Letters: Historical ruling on healthcare

Re the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, June 28

The three-plus years of the Obama administration have marked a lot of changes in our lives. For the first time in 15 years I had to look for a job; our daughter was born with a heart condition that requires three operations; several years of savings were wiped out; and my wife was laid off after eight years of teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

In 2010, my employer’s healthcare plan excluded coverage for preexisting conditions until President Obama’s Affordable Care Act passed. With the loss of benefits and a heart surgery scheduled for October, the court’s ruling could not have come at a more tenuous time for us.

We are in the middle class, and we will survive to see better days. But we would not have survived the denial of coverage for our daughter’s heart surgery. The Supreme Court did well.

Selby Jessup

Studio City

Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr.got it right: The mandate is a tax and therefore constitutionally valid. The fact it was sold as a fine is simply political deception for which the Constitution has a remedy: voting.

I believe Roberts was mindful that in 2008, a majority of voters elected a super-majority Democratic government that did what should have been expected: enact legislation reflecting the party’s core beliefs. Roberts’ opinion says to the electorate: “You created Obamacare, and you will decide its fate.” So much for judicial activism.

If the result of the decision is to energize voters, to spike scandalously low participation rates and to make wholesale changes in the direction of the country (or not), this ruling will become even more historic.

Ken Artingstall

Glendale

With the Supreme Court’s decision on national healthcare, America has now officially moved from republic to empire. The government may now, with court sanction, regulate and tax anything and anybody. The concept of our Constitution as a fundamental legal document limiting government power and protecting individual rights has been completely lost.

Ray Shelton

Glendale

I’m concerned that the Supreme Court’s decision makes it more likely that the law will be gone by 2014. I fear it will serve only to bring out opponents at the polls this November to vote for anyone who is opposed to the law.

It sure would be refreshing to watch a debate on the specific provisions of the law, not to mention a discussion on ways to reduce the causes of increasing healthcare costs, many of which aren’t dealt with in the law.

We should weigh the long patent life of drugs, the prohibition on purchasing prescriptions from overseas and the difficulty of comparing prices.

At its best, the healthcare law will help, but it will not solve other problems that drive up costs. If the law is repealed eventually, we need better replacements than the status quo or pushing the problem to the states.

Steven Coker

Los Angeles

“Obamacare” has been upheld by the Supreme Court, and Mitt Romney has stated that he will kill the law shortly after his inauguration as president.

This brings to mind the 1936 election betweenFranklin D. Rooseveltand Republican Alf Landon, who promised to repeal Social Security. Landon was soundly beaten; he carried only Maine and Vermont.

So, it seems, more than 75 years later, nothing has changed but the names of the candidates.

Harry Norkin

Thousand Oaks

Things the United States government has done against people’s will:

Kill you with a drone. Kidnap you off the street and whisk you away to a secret prison. Incarcerate you in an offshore prison without filing charges. Draft you into the armed forces to fight in a foreign war. Wiretap your phone without first obtaining a warrant. Freeze your assets. Seize your home and property.

And now, it can force deadbeats to buy their own health insurance so the rest of us don’t have to pay for other peoples’ emergency room bills.

Wow, what a “radical” concept.

Cheryl Holt

Burbank

It appears to me that unlike the politicians who enacted the law, the justices actually read the entire statute before ruling on it.

Ron Lesovsky

Huntington

Broccoli, anyone?

Jacqueline West

Los Angeles

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