Obamacare and Supreme Court Review (Part One)

(Note: This is the first segment in a three part series.)

The powerful forces of conservatism to maintain the status quo are typically easy to identify.  Through control of elected representatives in the presidency and Congress, they complete a trifecta of sorts by decrying the temptation of the appointed branch toward so called judicial activism.  Sometimes, the forces are not so obvious, yet equally effective.  When not favored by the electorate, conservatism exercises a vice grip on the judiciary to undermine the need for change, using whatever methods are required, even judicial activism in its most liberal connotation.  Political labels are relatively unimportant.  It’s the final grade on preservation of the status quo that counts on the report card.

The national media is presently flush in excited discussion.  The US Supreme Court recently entertains three days of grueling oral argument regarding the constitutionality of the new national healthcare law.  Its familiar label has come to be known to the ordinary citizen simply as Obamacare.

In March 2010 a triumphant President Obama signed into law his landmark national health care overhaul, saying it enshrined “the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.”  The passage of this signature legislation had escaped every American leader that has tackled the issue dating back to President Theodore Roosevelt, more than 100 years ago.

The plain fact is that a great number of what estimates project to be the 30 million Americans who will be able to obtain health insurance coverage for the first time under the new law are ordinary citizens of color.  The new law focuses on reform of the private health insurance market.  Benefits include a child’s ability to remain on parents’ family insurance plan coverage to age 26; improved prescription drug coverage under Medicare; and documented cost savings of $1.3 Trillion over a 20 year period (according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, as compared to an “alternative” model where “nothing” is done).

However, one of the law’s principle benefits, the elimination of an insurance company’s previous right to deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, is not designed to take effect until 2014, after the upcoming 2012 presidential election.  Perhaps Congress did get this part right.  Provide the people with a second bite at the apple, a final referendum prior to full implementation.

Meanwhile, conservative Republicans and Tea Party activists nonetheless seek to “repeal and replace” the law, believing, rightly or wrongly, that their success in the 2010 midterm elections was a mandate to do so.  But, when asked what their “replace” law should look like, they can cite no additional benefits which the new law does not already contain.  They are completely lacking on specifics.  This is an ominous indication of obstructionism masquerading as conservatism.

At issue is the authority of the federal government to require citizens to purchase insurance coverage.  Democrats feel that the problem has reached a level of scale which requires a coordinated national response.  Historically, that means the problem has to be really big by definition.  On the other hand, Republicans don’t see a problem that cannot be better or at least more efficiently addressed by the for profit private sector.

Enacted by a Democratically controlled US Congress, the new healthcare law is destined to have its fate determined by the 9 member US Supreme Court.  Of great significance, its makeup presently is understood to be 5-4 conservative-leaning Republican.  The situation presents an interesting confrontation between the three branches of government.

But as provocative as it sounds, this confrontation is hardly new in the annals of US History.

(Next week's second segment will trace the inter-relationship of judicial review with the  workings of the executive branch during the course of several highly visible presidential administrations from Thomas Jefferson to George W. Bush/"43".)


-Michael D'Angelo

The Opportunity to Plan America's Future

Students “should study American History in particular, so they can plan the future,” according to Woodrow Wilson, the young President of Princeton University in his 1902 inaugural address.  “Every concrete thing (America) has done has seemed to rise out of some abstract principle, some vision of the mind,” Wilson said.  “A general serviceableness  …  broad training would help them relate to all types and see their point of view.”

Is it any wonder that many issues ordinary citizens face today are strikingly similar to the issues of a previous day?  After all, the problems are the creations of man.  So shouldn’t it be a simple enough proposition to fix them?

The learning process begins with asking questions, which promotes and inspires critical thinking.  An effective platform evolves through the telling of stories.  When one story is begun, it starts out clear and linear, like anyone’s family tree.  But, then it branches out, loops back and links up with others, until what students think is a simple piece of cloth is suddenly a more complex tapestry.  The classroom is a place so full of curiosity that, through story telling, we can see their lessons and connections to one another.

Based on my experience, students of US History do appear to be in a preferred position to best plan the future, at least when measured alongside those who choose to neglect its study.

But there are legitimate concerns that opportunities afforded to students of US History are not favorable for the development of their genius.  The prospects to exercise opportunities and capitalize on their intellectual position are equally unfavorable.  While the US Constitution guarantees ordinary citizens the “equal protection of the laws,” there is no known guarantee of the opportunity to plan America’s future.

Through history, we learn that today 20% of all Americans control 85% of all wealth, and a full 40% of all Americans possess absolutely no wealth to speak of.  Haven’t we seen this movie before?  What appears to be lacking is not intellectual capacity, for even an ordinary citizen can achieve a significant measure of intellectual achievement, but equal access to America’s economic opportunity structure.

And while the lack of equal access has traditionally been more acute among America’s people of color, it is not strictly limited to that particular demographic.  Women are and have been vulnerable, too, having been denied the right to vote until almost a full 60 years after the black man.  Imagine, then, being both black and a woman?

On the other hand, those who ask questions expose themselves to criticism from a group which claims legitimacy as the sole defenders of the faith of the American spirit.  Dissenters, arguing that while they love what America represents it can still be made better, are seen as un-American.  Challenges posed to majority rule and the status quo are viewed as unpatriotic.  Sometimes, the voices of dissent are silenced by the ruling party through various means.  This is as unfortunate as it is dangerous to our civil liberties.

While the acquiescence of the minority and defeated candidates is a necessary maxim of self-governing society, there is a real, quantifiable danger of the “tyranny of the majority.”  In his 1801 Inaugural Address the nation’s new third president, Thomas Jefferson, sought to assure his defeated foes by proclaiming a sacred principle:

that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

An “error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”  In other words, we are all loyal Americans, whose patriotism should not be questioned and who should not be at another’s throats.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.  We have been called by different names brethren of the same principle.  We are all republicans: we are all federalists.

Jefferson’s tolerance for differences of opinion is admirable.  We all make mistakes.  For some reason, I have been unable to master the wisdom of an old proverb, although I continue to relate it in the hope that others will have better luck: “A wise man learns from his own mistakes, but a wiser man learns from somebody else’s mistakes.”  Can ordinary citizens learn from this lesson as we attempt to plan America's future?

-Michael D’Angelo