the LAST THING the people can afford is 4 more years of this incompetent whatever currently residing in the oval office. ma

Pulling no punches, Joshua Green has summed up the political devastation for Obama, caused by a stern rebuke by SCOTUS of Obamacare. Obama allowed the issue to distract him for half of his term from the economy, and by so doing, created the Tea Party, thereby causing the biggest congressional drubbing in 70, yes 70, years. Now, if the mandate is found unconstitutional, and the 2,700 page monstrosity collapses with it, the entire Obama administration can be critiqued using but one word: incompetence. Quite a legacy, Barack. You shouldn't have outsourced your signature legislation to party hacks like Pelosi and Reid. I am sure you know that now, but now is too late to avert a bigger drubbing in 2012. Boo hoo.

This decision, if it come to pass, would illustrate perfectly the abject failure of President Obama to lead. He rammed through this bill, and forced it on an unwilling public. He refused to negotiate with Republicans. He clearly believed all his headlines that he was a grand messiah, and sought to impose his will, without convincing the public that it was the best solution. NEW PARAGRAPH: Leadership is the ability to persuade the masses that your message is on target. Obama gave dozens of speeches on health care, and fell flat. He did not win the support of the people. A strong leader also knows when to realize that he failed-recall that George W. Bush made an effort to reform Social Security. When he failed at getting the public behind him, he gave up. This is what Obama should have done. NEW PARAGRAPH: The good news is that if this is struck down, the congress can begin work on a sensible, market based reform of our health care system. We can do a better job of delivering affordable care, but the model of OBama, consisting of mandates and rules, could never work.

If the health care law is overturned, it means the President wasn't up to the job of being president? If that's the case, Romney was a huge failure as governor of Massachusetts yet now most of the same Obama critics are planning to vote for Romney. And how did the health care law get through Congress without presidential leadership? Ask the auto workers in Detroit (and way beyond Detroit) if Obama has shown leadership on the economy. The premise for this op-ed is ridiculous.

If the individual mandate and beyond that, the Affordable Care Act is struck down, it will be due to the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Rather than acting on the constitutionality of the legislation, the Justices have turned this too into a political circus, arguing about broccoli and the use of cell phones to make emergency calls. The legislation was not rammed down the throat of the public and Congress; most Americans support it and the GoP in Congress simply refused to budge. After all, this is not a public option; it is still composed entirely of private health insurance plans! If the law is struck down, it says more about the political nature of our society including the SCOTUS then it does about President Obama. Health care reform was and still is an admirable goal and his leadership in trying to bring it about, despite intransigent opposition from Republicans, is an achievement that stands. Regardless of what the nine men and women of the Court may decide.

Single payer is the only real solution to the eventual collapse of the entire health care system in the United States. Health care is a product unlike any other and is uniquely resistant the prospect off market solutions. The notion that the current Congress has any interest in reforming anything is laughable. The President did botch this one but I think Mr. Green should breathe into a paper bag and come in from the ledge. Somone get the man a fan or something. Romney is not the solution folks. The solution is to re-elect the President and vote the reactionaries out of Congress. A vote for Romney is a vote for a completely Republican Supreme Court. We're almost there now. And yes the classification was deliberate. The modern court is political in every sense of the word.

"his decision to devote so much time to health care reform, rather than measures to help the economy" - This premise assumes that the 2 were mutually exclusive, and that Congress was willing to do more after passing the ARRA. Regarding the Tea Party protests: they started before health care reform, and were catalyzed in part by the Bush and Obama "bailout" efforts, though they turned their focus to health care as the reform bill advanced. Now, as we proceed through the last year of the president's first term, we are adding over 200K jobs per month, unlike countries such as England that have embraced austerity measures. History shows that it takes a long time to fully recover from a financial crisis, as opposed to a normal recession.

Health care is the economy, stupid.

Any national health plan needs to be exempt from lawsuits.

