Reactions: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Individual Mandate; Will Be Factor In Obama Vs. Romney And Congressional Races

In a move that surprised some observers, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate in President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Some political insiders were stunned Thursday that the ruling was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative whose nomination had been opposed by the liberal Obama when he was serving as a U.S. Senator.

Roberts joined with the court’s liberal justices in crafting the final opinion.

The ruling, according to a Quinnipiac University pollster, will help Obama in the presidential race this fall against Republican Mitt Romney, who immediately vowed to repeal Obamacare if he is elected.

“You can hear the sigh of relief at the White House,” said Peter A. Brown, the poll’s assistant director. “The decision will certainly be a plus for President Barack Obama’s re-election because it allows the president’s signature achievement to stand. Since politics is the ultimate zero-sum game, what’s good for Obama is bad for Governor Mitt Romney.”

He added, “The decision, however, will allow Romney to continue campaigning against the law and promising to repeal it.”

On April 20, a Quinnipiac poll said 51 percent of voters favored a repeal of the 2010 health care law.

While Democrats hailed the decision, small businesses and Republicans were already expressing concern soon after the result was announced. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon called it “extremely disappointing.” Her opponent in the August 14 Republican primary, former U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, said, ”Obamacare is the single greatest infringement on our individual liberties and personal freedoms that we have seen in my generation. This was a power grab of the U.S. health care system by Chris Murphy, a Democratic Congress, and the Obama Administration.”

Murphy, who has served in the Congress for the past six years and is running in the Democratic primary for the Senate, told reporters in a telephone conference call that “the Supreme Court got it right.”

The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has already scheduled a vote in July to repeal the law.

In the 5th Congressional District that is being hotly contested with two multi-candidate primaries on August 14, Democrat Chris Donovan of Meriden praised the decision, while Republican Lisa Wilson-Foley of Simsbury said it was disappointing.

Andrew Markowski, the Connecticut state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, said the ruling “guarantees that Connecticut residents will have their most personal health care decisions made by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington” in the future.

“The tragedy in this ruling is that Connecticut residents are now at the mercy of politicians from other states and bureaucrats in Washington whose decisions won’t be based on what is best for Connecticut,” said Markowski, who lobbies at the state Capitol in Hartford.  “Small businesses here will be overwhelmed by mandates, taxes and burdens imposed on them by people whom we cannot as easily hold accountable.”

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who supports Obama, hailed the decision.

“Connecticut is a clear winner in this decision, not least because the Medicaid funds are fully preserved for states like Connecticut that have expanded their coverage to cover all of the at-need families,” Blumenthal said in an interview with Capitol Watch. “It’s a very solid and sound result overall for Connecticut and the country. It preserves vital patient protection rights and reforms. People will be protected from abuses like losing insurance when they get sick.”

He added, “This law is not perfect, but we cannot turn back the clock to the days when the insurance companies made the rules regarding life and death.”

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, said the state will now be implementing the nuts-and-bolts changes that are contained in the law. The state could have been in jeopardy of losing some Medicaid funding, but officials said that will not be a problem under the ruling.

“This is a gigantic win for the people of Connecticut – the 500,000 people who would have been in a position to lose coverage if the whole law had been struck,’’ Malloy told reporters in Hartford. “This is as good a result as we possibly could have expected. I have not always seen the wisdom of Chief Justice Roberts, but he demonstrated that he has it.’’

Malloy said that commentators on the conservative FOX News television channel were gleefully “spiking the football” when saying that Obamacare had been declared unconstitutional, but they later realized that the law had been upheld. He said he was seeking to get a tape of the program, adding that it is rare that FOX News says that they were wrong.

State comptroller Kevin Lembo, a Democrat, hailed the decision by the court.

“This historic decision upholds decades of work to ensure that millions of uninsured Americans, including at least a half million Connecticut residents, have access to health care,” Lembo said. “This victory, while critical, is only a new starting point. The federal government – and Connecticut – must maintain momentum to reform and improve our health-care system at every level. Connecticut has been a leader in health care innovation – transforming its own health care system, as an employer, to save lives and dollars by focusing more on quality preventative care.”

Lembo added, “While employers in the rest of the United States are experiencing health care cost increases of more than 8 percent – more than twice the rate of inflation – Connecticut, as an employer, has stabilized its own rates with no increase. Connecticut’s successful initiatives reinforce what I have long advocated – that when you improve health care delivery, you improve health care savings.”

The state healthcare advocate, Victoria Veltri, focused partially on the court’s ruling on Medicaid, a federal-state program that provides assistance to the poor.

