Obamacare stands. The Supreme Court upheld the law not because of the commerce clause, but because it’s being administered as a tax. Justice Roberts pronounced the Courts cannot bar the Federal Government from levying a tax on its citizens. Obama lied to us by saying the healthcare penalty was not a tax, when the Supreme Court now upholds the law soley on the fact that Obamacare is a tax. Not sure why people believed Obama when the penalty itself is collected through Form 1040 by the IRS.
But, there is a problem for Obama. A major part of the success to the implementation of Obama is for Medicaid expenditures funded by the states to increase. The Supreme Court ruled Obama cannot penalize the states for not participating in increased Medicaid spending by denying Medicaid funding from the Federal Government to those states. Many states are unlikely to comply, especially considering their already stretched deficits.
Hopefully this ruling will energize the right wing base enough to repeal the law after the November elections.
