Political irony and the Supreme Court decision

Politics has its strange ironies.  The Supreme Court decision this week basically upheld the legality of the Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare).  The President and the Democrats were elated and, here’s the irony, the Republicans were relieved.

As the Supreme Court decision drew nearer and nearer, lots of Republicans started getting nervous that SCOTUS (text code for Supreme Court of the United States) might strike it down and then they, the Republicans, would be forced to explain why the ACA is bad and what they propose to replace it.  They would have to explain why they wanted millions of newly insured in states that did not expand Medicaid to lose their health insurance.

Now the Republicans are off the hook for the time being.  They immediately started huffing and puffing about how bad the law is and, despite the Supreme Court ruling, how they are steadfastly determined to repeal it (never mind their 50 plus attempts so far). And therein lies the Republican problem.  During all their opposition to the ACA, they have never proposed specific reasons why it is bad nor any valid alternatives.  They have called it a “train wreck” a “disaster” and even “the worst thing since slavery,” but, they have never explained why.  Oh yes, they called it a “job killer” which is their meaningless generic objection to everything Obama proposes.

But the Republicans continue to count on Americans’ stupidity, believing they can continue to con the people.   Despite the Supreme Court decision, Republicans are still declaring “the law is broken,” it’s a “spectacular flop” and Mitch McConnell declared it is a “rolling disaster.”  Of course, all of those phrases without substantiation are totally meaningless.

But it makes the Republicans sound tough and unfortunately, most of their followers  just accept  this bombast without requiring explanations.

Now the bigger irony is that the American public is beginning to realize that affordable health care insurance for all Americans is really a good idea.  In fact, polls are showing that more and more Americans are viewing the ACA favorably.

Remember, the Republicans opposed Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and still do.  These programs happen to be very good and very popular among the American public.  With the Supreme Court decision, we will now have another social program that will benefit all Americans.