Is Health Care plan constitutional?

Last week the Supreme Court concluded three days of hearings regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – commonly referred to as “Obamacare.”

A ruling is expected later this summer and will undoubtedly be one of the most important – and divisive – court decisions in recent memory.   

The health care debate is politically charged and oftentimes contentious. But it is important to put a few facts forward so as to clarify the issues involved.

The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not provide universal health care coverage for all of its citizens.

    The Census Bureau estimates that more than 50 million Americans are uninsured. For them this has real and tragic consequences.

    A report published in the American Journal of Public Health, by researchers at Harvard Medical School, found by using statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that more than 45,000 people die every year because they cannot get access to health care – more than drunk driving and homicide combined.

    Moreover, according to the World Health Organization, the United States pays more for its health care and, in fact, ranks lower in terms of quality of care than most other industrialized nations.

    Six out of 10 bankruptcies are due to the outrageous and skyrocketing costs of health care, according to the American Journal of Medicine.

    In other words, our health care system has many problems and leaves much to be desired.

    At the heart of the Obamacare controversy is the so-called individual mandate, which says everyone must purchase health insurance or face a penalty equal to the cost of health insurance.

    It is for this reason I do not like President Obama’s health care plan.

    His bill strengthens the powerful, private insurance industry by forcing people to purchase their product.

    These are the very companies rationing care by denying coverage and disputing claims so as to maximize their profit and minimize their risk.

     Nonetheless, I believe that President Obama’s health care bill does do some good things and is a step forward in some respects. For example it allows us young people to stay on our parent’s insurance until we’re 26.

    It also prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to people based on pre-existing conditions – a sinister and heartless calculation as they seek to increase profits at the expense of human lives.

    In a country as wealthy and great as ours, our current health care system is a moral travesty and reform is greatly needed.

    But if Justice Kennedy’s questions of the lawyers representing the Obama administration are any indication, the law may very well be found unconstitutional.    

    However, this might not prove to be such a bad thing.

    After people see through the misrepresentations of the Right and lose those benefits they gained from the bill’s passage, real action might finally be taken toward a comprehensive, universal health care system, which is ultimately needed if we are to live up to those words recited at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance – “justice for all.”

– Andrew Izatt is a sophomore majoring in economics and philosophy. Send comments to andrew.izatt@aggiemail.usu.edu.