Federalism and Obama Care (The Affordable Care Act)

Federalism and Obama Care (The Affordable Care Act)

As I read and see the news on The Affordable Care Act (Obama Care), It seems that the federal government is creeping more and more in to the states’ rights to regulate the insurance that is sold in their state. In 2010, the congress passed Obama Care and started an unprecedented step to force everyone in the United States to buy health Insurance. Is this Constitutional or not, the Supreme Court says it is in its ruling in 2012 as they ruled 5 to 4 in their ruling.

            The democrats in the congress pushed through the ACA and said that it would be a great benefit to the country that everyone will have health insurance and it would reduce the cost of it for everyone, which has turned out not to be true. The premiums for all Americans are going up by 50 to 100 percent over what they are currently paying now. That rather makes the affordable part of the act not true, as most cannot afford it.

            The act was to provide health insurance for all; however, it depends on the young and healthy signing up for it to work. It seems that they do not want it as it cost too much for them to buy and pay for. This is why the individual mandate is so critical to the act to work. With that they also are wanting the states to expand the Medicare/ Medicaid in there state also to set up health exchanges in their state so people can sign up for the act.

            Many states filed lawsuits to fight the act and were winning in most cases till it reached the Supreme Court and lost as the court said that it could mandate that everyone to buy insurance in 2012. This is a big step into infringing on the states’ rights. They won this under the commerce clause and the right of taxation. As the federal government lawyers fought the case, stating the penalty for not getting the insurance was a tax, and not a fine. This was the one of the swaying factor of the court’s decision according to the court brief.  

            I am self-employed now and to get health insurance is a challenge if you have preexisting conditions as my wife dose I worked for a company overseas and had great health insurance and when the contract ended. I lost that insurance and had to find other insurance for her and all I could find was a policy that covered very little as far as coverage. This was very frustrating as she needed to be in a doctor’s care and we could not afford the insurance and pay the doctor and hospital fees. I myself do not like the ACA as it is too far reaching in the lives of Americans. However, it has helped to get her health insurance through an agent that the company I am leased to and I do not know how it going to work as it does not take effect until January 2014. I could never get through on the federal web site healthcare.gov to see what our options were. As millions of Americans could not when it was launched.

            This the law of the land now and the more progressives believe that this will be good for the country, and the more conservatives see it as a giant over step of the federal government’s powers over the states and the people of the nation. The current administration seems to want this act to run full bore even with all the failures that they have had in the launch of it. A lot of the states have opted out of what they could of this act as they could not afford the coast to their state in the long run, and they felt that the government has overreach its bounds in the health care law.

            The ones who are for this act they say that it will benefit all when it is fully implemented, and it will work. That it will provide health insurance for everyone that did not have health insurance before. However, there are many things that have to happen for this to work you have to have more healthy people sign up for health insurance to make up for the money that the insurance companies have to spend on the unhealthy.

            In conclusion when it comes to Federalism and Obama Care (The Affordable Care Act) I see that we as Americans have lost a lot as far as States rights and personal freedoms that this act has taken away from us as a nation. The act will be another huge entitlement program that our government will not be able to pay for and will have to come up with a way to take more money from us and employers of this nation to pay for it. These, monster that they have created will only grow bigger and cost us more than just money but the freedoms that we enjoy now and also is a big step to take more rights from the States.

           

            Notes

Kaiser Family Foundation. 2012. A Guide to the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act Decision. http://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/8332.pdf

Troy, T. (2013). The Great Exchange War of 2013. Commentary, 135(2), 30.

Chapman S. 2013. Obamacare Proves the Virtues of Federalism. www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/11/14/obamacare_proves_the_virtues_of_federalism_120663.html

McLaughlin D. 2013. How Obamacare Burns the Ships. http://thefederalist.com/2013/10/01/how-obamacare-burns-the-ships/