Essay On The Obamacare Debate

In order to completely understand the extent of its unconstitutionality, it is important to look at its origins and its constitutional challenges. The first government endeavor into health care was when “Medicaid and Medicare were created [by] President Lyndon B. Johnson… on July 30, 1965” (“What is Medicare”). These two programs were mostly used as a social safety net, and didn’t affect the general public. “On March 22, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (ABC-CLIO). With the Affordable Care Act came the controversial Individual Mandate. The Individual Mandate of the Affordable Care Act is the portion of the bill that forces individuals to purchase health insurance, or face a penalty. This immediately triggered challenges to not only repeal the law, but also to

As stated previously, the main opposition behind Obamacare is whether or not it is constitutional. The basis for its disapproval is in regards to how Obama and the federal government misuse the commerce clause, Article 1 Section 8 of the constitution, as a basis for constitutionality. According to Joe Wolverton, the commerce clause acts as a grant of authority to Congress to “regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states.” Using the commerce clause to allow for the passage of the act shows that “legislative nor executive branch of the national government is bothered by constitutional restrictions on their

The Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was signed into law in March 2010 and it has not been without its share of problems, debates and controversies. One of the main points of the debates and controversies with the PPACA has been the legality of the individual mandate. The individual mandate “requires that most Americans obtain and maintain health insurance, or an exemption, each month or pay a tax penalty” . The whole purpose of creating PPACA was to “achieve near-universal coverage and to do so through shared responsibility among government, individuals, and employers” and to be able to “improve the fairness, quality, and affordability of health insurance coverage” also to be able to “improve health-care value, quality, and efficiency while reducing wasteful spending and making the health-care system more accountable to a diverse patient population” .Those were the top three goals that were the foundation when drawing up the policies for The Affordable Care Act to develop what was hoped to be universal healthcare system for the citizens of the United States. While The Affordable Care Act does have its benefits, such as it would cover pre-existing conditions where most private insurances do not do, more people have the ability to get what they call affordable medical insurance, costs of prescriptions are lower and it even offers tax credits for those that purchase the insurance but it also

According to David Nather’s The New Health Care System: Everything You Need to Know, in 2009, 8% of premiums went to cover the uninsured (pg.38). To alleviate that problem, the Affordable Care Act created the individual mandate, which requires everyone to get health insurance. The idea is that the mandate will force healthy people to get insurance, which will then subsidize the sick and the old. If people do not get insurance, then they will pay a fine to the government. If you cannot afford health insurance then you can apply for an exemption. The new decree does not allow insurance companies to deny coverage and they cannot charge you more if you are sick. The law

Since insurance companies are required to provide care, it makes sense to buy insurance only when you need it. In other words, wait until you get sick to buy insurance, because they cannot turn you down. In order to combat this, the law includes an individual mandate, which requires anyone that can afford it to buy health insurance, or pay a penalty to the IRS. In essence, this is the part of the law that pays for it all. This is also the section many Republicans hate. In their philosophy, the government cannot force someone to buy something they may or may not need. They argued that this law was unconstitutional, and they sued in federal court to have the law nullified. There were three cases overall: one from the states (Florida v. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Svcs.), one from the federal government (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Svcs. v. Florida), and one from the National Federation of Independent Business (Nat'l Fed. of Independent Bus. v. Sebelius). Due to conflicting rulings from the lower courts in

There have been two major Supreme Court lawsuits pertaining to the Affordable Care Act that could have resulted in the repeal or dismantling of the law. One of the Supreme Court lawsuits was the 2012 “NIFIB v. Seleblius” case, which ruled in favor of the ACA with some changes implemented. The other lawsuit was the 2015 “King v. Burwell” case which once again ruled in favor of the ACA. In June of 2016, the Supreme Court saved Obamacare yet again. The ruling held that the Affordable Care Act authorized federal tax credits for eligible Americans living not only in states with their own exchanges, but also in the 34 states with federal marketplaces. It staved off a major political showdown and a mad scramble in states that would have needed to act to prevent millions from losing health care coverage. These Supreme Court decisions prove that they were in favor of Obamacare, although it was damaging to our

