Welcome to the Business Journal Archives
Search for articles below, or continue to the all new BusinessJournalDaily.com now.
Search
Politicians Stake Positions on Supreme Court Decision
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan praised the Supreme Court ruling announced Thursday largely upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but doubts that the issue will play a major role in this fall elections.
Speaking with reporters during a brief conference call between votes yesterday afternoon, Ryan, D-17 Ohio, hailed the court ruling, which was issued that morning. However, the main focus of this fall’s election is going to be on the economy and the ruling won’t be “front and center,” he predicted. He wasn’t concerned that the Supreme Court’s decision would energize opponents as debate over the law’s passage did in 2010, fueling a Republican sweep that put several states and the House of Representatives under GOP control, and he remarked that there is a “general exhaustion” to the debate.
“The issue for the most part is how we’re going to get the economy moving, continue to get it moving forward and creating jobs,” he said. Both sides will use the issue to get their base out “and it will probably be a wash,” he remarked.
Ryan predicted the ruling would be a “net positive” from an optics standpoint for President Obama. “He took something that he believed in, he was able to get it through Congress, the Supreme Court upheld it,” he said, so a lot of the “radical” arguments that the law was unconstitutional or constituted socialism were “laid to rest” by a conservative chief justice of the Supreme Court who was appointed by a Republican president. Now that benefits of the law are “starting to come online” awareness is going to grow and help the president in the long run, he said.
Ryan’s Republican opponent this fall, Marisha Agana, a Warren pediatrician, decried the court’s ruling. While pleased with the coverage for underserved and uninsured children, Agana, who is running against Ryan to represent the new 13th District, said the legislation does not address flaws in the current system such as how to address Medicare’s “unsustainable growth rate,” Medicaid fraud or comprehensive liability reform. She also is “very much against” the independent patient advisory board, which “holds no accountability to the American people,” she said.
“I’m hoping that [the Supreme Court ruling] will open the eyes of the people to see that we need real change to make things happen for us,” and question the direction the country is headed, she remarked. A lot of people in Congress are “disengaged with the people,” she said.
A native of the Philippines, she said she grew up under martial law. “So I have lived through what big government can do, which is take away our freedoms,” she said, and that’s the direction she sees the government going.
Ryan’s and Agana’s stances were typical of how the dispute played across the partisan divide, as Democrats and their allies praised the decision and Republicans blasted it. Within minutes of the court’s decision being made public, email statements declaring positions -- and many times making a fund-raising pitch – were issued, and statements posted on websites.
U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-6 Ohio, described as “deeply disappointing” called the court’s decision to leave “President Obama’s takeover of health care,” and said the law is “full of broken promises covered in empty rhetoric,” in a statement released by his congressional office. In a separate statement issued by his re-election campaign he described the law as “bad policy and bad medicine,” even though the Supreme Court found the law constitutional.
“Today the United States Supreme Court spoke. On Nov. 6, the American people will have their chance to speak,” warned U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-3 Pennsylvania. “Despite the president’s repeated assurances to the American people that his signature health-care law would not be a tax, it survived a U.S. Supreme Court challenge because it was interpreted as such. The American people were woefully misled by this president, and I share the outrage of the majority of Americans who want this law repealed.”
In a joint statement following the ruling, Gov. John Kasich and Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor expressed their disappointment that “this flawed law” was permitted to stand. During an afternoon conference call, she reiterated their stance that the “best solution” is for Congress to repeal what she and other critics refer to as Obamacare. “It is our hope that a new White House and a new Congress will ultimately achieve that next year” she said.
Among the questions Ohio immediately faces are who would run an Ohio insurance exchange, how to address increased financial obligations the law creates and whether to expand Medicaid eligibility to 133% of the federal poverty line.
“Clearly the governor and I are frustrated at this decision,” she remarked. “We are concerned that this could cripple the recovery that we are experiencing here in Ohio and we’d like to see that continue.”
U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, called the law “flawed policy that is unaffordable for our families, our small businesses and our government,” despite the Supreme Court’s ruling. President Obama’s “one-size-fits-all health-care spending law is the centerpiece of a failed agenda that has increased economic uncertainty, stalled job growth and deepened the spending hole that Washington has dug,” he said.
Despite administration claims that no one would lose their coverage, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, said many employers are going to dropping their coverage because the law drives up its cost.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, pointed out that Supreme Court justices appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents “made an independent judgment” to uphold the law. “I hope today’s ruling will put an end to the partisan bickering so that we can continue our focus on jobs and improving the economy,” he said in a statement on his website.
The ruling means that more than 1.2 million Ohio seniors will continue to have access to cancer screenings and wellness exams through Medicare, and nearly 97,000 young adults in Ohio will still be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26. “Parents of children with pre-existing conditions – like Cancer, asthma or diabetes – will no longer have to worry that they will be unable to buy health insurance,” he said.
Brown’s opponent this fall, state Treasurer Josh Mandel, said the problems in the nation’s health-care system can be fixed without what he describes as a “massive tax on the poor and middle class,” and promised as a U.S. senator to fight for “market-based solutions.”
Also among supporters of the ruling was Anthony Caldwell, spokesman for District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union. The ruling “moves our nation forward by saving lives and promising every single American a better future,” he said. “Everyone will benefit from the Affordable Care Act and I think today the court rejected the cynical approach of corporations and Republican extremists who constantly have put profits and politics ahead of working people.”
Obama “deserves a lot of credit” for passing landmark legislation that both Democrats and Republicans have tried to pass for generations, as well as supporter in Congress like Ryan, Brown and former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson “who stuck their necks out,” Caldwell said. He also said Democrats and Republicans shouldn’t politicize Americans’ health care.
Though crediting the Supreme Court for affirming the constitutionality “a legislation achievement unmatched” since Medicaid’s creation in 1965, David Betras, chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party, decried Republican promises to repeal the reforms, including presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s pledge to repeal the legislation on the first day of his administration. “Of course, he ignores the fact that his one achievement during his failed term as governor of Massachusetts was the creation of ‘Romney Care,” a health-care system that contains a mandate strikingly similar to the one he now mindlessly attacks as he calls for the eradication of ‘Obamacare,’” he said.
Betras’ GOP counterpart, Mark Munroe, decried the court’s decision but predicted that the ruling would further energize the Republican base. “This will turn the heat up even higher,” he said.
“This is a sad day for America,” he lamented. “The Supreme Court has enabled the federal government to continue the erosion of our liberty and freedom. Elections have consequences – sometimes bad ones. It’s more important than ever that Barack Obama be defeated this November.”
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.