President wins again on reformation of health care

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s reaffirmation of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature policy initiative, the political battle isn’t over. That’s unfortunate, because it’s time for a meeting of the minds between Democrats and Republicans.

We say “reaffirmation” to highlight the fact that last week’s 6-3 decision in favor of the ACA, derisively called “Obamacare” by its detractors, is the second time the Supreme Court has supported health-care insurance reform. The first was in 2012, when a majority upheld the provision that requires most Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty.

Then, as now, Chief Justice John G. Roberts was the key to the high court’s decision. Last week, the ruling centered on whether the federal government acted legally when it extended tax-credit subsidies to low- and middle-income Americans to help pay for insurance premiums regardless of where they live.

“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”

The ruling was a major victory – again – for Obama, who wasted little time in showing up in the Rose Garden to declare that the ACA “is here to stay.”

But, Republicans in Congress and 2016 GOP presidential candidates were quick to throw down the gauntlet, as the GOP has done since Obama signed the ACA into law in March 2010.

“This is no longer about a law,” the president said after the Supreme Court ruling. “This is health care in America.”

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, isn’t impressed with Obama’s declaration or the Supreme Court’s ruling. Boehner said Republicans, who have voted more than 50 times to undo the law, will “continue our efforts to repeal the law and replace it with patient-centered solutions that meet the needs of seniors, small-business owners and middle-class families.” However, the Associated Press reported that the speaker declined to commit to a vote this year.

So, what does this partisan political clash mean? Simply that 10.2 million Americans who have signed up for health insurance under the law, including 8.7 million who are receiving an average subsidy of $272 a month to help pay for premiums, are again caught in the partisan political crossfire.

Of those receiving subsidies, 6.4 million were at risk of losing aid because they live in states that did not set up their own insurance exchanges.

There comes a time when the folks in Washington need to stop looking at the world through the prism of politics and to put the interests of the American people first. That time is now.

PROBLEMS WITH ACA PERSIST

Though the ACA has provided health insurance to millions of people who previously had none and, therefore, were deprived of health care or used hospital emergency rooms for basic medical treatment, it remains controversial.

Before health-care insurance reform, hospitals provided hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of free medical care. It was unsustainable on many levels.

But while the Affordable Care Act has been successful in a variety of ways – for instance, a pre-existing medical condition is no longer a disqualifier for insurance – major problems remain.

We have long urged the president and Republicans in Congress to set aside their political disagreements and look at the ACA objectively, with an eye to addressing the complaints from small businesses, in particular, which have had to slash payrolls in order to provide coverage for their employees.

There also is the issue of rising health insurance costs, which the reform law was designed to address, and complaints by some people that they have been forced to give up their doctors because of the provisions of the ACA.

President Obama is right when he says that the issue is no longer about “the law,” but about “health care,” which is why he should convene a White House meeting of Democrats and Republicans in Congress to have an honest discussion of the positives and negatives of the health-care insurance reform law. The keyword is “honest,” which means there should be no political grandstanding and certainly no egotistical chest bumps featuring Obama and Boehner.

There’s a lot at stake because we’re talking – literally – about the health of the nation. There must be a meeting of the minds.