Viewsday
Analysis, discussion and opinions by members of Newsday's editorial board.
Bessent: Barack Obama's high-stakes gamble on health care
Barack Obama made a bold, all-in bet last fall when he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of his signature health care law in the thick of the presidential campaign.
It was best for the nation to have the legal questions hanging over the controversial law resolved before the November election. But for Obama, it was a high-stakes gamble that the court wouldn’t eviscerate the law -- and in the process, hand ammunition to fevered critics branding him a radical willing to trash the U.S. Constitution in pursuit of some fanciful, socialist utopia. That would have been a devastating blow to his reelection campaign.
He won big today when the court ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional.
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Of course Obama’s reelection is far from assured. Republican candidate Mitt Romney can now tell voters who don’t like the law that electing him is their only hope of killing it.
And the mandate in the law that almost everyone buy insurance or pay a fine survived only because the court ruled that penalty is really a tax — a word Obama avoided like the plague when fighting for passage. And the law’s expansion of Medicaid to cover millions of the uninsured took a hit when the court said Washington couldn't take away existing federal Medicaid funding from states that refuse to sign on.
But this was a big one for the president.
Westchester council: We'll explore effects of health care ruling on July 10
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The Supreme Court’s ruling will affect businesses, so the Business Council of Westchester is holding a Rapid Response forum at Pace University on July 10 to help explain it.
Experts Michelle Capezza, a lawyer from Epstein Becker Green, and Leslie Moran of the New York Health Plan Association will explain employer responsibilities, what information they now must provide to employees and what...
Read more »Lilly, Cocca: Chief Justice Roberts follows another Justice Roberts
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At a point at which the majority of the American people had come to view the Supreme Court as just another partisan battleground, Chief Justice Roberts' decision to cross party lines and uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is an important step to restoring the court's credibility as an institution.
In addition, Roberts' opinion decides the issue before the court on the...
Read more »Filler: America can still do big things
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I was in the office of a co-worker about 10 minutes after it became clear the Affordable Care Act had been upheld and she said, “I’m actually way more excited about this than I imagined I would be.”
I think that’s a fairly widespread reaction, and I don’t think it has much to do with health care.
It has to do with the fact that for the first time in almost 20 years, the nation changed...
Read more »Smith: Provider innovation, not government, will reform health care
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I am pleased to see the Supreme Court ruling as the key part of this act was insurance reform to protect patients. That this will be preserved is good. Real health care reform will come from the innovators in the provider community, not government mandates. This will move forward based on creative health systems, not regulations. Dr. Lawrence Smith is dean of the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School...
Read more »Filler: "Repeal and replace" -- it's not going to happen
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You can go ahead and cue the talk of “repeal and replace,” but it’s important to understand that the slogan is merely Republican sound and fury, and signifies nothing.
To repeal the Affordable Care Act, Republicans in Congress would need far more than a majority. In fact, Republicans in the Senate would need far more than the 60 votes they currently require to perform the seemingly simplest...
Read more »Filler: How the Supreme Court's health care ruling affects New Yorkers
So what does the Supreme Court’s upholding of the Affordable Care Act mean to New Yorkers? Not nearly as much as it does to people in other areas of the country.
New York is one of eight states (the others are Connecticut, Hawaii, Vermont, Iowa, North Carolina, Oregon, Maine) that passed 10 major protections outlined in Obamacare into state law. These protections would have held in the Empire...
Read more »Akst: After court decision, health care is a mess, but not a shame
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Well that was close.
As everybody no doubt knows by now, the Supreme Court upheld the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's health care reforms, validating the constitutionality of its requirement that everyone carry health insurance or pay a penalty that the court said is really a tax. This "individual mandate" started life as a pretty good Republican idea, but became radioactive...
Read more »Health care and the Supreme Court: What do you think?
The Supreme Court this morning upheld most provisions of the Affordable Care Act, by a vote of 5-4. The most controversial of the provisions is that individuals must buy health insurance by 2014, or face a penalty on their 2015 tax returns.
The court also sided with the ACA, making it illegal for insurance companies to limit lifetime spending for an individual or to deny coverage for pre-existing...
Read more »Segal: Supreme Court gives Obama benefit of the doubt
Photo credit: Stony Brook University
In a surprising and complicated decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate that was the central part of the Obama administration’s health care overhaul as within Congress's taxing authority. In passing the bill, the administration had labeled the monetary punishment a penalty, not a tax.
As the scope of the taxing power is significantly greater than the substantial but...
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