“The kind of people who were more likely to vote for Mitt Romney … in the 2012 election [are] … the same kind of people who would be most likely to lose their Obamacare health insurance if a looming Supreme Court case goes against the president, according to a new analysis.
“Obamacare enrollees who are white, live in the South and have jobs with modest incomes would be disproportionately affected by an adverse ruling …, the study by Urban Institute researchers found.
“The researchers … found that 6.3 million people would lose health coverage because they would no longer be eligible for subsidies if the Supreme Court rules that such federal financial aid issued to customers on the HealthCare.gov Obamacare insurance exchange is illegal …. Without those subsidies … the plans would become unaffordable for … [those] people, the Urban Institute said.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102360549
Superficially, this looks like hayseeds voting against their own self-interest. That’s the slant of CNBC’s reporting of this story. But that completely misses the real story of what’s at stake in Obamacare, Round 2, at the Supreme Court.
If the High Court’s conservative majority takes advantage of this opportunity to eviscerate Obamacare, and effectively throw Obama’s victory in Round 1 out the window, don’t hold your breath waiting for the Republican Congress to fill the gap with reform legislation. After all, they sat on America’s health care crisis and did nothing about it for 30 years. Things will revert to the status quo ante.
Which means the hayseeds will get free medical care, because they can’t afford to pay for it and don’t have insurance, and the cost of their care will be passed through by providers to the paying customers as before — namely, you and me.
Some people argue that being forced to buy health insurance infringes on their freedom, but that’s wrong. Their refusal to carry health insurance infringes on our freedom by forcing us to pay their medical expenses. They should be forced to buy health insurance for the same reason cyclists should be forced to wear helmets — because we get stuck with their bills in the absence of such laws. That may be freedom for them, but it imposes tyranny on us.