The Detroit News. June 25, 2015
Congress will have to fix Obamacare
The United States Supreme Court confirmed again that it is not going to clean up the mess Congress made with the Affordable Care Act. Now lawmakers and President Barack Obama must get to work.
For the second time, the court upheld a key provision of the act that, had it been stricken, would have destroyed Obamacare and thrown the nation’s health care system into chaos.
The justices affirmed that federal health insurance subsidies for consumers in states that have not set up their own exchanges are constitutional. Opponents of the act had argued the language of the law as written by Congress limited subsidies to states that established exchanges from which their residents could shop for insurance.
Had the court gone the other way, subsidies for 6.4 million Americans, including 228,000 in Michigan - one of 34 states that did not set up an exchange - would have ended, breaking a private health insurance market rebuilt to comply with Obamacare.
In siding with the 6-3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts noted, “Congress passed the ACA to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.”
It’s worth noting that Roberts refused to give the IRS prerogative to rewrite the law, eliminating the ability of a future president to effectively reverse the decision without congressional approval.
The chief justice also reminded that Congress, then controlled by Democrats, crafted the ACA behind closed doors and in a rush that worked against sound policy making.
Justice Antonin Scalia concurred, adding “this court has no free-floating power to rescue Congress from its drafting mistakes.”
If the flaws in Obamacare are to be fixed, and there are many, Congress and the president will have to work together to fix them. Some of the solutions should be doable if the administration and lawmakers decide to cooperate.
One of the big problems with Obamacare is that it has resulted in a greater share of the cost of insurance transferring to individuals and families. It has spiked the cost of individually purchased coverage and triggered higher deductibles and co-pays for employer provided plans. Many smaller employers have dropped their insurance benefit and shifted workers to the exchanges.
To lower the impact on consumers, small businesses and individuals should be allowed to purchase insurance with pre-tax dollars. Refundable tax credits should be offered to lower income families and individuals enabling them to purchase policies.
To bring more competition and lower costs, the law should be changed to allow insurance to be sold across state lines. In several states, the number of insurance companies competing in the marketplace shrunk since Obamacare was implemented.
Health Savings Accounts should be expanded to help consumers pay the higher deductibles and co-pays. More flexibility is needed to provide relief from the coverage mandates of the act.
Finally, medical liability reform is necessary to keep frivolous lawsuits from driving up the cost of health insurance for everyone.
This law won’t be mended by the courts. But it could be repaired by a Congress willing to stop fighting and start fixing.
___
Detroit Free Press. June 27, 2015
Dear Michigan lawmakers: Say ’I do’ to gay marriage
After the court ruled, the people waiting outside began to sing. The music they chose was not a protest song, or an anthem of the gay rights movement. It was “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The plaintiffs in the landmark case decided Friday by the U.S. Supreme Court - legalizing same-sex marriage - sought legal redress because they believed our country’s founding document was expansive enough to accommodate them, and that the founders’ charge to form a more perfect union does not end.
They were right.
Michigan plaintiffs April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse challenged Michigan’s 2004 ban on same-sex marriage because they wanted to make sure their adopted children were cared for. Michigan’s ban barred same-sex couples from joint adoptions, so the couple’s three children were vulnerable - legal strangers to the non-adoptive parent, in the event of tragedy.
Copious legal testimony in that case proved children raised in same-sex households fare no worse than children raised in opposite-sex families. Put another way, it was the content of the parents’ character, not their sexual orientation, that mattered. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled in favor of DeBoer and Rowse; an appellate court in Cincinnati reversed that ruling. The high court upheld the district court, and DeBoer and Rowse were vindicated.
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. … It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. (The challengers) ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s 5-4 majority.
So now what?
Both Gov. Rick Snyder and state Attorney General Bill Schuette - who continued this campaign to uphold Michigan’s ban beyond the legal requirements of his job - have signaled they’ll accept the court’s ruling.
