It's up to the people now

The U.S. Supreme Court has rendered perhaps its most momentous decision in decades in upholding the Affordable Care Act on a 5-4 vote Thursday.

President Barack Obama can claim the Supreme Court’s ruling as a powerful victory. If the centerpiece accomplishment of his first term had been overturned, it certainly would have been perceived as a defeat.

On Thursday, he emphasized that the court “reaffirmed a fundamental principle that here in America — in the wealthiest nation on Earth — no illness or accident should lead to any family’s financial ruin.” That is certainly the feel-good aspect of the law, but not everyone will agree with Obama that his law was a practical means of reaching his goal.

Indeed, the ruling has now crystallized the choice voters will have this November in a presidential election that has been vastly elevated in its importance. Republican House members announced they will hold a vote to repeal the law on the week of July 9, and Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney vowed to pursue repeal his first day in office, if elected.

The law was already divisive, and now it is even more so.

Few people understand the 2,700-page law that was passed without a single vote in support from the minority party. It was opposed by 26 states and has been unpopular with the public in a litany of polls. This is an albatross for President Obama going into the November election. He will be put in a position of having to defend it even though he and his allies will surely just want to consider it a settled matter. His opposition, including Romney and candidates in down-ticket races in every state, are unlikely to go along with moving on. They will make it an issue.

“Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. Maybe so, but that does not preclude the people from passing judgment upon it, or upon the Congress that approved it.

It is certainly odd that the court ruled the law’s individual mandate is a tax, legitimately imposed by Congress, when President Obama adamantly insisted on national television in 2009 that it is “absolutely” not a tax, most likely because “tax” can be a politically poisonous word.

In his response to the ruling, Romney asserted that the act will have the impact of multiple tax increases, funneling billions of dollars to a vastly expanded government and adding to already record deficit spending. The government will become entwined with one-fifth of the national economy, with the Internal Revenue Service in charge of enforcing the individual mandate with thousands of new revenue agents.

Romney characterized the law as a job killer, citing a U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey finding that three-quarters of responding businesses regard the Affordable Care Act as a hindrance to hiring. And that’s no surprise, because of the uncertainty that is created by such a sweeping piece of legislation.

The economy was and still is the main issue in this presidential race, and the Affordable Care Act is bound to be perceived by many voters as a major, inseparable economic issue.

The justices have voted, and the American people will have their say in November.