POST-GAZETTE Op-Ed: Before the ink dried on the Affordable Care Act, opponents launched a politically motivated campaign to undermine the new health care law, including filing federal lawsuits in Florida and Virginia challenging it. Last week, a judge permitted the Florida lawsuit to go to trial. Yesterday, a judge in Virginia said he would rule by the end of the year on the constitutionality of the law.
Obstructing major social laws is not a new strategy. It happened with the Social Security Act in the 1930s, with the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, and now it’s happening with the Affordable Care Act. As with Social Security and civil rights, these challenges eventually will fail. Indeed, a federal court in Michigan has already dismissed a similar suit. Legal scholars across the ideological spectrum say the Affordable Care Act is on solid constitutional ground.
But while the lawsuits are proceeding, we risk losing focus on what’s really at stake. If we undo the Affordable Care Act, we’ll be returning to a country where people with pre-existing conditions can’t get health insurance coverage. Where insurance companies can take back your coverage when you get sick. Where small businesses can’t afford to cover their employees. Is that what opponents of the Affordable Care Act want? Because that’s what we’ll get if they succeed…. (more)
