George Rebane
The notion that we have a conservative lean to SCOTUS vanished this morning as the high court announced its decision on Obamacare. The only scrap thrown to conservatives was the ruling that the act’s individual mandate to buy health insurance was really a federal tax, and not the exercise of a federal power under the 14th Amendment’s commerce clause (something its backers have strongly denied).
So now the nation is looking into its largest tax increases since WW2 as it struggles to end Depression2. To progressives this makes no nevermind , since they don’t believe that tax rates affect economic activity. There are other provisions of the court’s voluminous ruling which will become clear as it is dissected word by word, and then, of course, litigated.
But the clear impact of the ruling is that US healthcare will now become a commons like its European forbears, especially the British National Health Service. And it will suffer the same fate, only on an accelerated time scale since our nation’s debts and unfunded liabilities are already astronomical. Specifically, fewer people will study to be healthcare professionals, thereby making healthcare resources more scarce and expensive – it all has to be paid for by someone. And state rationing will become inevitable as the costs of delivery are further disconnected from impacting the patient.
When we now look at the Arizona and Obamacare rulings as a piece, we ask what can we hope from SCOTUS in slowing our gallop to becoming a socialist state on the way to revolution or autocracy. The Great Experiment – can Man govern himself? – that the Founders set up for us now seems on the brink of failure. This November will let the historically challenged electorate decide – we live in the age of spin and sound bites. To be sure, the socialists are already happy dancing in the streets, and promising to redouble their efforts in “building a new world.” Stay tuned.
[Addendum] Commenter MickeyMcD points us to a piece on mises.org, one of my favorite websites. From there I filched the above graphic and reproduce the following by Murray Rothbard –
Our very real medical crisis has been the product of massive government intervention, state and federal, throughout the century; in particular, an artificial boosting of demand coupled with an artificial restriction of supply. The result has been accelerating high prices and deterioration of patient care. And next, socialized medicine could easily bring us to the vaunted medical status of the Soviet Union: everyone has the right to free medical care, but there is, in effect, no medicine and no care.
And Erick Erickson’s ‘I’m not down on John Roberts’ fills in the details on the political vs constitutional aspects of the court’s ruling.
rebanesruminations.com 
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