unpaid.

Healthcare and politics have become inextricably linked. It’s already a hot-button issue for the next election, and will only become more fraught after the Supremes hand down their decision.

So it’s all too easy to forget what’s at stake: our economy, and maybe our future viability as a society. If Obamacare isn’t the answer, then what is?

We need to know. Share your thoughts below.

The C4:

1. The Affordable Health Care for America Act was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010. To date it has outlawed exclusion by insurers for pre-existing conditions and has allowed children to stay on their parents’ policies up to age 26. Its most contentious requirement, the individual mandate, is not scheduled to go into effect until 2014.
2. The Supreme Court will hear six hours of arguments on the law, which began on March 26.
3. Opponents maintain that the government has no power to force private citizens to purchase health insurance. The administration argues that since we’re all consumers of healthcare services, the Commerce Clause grants precisely that power.
4. In either case, the costs of providing healthcare to all Americans are unsustainable.