As the Supreme Court debates the boundaries of government’s role in mandating the purchase of insurance, the discussion continues on whether the public or private sector is best positioned to drive market reforms necessary to meet our goals of lower costs and higher quality. As the son of a Phi Beta Kappa neo con who believes government should be the size of a sand gnat and as the husband to a British citizen who loves national healthcare and was born through a midwife, I often find myself lost in a political no man’s land with volleys being exchanged from the right and left. To complicate Thanksgiving dinner further, thirty years of healthcare consulting, including a three-year stint in Europe, hospitalization for pneumonia in the NHS and a tour of duty as a senior executive for a national insurer has left me with my own conflicted convictions about how we might fix our broken system.
On the eve of the Supreme Court determining the fate of PPACA, strong opinions are in full bloom like cherry blossoms along the Mall. In his particularly sharp remarks to government attorneys, Justice Kennedy, considered a swing vote by many, cautioned that Congressional intervention to mandate citizens the “duty ( to buy coverage) to act “ was a slippery slope that sets dangerous precedent and impinges on individual rights. Justice Roberts added, “And here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act … That changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in the very fundamental way.”
Justice Scalia was quick to wade in after Justice Roberts questioning, ” what would be next in the role of the government dictating to its citizens ( if the mandate were to be upheld). “I will tell you the next something else (we will next tell Americans to do) is exercise, because we know that lack exercise contributes to illness.” It seems that this debate is indeed creating odd bedfellows as civil liberties advocates are joining conservatives in warning that the next thing the government will be telling people is that they cannot drink sugary soft drinks or that they have to eat broccoli. It is hard to find a time when a conservative Justice and the ACLU share a common opinion about anything.
