The state Republican Party stands on the brink of gaining control of the state House.
As of Thursday, the state House’s first task next year will be to deal with health care reform.
Well now, won’t this be fun.
A very large number of GOP lawmakers got elected running against “unconstitutional” Obamacare. The Supreme Court disagreed Thursday with the “unconstitutional” part.
Don’t cackle too loudly if you’re either liberal or a cynic. I predict GOP candidates this year will run to “stop Obamacare” and still win. Voters here hate the reform, whether you or I think that’s wise or not. Voters who are frustrated do something.
With the Supreme Court’s ruling, the “last hope” of stopping health care reform is at the state level. The fact this hope isn’t real won’t matter until after the ballots are counted.
The reason the state Legislature cannot stop the individual mandate is simple. If you don’t have health insurance beginning in 2014, the Internal Revenue Service will come after you. The tax man isn’t going to stop by the state Capitol and ask your House member fi rst. The only thing the state canrefuse to do is set up health exchanges. Refusing to do that would only make it harder for folks with no health insurance to buy any.
Oh, and the state can refuse to expand Medicaid.
The Supreme Court ruled the states don’t have to accept the health care reform act’s massive expansion of that program.
The state very well may not. That one’s a budgetbuster.
Not accepting a massive expansion of Medicaid, though, means thousands of Arkansas’ working poor will get left with no option but to buy health coverage under the individual mandate. They won’t get Medicaid coverage extended to them, so they’ll have to get private health plans.
Therefore, the likely outcome of this ruling and this state’s voter backlash against it is the greatest liberal program since the War on Poverty is going to hit working men and women right between the eyes.
Don’t count on a massive repeal from Congress, either. First off , don’t count on Congress for anything.
More to the point, healthcare reform passed with the support of the insurance and health care industries.
The individual mandate in particular means billions of dollars in new business.
It means, for instance, hospitals will be more likely to get paid for what used to be indigent cases.
If you think votes matter more than money, bless your heart. Even so, any repeal or gutting of the health care law probably would require President Barack Obama’s defeat inNovember. The president’s re-election chances largely depend on whether the economy keeps limping along or not.
What a world. When and how the fi nal crash comes in Greece could decide whether thousands of Arkansans have to buy health insurance or not.
I meant for today’s column to be about the Bentonville school millage increase election. I was sorely tempted to stick to that topic since everypundit will write about the court decision. Finally, though, I decided I could not write as if one of the most historic Supreme Court decisions of my lifetime had not happened this week.
This decision could galvanize the opposition and ensure the president’s defeat. It could also, fi nally, give liberals something to fight for. They can say the Obama administration has accomplished something.
You may hate it, but thefact remains this race just became something more than a referendum on Obama, at least for some.
Every poll there is shows an enormous enthusiasm gap between liberals and conservatives, with conservatives far more worked up about the next election than liberals.
Watch those polls over the next few days.
DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.
Opinion, Pages 20 on 07/01/2012