In less than a month, the SCOTUS ruling on the Affordable Care Act will be released

[scheming daemons]

That will dominate the election discussion for at least a week.

politically speaking will it be better for Obama if they rule for it or against it?

I know it will be bad for America and Obama's legacy if they rule against it... but will it help rile up the voters for the election if they rule against?

Will it take a arrow out of the GOP's election strategy quiver? They are running on repealing it, and they won't have that option if it is overturned by the SCOTUS.


Personally, the more I think about it... I say that I want the SCOTUS to rule properly, and if it hurts/helps Obama then so be it. The PROPER ruling would be to uphold the ACA. But this court is so right-wing, they will twist themselves into pretzels to come up with a rationale for ruling against it.


In any case.... this will hit the campaigns like a grenade when it comes out.

[Nye Bevan]

1. The problem if they overturn it

is that Romney's promise to repeal it will become meaningless. I am convinced that if they let it stand, it will be one of Obama's major weapons against Romney in the campaign. I'm picturing campaign commercials featuring people with chronic illnesses asking why Romney wants to allow the insurance companies to discriminate against them, for example.

[CTyankee]

3. By that time, it will be too late, IMO. The ACA will be gone.

I'm not seeing any polls that say the American people overwhelmingly want the ACA. I don't understand this!

What I can't get through my head is why so many Americans don't want the ACA. At least that's what the MSM is telling us....

[emulatorloo]

4. When they are polled on what is actually in the law, they like it

If they are polled on ACA, they think it has death panels in it (etc)

[JoePhilly]

2. I think that if it allowed to stand, poltically it is a wash.

Independents are not going to leave Obama if it remains as is. And the angry right wing whack jobs will be no more or less angry.

If the SC tosses the mandate only ... and leaves the rest ... the GOP is screwed because they can't run against the rest of it. The most they can do is say "see, the mandate is bad". But there's no where to go for them past that.

If the SC throws it all out ... I think the make up of the SC becomes an issue. The made the Citizen's United decision, which most hate ... and if they toss the entire ACA, they will easily be labeled as a conservative activist court ... and Dems will run not only against the GOP do nothing congress, but against a extreme right wing court.

No matter what happens, Romney is handcuffed. Any discussion of ACA is a reminder that he proposed the same plan as Gov. The fact that he now disavows it doesn't help.

[kurt_cagle]

5. Personal Stake in ACA

I'm one of the information architects working on the technical implementation of the ACA, so obviously have a bit of a stake in seeing it continue past June.

However, having said that, I think it unlikely that the Supreme Court will rule against it. The foundation of the arguments against it - that the government does not have the right to place regulations upon the market when the market transcends state boundaries - has very little legal precedence, while its obverse is well established. Given that's the strongest argument against it, the Supreme Court would be opening up a political fire storm if they voted it down, not so much for the ACA, as for everything from eminent domain to the existence of whole departments of the Federal bureaucracy. My suspicion is that it would be every bit as bad as the Dred Scott decision that ultimately ended up as the catalyst for the Civil War.