The Supreme Court’s Healthcare Decision Will Hurt Democrats in the Fall

From the beginning, nearly every Republican and most Democrats knew that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed in 2010, would need to be changed. The Republicans always thought a complete repeal and replacement would be necessary, while Democrats thought they could tweak the law over time. The United States Supreme Court, however, has just dealt a knockout punch to the Democrats when it comes to their ability to write a replacement health care law.

Most opponents of the ACA believed the law would not withstand a challenge to its constitutionality. Surprisingly in a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the law in 2012. Opponents said it is illegal for Congress to force any American to purchase a product, which the ACA did by forcing every American to buy health insurance or pay a fine. This was called the “individual mandate.” Therefore the law was unconstitutional — or so the argument went.

But the high court’s logic in 2012 was that the individual mandate was not necessarily forcing an individual to purchase a product. Rather, Congress has the right to levy a tax. Once levied, it must be decided who pays the tax. The ACA levied a tax on all Americans who do not purchase health insurance. In this way, the court reasoned, the ACA individual mandate was constitutional. Therefore the entire law was…