Obamacare has drastically raised health care costs for individuals and families. One of the reasons Obamacare was established was to reduce family premiums by $2,500 a year (Anderson 1). However, this goal has not been accomplished yet, the typical family premiums are increasing at rapid rates (Anderson 2). From 2015-2016, Family Silver, one of the most popular family insurance plans, had a ten percent increase on their premiums price. Some states even rose by forty percent (Furchtgott-Roth 3). Middle class families cannot keep paying an arm and a leg for health insurance. Health insurance should not be a major issue for Americans, it should be

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, allowing all Americans access to affordable health care. Despite the urgent need to provide health care to all Americans some Governors and elected Congressmen continue to debate over the necessity to expand Medicaid and the ACA. The Supreme Court on June 28, 2012 ruled in support of the ACA by upholding the individual mandate which require Americans to have health care insurance. Americans without health care insurance, because of this new health care policy will be able to either purchase insurance through the exchange market or through the expansion of Medicaid. Some states are against the expansion of

“ObamaCare contains many benefits, especially for low and middle income families and business” (“ObamaCare: Pros and Cons”). Many people have been having concerns on the cost of the insurance because it has raised in cost. There is a new law out there that President Barack Obama passed called ObamaCare. ObamaCare is also known to be The Affordable Care Act (ACA). The goal of this act was to make sure every American had health insurance by January 2014. ObamaCare went from being something good, to a controversial issue towards Americans. This topic is very debatable in positive and negative ways, it just all depends on how it effects someone. One of ObamaCare’s requirements were to have companies provide health insurance to people

The arguments for/against ObamaCare health care are extensive. This giant law has so many parts that the average American does not even know what is really in this bill. The main supporters argue the bill is constitutional. They believe it is constitutional on three different "powers" of congress under commerce/interstate activity, the necessary and proper clause and the taxing and general welfare clause.

These opponents have been known to seek the help of the courts in their opposition to Obamacare. In the case of the National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius, the Supreme court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the individual mandate

On June 25, 2015, the Supreme Court upheld Section 36B of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the case King V. Burwell. The suit was brought under the argument that the plain language of the statute provided eligibility for tax credits only to those person in states with state-operated exchanges. The Supreme Court disagreed by a 6 to 3 vote saying the wording “…established by the State” was superfluous when reading within “the broader structure of the Act.” Therefore, it was affirmed the law’s federal subsidies to help individuals pay for health insurance are available in all states, not just those that have set up state exchanges.

Some controversy that has arisen due to Obamacare would be the government website crash that occurred on the last day of open enrollment. The technical problems however had nothing to do with the high demand that day. Other issues that have shown up were Republicans see the law as a “job killer” as it imposes too many costs on businesses. Republicans heavily impact the states they are in

Obamacare, officially called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Plan, is reforming the healthcare industry and the American health care system: Even though this reform was developed to give America and more rights and protections within the healthcare system, many are saying it is taking their rights within the healthcare system away. The healthcare reform is said it will help tens of millions who are uninsured but many Americans are seeing Obamacare as a threat related to having the government force them into purchasing insurance or paying a penalty for not having insurance. “The law requires all Americans have health insurance by 2014 (or pay a per month fee for each month without minimum essential coverage). Although this shared responsibility provision is unofficially called an individual mandate, it was ruled to be in fact a tax and not a mandate by the June 28, 2012 Supreme court ruling.” (http://obamacarefacts.com/obamahealthcare-summary/, 2015). A total of 54% of Americans in a recent poll say they are against

“A week prior to July 3rd of 2012 “the Supreme Court decided in favor of the universal healthcare statute that was passed under the Obama administration and upheld the individual mandate. But surprisingly no one of the conservatives decried the decision as contributing to the downfall of society, evidence that President Obama is a socialist, and generally anti-American. But conservatives