The feeling SCOTUS is in possesssion of greater wisdom than the average person is gone. The justices plainly exhibit political preferance. A situation like this can lead to violence in the streets. No consideration of the yearly ten percent increases in healthcare ruining the economy and government, no solutions. Just stupid arguments involvong broccoli. Glad these people were not around during creation of unemployment insurance, workmen's compensation insurance, social security and medicare.

If the health care law is overturned, it means the President wasn't up to the job of being president? If that's the case, Romney was a huge failure as governor of Massachusetts yet now most of the same Obama critics are planning to vote for Romney.********************* It boils down to Romney had to contend with a legislature that was 85% Democrat, whereas Obama's party had a supermajority in both chambers. Obama's allies had to be bribed via the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback. Obama could not persuade one Republican to join him, because it was an expensive and inefficient delivery of medical services that was unaffordable in every respect. As for the Big Union-represented autoworkers? Taking care of your friends, at the expense of the taxpayer and the preferred bondholders is not leadership. It's cronyism. If you don't know the difference, you're probably impressed with Solyndra and other Green Energy scams, as well.

McConnell ought to check his own state. They have taken over $65M to build a health insurance exchange, and over 650,000 (in a state with a population of less than 4.3M) people there would benefit from this law. Mighty big of him to say this was the worst law ever passed during his tenure, he has proposed none.

Do statists ever acknowledge that the Supreme Court has to interpret the Constitution, which limits what the Federal Government can and cannot do? The states are not so limited, which is why Massachusetts could pass and implement Romneycare, and Vermont could pass a Single Payer Plan, if it's legislature and Governor, deems it right and proper. We're finding, due to a suit filed and joined by over half the states in the country that this Obamacare runs counter to the 10th Amendment, and is an abuse of the Commerce Clause. *** As for single payer, isn't Medicare single payer? What are we, like $67 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and counting? Medicare part D is about $17 trillion by itself. How's that working out for you? Are we insolvent, yet? No? We'll get there soon enough, if we give Barack another term.

Obama's been a crummy president, to be sure. You know who will be even worse, though? That amorally ambitious 1 percenter Mitt Romney.

I always get a kick from people who talk about the Affordable Care Law as a multi-page monstrosity that no one understands completely, ignoring the good it would do for millions in this country. They would deny it, kill it or damage it rather than bestow benefits for all of us. Think Civil Service, WPA, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and the GI Bill...all opposed by Republicans and now embraced by them. Would a dope like Scott Brown, who railed against the law as a do-nothing, know-nothing state senator from MA, have done the same with JFK's space program? If he and others like him say they would have supported the quest, would they want to know about organic and inorganic chemistry? Mettalurgy? Astronomy? Biology, Physics? Calculus? Mechanics, etc? Of course not! There is so much that is good in this law that it is a shame demagogues attack it with impunity. The Affordable Care Law notwithstanding, it could be any issue and the Republicans would be against it, including Motherhood (by choice.) Their early spoken goal was to stop every piece of Democratic legislation and make Barak Obama a one-term president...no matter if it hurt the country or its people.

We had one of the biggest financial meltdowns in US history. What did Obama do? Wasted 18 months doing back door deals/bribes in order to get Obamacare passed. I wonder if housing/economy would of rebounded faster is he did not waste so much time on his ego?The president does not care about the constitution. The federal Goverment has no right to force you to buy anything. Next yr the court is going to hear the case on gay marriage. Again, the federal Goverment has no right to prohibit gays from marriage/federal rights. The far left wants to cherry pick the constitution, which is insane.

Sawmill2: you are aware that Bush had a healthcare reform bill and Obama/Dems voted it down. I hated Bush, but your comments are very narrow minded. BTW: you are aware Medicare is broke by 17 trillion? By 2024 it will be bankrupt. You are aware that Obama is stealing 500 billion from Medicare in order to pay for Obamacare? You are aware the CBO came out last week and stated it's going to cost more? And thats only in the first 10 yrs! You are aware that liberal governor Jerry Brown of Cali asked the White House for a waiver from Obamacare and was denied? I wonder why he would want a waiver on any part, if it's so wonderful? Notice how the press buried the story? You are ware what is going on in Greece? You are aware why our bond rating went down? Hint...our debit is out of control. 48% pay zero federal taxes and the super rich use tax loophole to pay little. The entitlements in this country are out of control. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, however look at the whole picture.

