While the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act is obviously a great victory for President Obama (and good news for the tens of millions of uninsured Americans), you could also argue that, in the long run, it’s good news for Congressional Republicans.
James Surowiecki explains how the Supreme Court’s health-care decision may be good for Republicans: http://nyr.kr/MEkaXM
Been seeing this a lot lately - that this is a secret victory for the republicans because it limits the commerce clause. The reading doesn’t seem that way. Yes, Roberts says things like “The commerce clause is not a general license to regulate an individual from cradle to grave”, but he also goes to great lengths to say just how powerful and far-reaching the commerce clause is. He DOESN’T say it could potentially be used to regulate an individual from cradle to grave, he says it’s not an explicit license to do so. He only limits the ability of our government to compel us out of inaction, via the commerce clause. He does not limit the government’s ability to compel us out of inaction via any other legal and constitutional means at their disposal (conscription, etc), and he does not limit the government’s power to regulate under the commerce clause. It’s pretty narrow, actually, and given the tax loophope he solidified, pretty easily circumnavigable.
