Affordable Care Act & Roberts

[Motown_Johnny]

20. I agree with some of that.

I think he was going to rule with the conservatives to strike down the entire law. He came to realize just how insane that was so he cooked up a compromise. He didn't uphold the commerce clause and instead upheld the law under the government's power to tax. Then he rewrote the medicaid expansion to again limit the federal government's power.

This does help the conservatives by limiting some of the federal government's powers. It also creates a talking point about taxes.

The traps he has laid for the (R)s are this:

1) Rmoney is screwed on calling penalties taxes. He tries to claim that he balanced the budget in MA by not raising taxes. But if penalties (and fees) are now considered taxes then he did raise taxes in MA by around half a billion dollars. This is devastating to his central message.

2) (R) Governors now need to either accept the Medicaid expansion or turn down federal money that would go to help the citizens of their state. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't.