I agree with many of the posts. Obama ramming this thing down Congress' and the American people's throats. Congress needs to show some spine and not just blindly do what the President wants. How about some argument once in a while. And the American people just keep voting in Democratic Presidents. Obama's mistake was paying attention to what Romney did in Massachusetts, and to the Heritage Foundation's radical leftist ideas. Obama thought it might work and he didn't know that Romney would be honest when he ran for President and reveal that it was a huge mistake. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Anyway, it's the economy, stupid. So long as we all have jobs there is no need for anything else like security, morality, or the pursuit of happiness. Smelling the roses is a waste of time. Let the sick figure out how to make themselves well, or else they will just disappear (and the problem gets solved with no one having to do anything, next huh). That fact that we are the richest country on the planet is irrelevant -- we can not affort universal healthcare like Switzerland, Singapore, Canada, UK, Japan, Germany, France. (We could not do it without a lot of companies having their margins compressed and losing pricing power; Even if we COULD do it we don't want to and so we CAN'T) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Remember, being an American is like being a machine being used: charge in there, stay lean and mean, work, work, work, don't ever take vacation, work 'till you drop -- and that's the way we like it. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> - So, let's get rid of Medicare too. Most of the costs of healthcare are due to the old and sick so this will save a lot (and, again, the "problems" will disappear). - Let's get rid of Medicaid (hey, get a job). - Let's get rid of Military Pensions (when you retire you have unique skills and maturity that others lack so why waste that expertise). - Let's get rid of Social Security (it doesn't pay that much, anyway). - Let's build a bunch more prisons to handle the increase in crime that is an inevitable consequence of these kinds of improvements is efficiency; We can have the inmates making stuff and get it for less than the Chinese charge! - If it just weren't for that bully Obama forcing everyone t

This just in from Joshua Green: THE SKY IS FALLING! Many of comments on this article underscore the central problem facing this country - an electorate that is ill-informed while simultaneously righteously opinionated - the curse of the belligerently ignorant.

Oh, and I agree with the article writer's premise that if ObamaCare is thrown out it will be a huge stain on his reputation. But I think all he needs to do is "dress for succes" and switch to another car that expresses his true winning self. Perhaps an Al Green song here or there might help enormously. On the other hand, it makes Congress look pretty good (since they only passed ObamaCare because they were forced), especially the Republicans (who are well known to have been against anything for the people as a whole for quite some time now).

satmusic mentions "an electorate that is ill-informed while simultaneously righteously opinionated - the curse of the belligerently ignorant". >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You know, "whatever". >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is much easier (and more fun) to assume a "belligerently ignorant" personna than a "well informed" one (you know, the European disease). I think if some of these patriots knew what the "experts" (on the same side, even) really thought of them they might be surprised.

There is so much misinformation floating around here about Obamacare, that it is hard to make all the corrections that need to be made. The overarching theme, however, is the belief that the governemtn can allocate health care resources better than the free market, and that it can do so by imperial fiat. This view simply assumes that the laws of economics are optional; that government can impose any tax or rule it chooses, and have no offsetting effect on the price or supply of medical services. The naivete of this view is breathtaking. NEW PARAGRAPH: It would be nice if government could operate this way. Imagine: a minimum wage of $100 per hour, price controls on gas that prevent it from going beyond $1.00 per gallon, a guaranteed pension equal to $100k per year for all,...........This same type of pie in the sky thinking IS part of Obamacare, and could never work, because the laws of economics are immuteable.

It is not often that I read an op-ed piece in which I have to consider the possibility that the author was on some kind of hallucinogen when writing. Congratulations, Mr. Green.