“The court also recognized the constitutionality of the critical provision of a Medicaid expansion that will allow us to cover people up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level with 100 percent funding from the federal government in 2014.  Connecticut has a large, uninsured low-income population.  The Medicaid expansion is vital to the goal of covering the uninsured in our state,” Veltri said in a statement. ”The Medicare reforms under the ACA have saved consumers $53 million is prescription drug costs, will close the Part D donut hole in six years, allow preventive screenings with no cost sharing to encourage cost savings, and make significant investments in curbing fraud, waste and abuse in the Medicare program.

 “OHA has received approximately $530,000 in consumer assistance program grants under the ACA.  With that funding, OHA has served thousand of Connecticut residents in enrollment in and education on healthcare coverage and direct assistance with grievances and appeals.”

Dr. Michael M. Krinsky, the president of the Connecticut State Medical Society, said, “Although the law does not guarantee patients access to medical care, it removes an important barrier to care, which is the ability to have health insurance coverage. Clearly even large insurance companies have come to understand the benefits of extending insurance coverage to young adults under their parents’ policies in agreeing to leave those benefits in place no matter the outcome of the decision. Raising Medicaid reimbursement rates to match Medicare levels may bring about greater access to care for patients who have the most acute health needs and the least ability to obtain regular medical care today. Now it’s up to state officials to choose whether to pursue this important course of action to increase access.”

Krinsky, who represents doctors across the state, added, “Connecticut has already embarked upon a well-thought-out plan for reform; this decision allows our state to move full steam ahead with a new health insurance marketplace, called the insurance exchange, and we hope, a new model for providing health insurance, the non-profit consumer-directed plan called HealthyCT. Later this summer, patients and employers will get almost $13 million dollars back from for-profit insurance companies because they didn’t spend enough money on actual health care. That kind of accountability is long overdue. Absent this law, that money would never go back to consumers.”

Doctors have battled for years to increase the payments that they receive for medical treatment.

“The Connecticut State Medical Society continues to support reform measures aimed at providing all Connecticut patients with affordable, quality medical care – where funding follows the patient; physicians are fairly reimbursed for the care they provide; and the patient-physician relationship is honored at its core,” Krinsky said.

U.S. Rep. Joseph Courtney, a Democrat who has worked extensively on healthcare for many years that stretch back to his days in the state legislature in Hartford, hailed the ruling.

“Today’s ruling is a landmark moment in the fight for stable, secure health coverage for all Americans. Congress debated, the Supreme Court decided, and now the implementation of the Affordable Care Act can move forward,” Courtney said in a statement. “As with any law, the Affordable Care Act is not the final word on health care. This Congress and future Congresses can make commonsense amendments in response to real-life problems. For example, we already repealed the onerous 1099 filing requirement last year, and extended age 26 coverage to military families after ACA’s enactment. I look forward to actively promoting that smart, positive effort.
 
“In eastern Connecticut last year, 4,600 young people were able to remain on their parents’ health policy until the age of 26 while they transitioned into the workforce. That benefit is protected permanently.”

Courtney said that 7,700 senior citizens in eastern Connecticut had received more than $5 million in prescription drug discounts in 2011 of more than $5 million. That overall total is expected to grow because the federal law is designed to close the so-called “donut hole” in Medicare Part D that provides prescription drugs for the elderly at taxpayer’s expense.

So far, 470 small businesses in the Second Congressional District have already received federal tax credits in order to provide health insurance for their workers, according to Courtney.

“If you become gravely ill, battling a costly condition like hemophilia, there are no longer lifetime caps on benefits,” Courtney said. “And beginning in 2014, if you lose your job, you will not lose your health coverage.”

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, a Greenwich Democrat who defeated U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays of Bridgeport in the 2008 race, said, “With this decision in place, people and businesses across the country can move forward with the certainty that they will have access to affordable health insurance. Would-be entrepreneurs can now start their own businesses without fearing they won’t be able to purchase insurance for their families and employees, and recent graduates can take jobs at a startup or a nonprofit that doesn’t provide insurance—because they will be able to purchase it themselves. You will not lose access to health care if you lose your job, women can’t be charged more than men for coverage, and kids with asthma and moms who survived cancer will be able to get health insurance.  We can now move forward with the Affordable Care Act’s reforms, which will lower costs, better coordinate our health care, and provide more financial stability for families and businesses that purchase health insurance.

“Because of health care reform, for the first time in over a decade, we saw a decrease in the growth of health care costs. I look forward to seeing continued progress as the remainder of the new law goes into effect and we tweak the law to continue to slow the growth of health care spending.”