Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Epic healthcare decision will save lives

Visual source: Newseum

The number of lives saved by yesterday's landmark ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act is difficult to quantify, but the fact that the SCOTUS-validated law will save lives is indisputable. Much attention has been focused on the political repercussions of yesterday's decision -- and we'll get to that in later in the punditry -- but let's start off with a reminder of what was at stake.

First off, a poignant and personal analysis from our own Susan Gardner (click through to share her story):

Several Sundays ago, I chronicled my then-22-year-old daughter's adventure in open heart surgery, all thanks to Obamacare, which allowed her to remain on my insurance. The bottom line: We were terrified the young adult provision would be overturned. We were even more terrified that the pre-existing prohibition clause would be overturned and that the rest of her adult life would be spent in an unending scramble to obtain health care coverage.
Today's decision put that to rest.

So while we're busy discussing (as we should be) the political ramifications, the electoral consequences, the future of the Commerce Clause, let's also keep in mind that people's lives were saved today. And that a heck of a lot of people's futures were just allowed to move forward free of the fear of medical bankruptcy from bills like those my daughter racked up above.

Spike Dolomite Ward, who is battling breast cancer, pens a blunt assessment of the SCOTUS decision in The Los Angeles Times:

I was one of the early beneficiaries of the law. When I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer late last year, I had no health insurance, which meant my options were extremely limited. No insurer would pick up someone in my circumstances. But luckily, the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan had already kicked in, and it made it possible for me to purchase insurance under a government program. I was uninsured not because I'm a lazy, freeloading deadbeat but because my husband and I are self-employed. [...]

I can tell you that "Obamacare" ' at least the part I've participated in ' works. A week ago, I had a double mastectomy after five months of chemotherapy. I have been receiving outstanding care in West Hills ' no death panels, no rationing, no waiting, no government officials telling my doctors what to do, no denials of tests or treatments, none of the stuff that the plan's critics said would happen. [...]

I never thought I'd get cancer. Nobody does. Once you get it, your life is turned upside down. For five months I underwent four hours of chemotherapy treatments once a week. The side effects were brutal. Then, just a week ago, I had surgery, which entailed a three-day hospital stay. I'm writing about this not because I want pity but to make the point that undergoing chemotherapy and major surgery for cancer is stressful enough without having to worry about being able to pay for it.  

Tim Skillern at Yahoo! News has a roundup of personal reactions to the ruling, like that of 50-year-old cancer survivor Elizabeth Danu:

The court's thumbs-up to Obamacare is not just humane. It supports the freedom that I, as an American, have a right to expect.

The bottom line from The Chicago Sun-Times:

[A]ny American who believes that good and affordable health care should be a right, not a perk for the privileged, should celebrate Thursday's ruling.

We should celebrate, but not rest on our laurels. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson correctly points out that we have a lot of work ahead of us to give Americans the healthcare system they deserve:

All but lost in the commentary about the court's 5 to 4 ruling, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. unexpectedly joining the majority, is that the Affordable Care Act was intended as just a beginning. We have far to go, but at least we're on our way. [...]

The World Health Organization gives the U.S. health system an overall ranking of 37th in the world, far below other Western democracies. The CIA World Factbook ' hardly the work of a bunch of left-leaning one-worlders ' reports that life expectancy in the United States is not just lower than in other industrialized countries but also lower than in Jordan and Bosnia.Infant mortality in this country, according to the CIA, exceeds that of Slovenia and Cuba. It is possible to quibble with these figures but not to ignore them. We should be ashamed of ourselves. [...]

When that next big push [to build on the ACA] takes place, it will be with the underlying assumption that health care should be available to all who need it regardless of their ability to pay ' that it is not a privilege but a right. Progressive presidents since Theodore Roosevelt have tried to enshrine this principle. Barack Obama did it.

And now, for the politics of it all...

One of the most frustrating aspects of the healthcare debate is the failure of Democrats to properly drive the debate and explain the reform to the American people. As Michael Hiltzik at The Los Angeles Times and others point out repeatedly, individual components of the law have always polled extremely well, but the law as a whole has not:

Sadly, blame for this morbid condition belongs to the Democrats who passed the measure and promptly ran away from their own achievement as though they had invented a virus, not a vaccine.

Yep. With Republicans in full-blown repeal now, Democrats are being provided with a golden opportunity to take a mulligan on their PR efforts and to turn a landmark legislative achievement into electoral gain. Lynn Sweet at The Chicago Sun-Times looks at Mitt Romney's challenge and Barack Obama's opportunity:

Romney has a specific challenge ' tell people with more detail than he has so far just how more of the nation's uninsured could get coverage. And his plan faces a laugh-test: How would it plausibly get through a divided Congress? Even if Romney wins the election this November, he could possibly face a GOP-controlled House and a Democratic-run Senate, just as it is now. Romney cannot erase Obamacare with a pen stroke.

The Obama team, with the ruling, gets a second chance to make a first impression.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune:

[The president] should take the lead in explaining the ACA's poorly understood subsidies to help low-income households buy insurance. He should help Americans see the ACA's little-noticed measures aimed at controlling health care inflation ' measures that are at risk if Republicans control both ends of Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue.

The still-struggling economy is bound to be the dominant campaign theme for the next four months. That's as it should be. But by tossing the health care issue back into the political arena, the Supreme Court has given Americans a chance to be more than passive spectators of what happens next on that front. Voters should seize that chance and bone up on the ACA reforms.

Aamer Madhani, Jackie Kucinich, and Susan Page at USA Today:

The conservative group Americans For Prosperity announced it was launching a $9 million advertising blitz today to make the case that Obama "forced through the largest tax in American history." By evening, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul announced the campaign had received more than $2.5 million in contributions.

Dan Balz at The Washington Post:

Republicans think they have several potentially potent arguments to carry into the election. The first is that the health-care law and the mandate constitute a huge tax increase on the American people. The second, long used by conservatives, is that the law remains an unacceptable expansion of power for the federal government and a huge overreach by the president.

So the GOP strategy is (1) tell people you're going to repeal all those insurance consumer protections because those folks may be part of the 1-2% who may have to pay a small fine and (2) claiming that the Supreme Court's upholding of a law that saves lives was wrong. Please, GOP, let's keep talking healthcare until November. The more they make this debate about healthcare, the more educated the pubic will become on the true benefits of the law.  More from Balz:

Are they prepared to spend months fighting over health care and leave themselves open to the charge that they weren't paying attention to the economy ' the same thing they said of Obama?

Yeah, I didn't think so. It's a lose-lose for the GOP either way. The House plan to vote to repeal the law on July 11 comes off as the petulant pout of a party far more interested in pandering to its donors and its extremist base than, well, sticking by and building upon a humane law that will save lives.