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Saved from Themselves
Author(s) -
Menzel Paul T.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
hastings center report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1552-146X
pISSN - 0093-0334
DOI - 10.1002/hast.70
Subject(s) - constitutionalism , nightmare , mandate , government (linguistics) , economic justice , law , conservative government , administration (probate law) , health insurance , irony , health care , law and economics , political science , public administration , sociology , medicine , democracy , philosophy , linguistics , psychiatry , politics
With his Affordable Care Act decision, Chief Justice Roberts saved conservatives from themselves. A constitutional regime that prohibited a mandate for basic health insurance while permitting Medicare and the Veterans Health Administration, presumably on the basis of government taxing authority, would have been a conservative nightmare. These partial U.S. versions of single payer and national health service are permissible, but a coherent private health insurance market is not?! The surprising thing is not that the generally conservative Roberts had the historical and logical sense to realize this, but that he was the only one of his conservative colleagues who did . It is not the only irony presented by promarket, conservative constitutionalism in this case .