Supreme Court delays ruling on Obamacare law until end of month

June 19, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Supreme Court delays ruling on Obamacare law until end of month

By Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – While the media were on stand-by early Monday morning, the drill will repeat itself Thursday, the next day Supreme Court decisions will be released.

Passed in 2010, the constitutionality of the national health care law has been challenged by 26 states. They argue that the federal government cannot require citizens to purchase health insurance and that the law infringes upon states’ rights.

In the meantime, the Obama administration contends that every citizen is already a client in the health care marketplace because everyone needs care at some stage of life.

Some justices appeared fiercely skeptical of the government’s case during oral arguments last March. Justice Samuel Alito, in one memorable instance likened mandatory health insurance to compulsory burial insurance.

“Suppose that you and I walked around downtown Washington at lunch hour,” Alito said to Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., “and we found a couple of healthy young people and we stopped them and we said: You know what you’re doing? You are financing your burial services right now because eventually you’re going to die, and somebody is going to have to pay for it, and if you don’t have burial insurance and you haven’t saved money for it, you’re going to shift the cost to somebody else. Isn’t that a very artificial way of talking about what somebody is doing?”

Verrilli argued that health insurance and burial insurance are “completely different” but was less articulate as to why people should be required to buy the former and not the latter.

It’s an accepted fact that some of the law’s most popular elements will remain in place, at least in Massachusetts.  That state’s largest insurers will continue to allow young adults as old as 26 to remain on their parents’ plans. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan also said they would not charge copayments for a range of preventive services, including select immunizations and screening for diabetes, depression, and colorectal and breast cancer.

Many other provisions of the law remain uncertain. Obama has warned that overturning the law would jeopardize access to health care for millions of Americans, most notably those with preexisting conditions, who cannot be denied coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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