But some conservatives have promised to continue a culture war that’s doomed to fail. Michigan’s Legislature has already begun to propose and pass legislation intended to blunt the effect of such a ruling, like a law signed earlier this month by Gov. Rick Snyder, allowing adoption agencies to refuse service to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender families. Lawmakers have considered a state version of the federal Restoration of Religious Freedom Act, which would offer protections to businesses that choose to discriminate against LGBT customers.
The court’s ruling was sweeping enough, likely, to make cannon fodder of many of these efforts. The search for dignity Kennedy ascribed to the movement for gay marriage is probably equally offended by attempts to treat same-sex couples differently in other contexts.
But beyond the legal questions, it’s time for the legislative culture war against full equality for gays and lesbians to stop. We know this plea will fall on many deaf ears. But this change cannot be undone, despite lawmakers’ desperate, grasping attempts to make it so. Michigan’s needs in other arenas are so much more pressing - to continue to wage this losing battle is a dereliction of duty that has no justification.
The bravery and patriotism of Michiganders - of April DeBoer, Jayne Rowse and the thousands of LGBT Michiganders and their allies - have put the State of Michigan itself to shame.
We hope the Legislature can learn from the example.
___
The Times Herald (Port Huron). June 27, 2015
We need to discuss our differences to lose them
Americans aren’t colorblind. We want to be. We want to live in a society in which all men and women are treated equally. We want to live in a country in which people are judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
But wanting our prejudices away is a lot like wanting an ugly mole to go away. If you want that lesion to go away, you’re going to have to talk about it with someone, preferably a physician. If we’re going to get the stain of racial prejudice off our national consciousness, we’ll need to talk about it with someone - no appointments necessary.
We’re allergic to talking about race and racism. Following the shootings in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, we’ve all been debating gun rights, Confederate flags, and hate crime laws. We haven’t talked about what it means to be black or white or some other color in America. We haven’t talked about what leads someone like Dylann Roof to believe some of us are somehow more human than others.
We need to talk because by staying mute we deny that such evil exists.
We need to talk because by staying mute we deny ourselves credit for the great distance we’ve come.
We need to talk because by staying mute we deny ourselves the tools we need to move forward.
Mostly, we need to talk because talking is the only way out of this. And we mean talking. Raised and shrill voices will not help us lead and educate each other and ourselves about what is good and right in each of us. We still can talk without argument about some things in America. If we can talk about anything without foment and vitriol, it has to be this. Lives depend on it.
We need to open our mouths and our hearts and make people aware of what’s right and what’s not right. Only that will reduce the number and diminish the effectiveness of people like Dylann Roof. It may not eliminate racists and racial hatreds from our society, but maybe, eventually, it can reduce them to a harmless, powerless blemish.
We need to talk about our differences to overcome them.
___
Midland Daily News. June 28, 2015
Time to take the flag down
A tragic shooting in Charleston, S.C., revived a long-time debate among Americans.
On June 17, a lone shooter killed nine people at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in a racially motivated attack.
The man arrested for the shooting, Dylann Storm Hood, seemed to revel in Confederate imagery. But in the days after the shooting, the Confederate flag still flew over the state capitol in South Carolina.
Now, one by one, states seem to be distancing themselves from the Confederate Flag, a divisive symbol.
Those opposed to it waving see it as a symbol of a South that fought tooth and nail for the right to own slaves. To these people, it is seen as a sign of racism and hate.
Others see it as a sign of their heritage, honoring those who came before even if their ideas were severely misguided.
Regardless of intent, the flag is seen as enough of a negative symbol that it is time for it to come down on public land.
There also is momentum to remove other things such as statues and graves of notable Confederate figures. It even was reported that Apple was pulling anything off the App Store featuring a Confederate flag, even in historical context.
We are not quite sure where the line should be drawn. There is a risk of glossing over history. It is important we understand the causes of the Civil War and those behind the terrible rift.
The government should not infringe on an individual’s right to raise the Confederate flag, but anyone who does should do so knowing how others feel about it.
But as for government sanctioned uses of the Confederate flag, the time has long passed to take it down.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.