PLANK JUNE 19, 2012
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“They’re not in the real world. They’re up in Washington with their private insurance. They should come down in the sticks and the foxholes, and see what it’s like.” — Dr. Matthew Petrilla, primary care physician at a clinic in rural Tennessee.
The quote above comes from an article written by my colleague Alec MacGillis and produced in conjunction with Kaiser Health News. If you haven't read the article already, you really should.
Petrilla, an army veteran, is talking about the justices of the Supreme Court—and the possibility that they might, as early as Monday morning, issue a decision overturning part or all of the Affordable Care Act. I know how he feels.
During oral arguments in March, the conservative justices most likely to rule against the law spent a lot of time talking about possible infringements of liberty and posing hypotheticals about a broccoli mandate. Although that line of argument seems no more persuasive to me now than it did the first time I heard it, I appreciate and share the justices’ determination to protect personal freedom.
But those same justices betrayed no sense that the law might exist for a reason—that Congress had tried, however imperfectly, to address a very real crisis with very real human costs; that, for tens of thousands of Americans every year, if not more, the Affordable Care Act will likely mean the difference between financial solvency and bankruptcy or maybe even life and death. Those facts don't give Congress the right to violate the Constitution, if the justices truly believe that's what the mandate does. But those facts should give the justices pause, as they contemplate a ruling and its implications—and whether the individual mandate is a “necessary and proper” method of regulating the insurance market.
Of course, the justices aren’t the only people who seem unaware of the law’s impact. The saddest part of Alec’s article was his interview with a mother of two who came to the clinic seeking care for her serious medical problems. “What new law?” she asked when Alec queried her about the Affordable Care Act. “I’ve not heard anything about that.” As Greg Sargent points out, the polls show such sentiments are common. These people may come to appreciate the law after 2014, once it takes full effect—but only if the Supreme Court lets that happen.
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14 comments
I bet if Obama had worked in some pay raises for the SCOTUS they'd spend a lot less time hemming and hawing on this.
- GSpinks
June 19, 2012 at 10:06am
GSpinks, I say cut their pay and staffs to zero. After all, we're in a budget crisis and the Supremes need to chip in. Better still, privatize the whole thing and be done with it. And JC, the Supremes, specifically the pube flavors, don't give a damn about real people.
- tmmats
June 19, 2012 at 10:35am
If the WP doesn't want to publish an article like MacGillis's without significant editing to make it more "balanced", how will the Justices ever learn what it's like for millions of poor Americans. While I'm at it, I'll take a swipe at the NYT, which today has a front pager that inflation is a big problem for the underemployed. Inflation! Good God, do the WP and NYT employ idiots as writers?
- rayward
June 19, 2012 at 12:04pm
"Good God, do the WP and NYT employ idiots as writers?" In a word, YES, especially the WP. Excellent commentary on Alex's column from our dear Jon Chait: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/06/uninsured-continue-to-annoy-us-with-their-pain.html Short and to the point. When you only have rich and powerful that were born to money as your uberlords, why do you expect anything but a kick in the teeth if you're not part of their klan?
- tmmats
June 19, 2012 at 12:48pm
Should the WP be ashamed? I learned about this on AS's blog yesterday. AS initially opposed HCR, then supported it, now is Tory cool toward it. He says, "I've evolved on this issue. In general, I find a huge amount to admire in America's private healthcare system and wouldn't want to alter its essential private structure." Evolved? The man has changed positions so many times he should suffer from whiplash. I mention this about AS because I found his initial oppositon to HCR so shocking, for someone who suffers from AIDS and has many friends who died from AIDS, died in abject poverty and dependent on the mercy of a few kind doctors. WP. AS. It really is true that the poor and sick have no real friends. Excepting, of course, MacGillis and Cohn.
- rayward
June 19, 2012 at 1:04pm
@sahilkapur: No health care ruling today. Justices still combing through the Wikipedia page on the Commerce Clause. It's long.
- Erik_S
June 19, 2012 at 1:26pm
Well also, maybe they are reading the ACA (finally); it is also long. PS amen to this article! People of one class not having the vaguest idea what it's like for others - that's a huge issue here in the US. Maybe everybody needs to spend some time walking in other people's shoes, as part of an ongoing How To Be A Person education.
- Sophia
June 19, 2012 at 1:34pm
rayward - inflation really is a problem for unemployed and underemployed people. I'd add to that, people on fixed incomes (retired people, disabled people etc) and also those who are trying to make it on today's low wages. Rent and food and other essentials keep going up and incomes are falling or flat. Rents in particular are annoying because housing values are falling. Landlords large and small are taking advantage of the fact that people have lost their homes and have to rent, and people who'd otherwise buy aren't able to get mortgage loans, so they're jacking rents. Food of course is subject to fuel costs and also drought/flood and other factors that cause crop failures, etc.
- Sophia
June 19, 2012 at 1:38pm
PS: AS. Rolls eyes; nuff said.
- Sophia
June 19, 2012 at 1:39pm
Don't ya just love those landlords, Sophia? Most of them are heartless bastards. Fortunately, I know one who's considerate of her renters and her employees. She makes a good living, so she feels that's enough. If only the majority of corporate Americans felt like that, this country would be a better place in which to live, including for the landlords. Greedy people don't like themselves--bet on it. And the greediest people of all are many (not all) of the top dogs in the medical industry. They, more than others, should be aware of the human misery that they're taking advantage of. But, of course, rationalization is a much more powerful component of human nature than guilt.
- magboy47.
June 19, 2012 at 2:21pm
magboy, guilt can be a powerful motivator, but with the money they make, there are literally dozens of things they can do to assuage that guilt afterward: a couple of donations here, some high quality blow there, maybe a couple of mistresses or some such, and all is forgiven and forgotten.
tmmats, that would never work, because there are rich democrats too so a private judiciary would be at least partially bought by those whose views differ from their own. Much better to have lifetime appointments and just worry about maintaining their majority on the bench.
- GSpinks
June 19, 2012 at 2:31pm
Gspinks, you can't lower the wages of federal judges under the constitution, but in 2006 Roberts, in his annual statement to Congress, announced that he would address only one topic that year and it was a topic that threatened the independence of the judiciary, their lack of a pay raise.
- Nusholtz
June 19, 2012 at 3:45pm
Well some landlords are fine, others are sharks; the real point though is that people are seriously suffering out here. I am grateful to the NYT for the article referenced by rayward, everybody should read it although I'm sure quite a few of us could have written it. It's high time somebody noticed what has been going on out here, while the rich cry for more tax cuts and Paul Ryan and his supporters, including Romney, vow to increase taxes on the poor. This is a crime.
- Sophia
June 20, 2012 at 1:52am
Nush, I guess we know where Roberts' priorities lie. I don't know if SCOTUS has been receiving appropriate increases over time, like compression for cost of living. I would think Congress has been more than happy to give the judges the same cost of living raises as they give themselves, which leads me to suspect Roberts is being greedy. But there is something to be said for appropriate compensation levels, and I don't know where they are, so I can't burn anyone at the stake myself.
- GSpinks
June 20, 2012 at 10:55am