Supposedly, a tough question by a Supreme Court justice put to the Solicitor General is a tip-off as to that justice’s view on the case at hand. The Solicitor General received more than one such tough question last Tuesday — proof positive, the expert observers and commentators on the Supreme Court assure us, that the court is not inclined to find “Obamacare” constitutional.
The experts may be right. They watch the court more than we do, but if they are right, this is a sad commentary on public discourse today, in which nuanced and differentiated argument is seen almost as an impossibility —a political weakness rather than an intellectual strength.
Example:
Is it possible to think that the universal mandate to buy insurance is a sound idea to solve the health care crisis in this country, yet also think that the mandate is unconstitutional? Or vice-versa: that the mandate is constitutional, but a bad idea? Is it possible to believe that the automatic acceptance of a person by an insurance plan regardless of preconditions would be so expensive that even a universal mandate would, in the end, not compensate for the expense?
Given non-black-and-white possibilities such as these, might a pointed question by a Supreme Court justice about the universal mandate signal a subtlety, not necessarily a final position? When the court’s decision is handed down in a few months, it will be intriguing to see whether the tone of the questions correlate with the actual ruling. Maybe not.
Another widespread assumption that has more than one side to it is the view that the current rush on emergency rooms for non-emergency care — by people without health insurance — is costing the country more than the new “Obamacare” would. This may be true, and it certainly is intuitive. In fact, however, it is very difficult to measure precisely either the current costs of the medically irrational reliance on ERs, or the predicted costs of Obamacare. Predictions of actual costs of new government programs are notoriously inaccurate due to unforseen developments. Critical case in point: Social Security, which began with many people supporting a few, now finds itself challenged by the fact of the relatively few supporting the many. Putting aside the medical and the equity components of Obamacare, what are its precise financial implications? No one really knows.
And that, we would argue, is also true of the views of at least some of the Supreme Court justices on Obamacare at this point. The court scheduled more time for hearings on this issue than on any other in recent memory. The case is extraordinarily complex. It is a challenge to both its defenders and its opponents. We doubt that the court will decide this issue along predictable lines.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
