Pictured are United States President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. first lady, former U.S. senator representing New York, former U.S. secretary of state with the Obama administration, and current front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, and the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under five different editors, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling issued on Thursday in the celebrated case of Burrell vs. King, upheld a key provision of Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, siding with the president on whether the federal government can continue helping poor and other disadvantaged people, and others, by subsidizing insurance premiums in all 50 states under the health care law.
"Today, after more than 50 votes in Congress to repeal or weaken this law, after a presidential election based in part on preserving or repealing this law, and after multiple challenges to this law before the Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay," said Obama in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news.
Opponents argued that the federal government was required to stop financial aid subsidies to individuals living in states without their own health insurance exchanges and that use the federal market place instead.
The ruling affects more that six million Americans, and polls show that most Americans support the financial aid initiative on healthcare, one that disproportionately impacts low-income people, minorities, seniors on fixed incomes, and single mothers.
Only a few of the 50 states, such as Washington, California and Maryland, have their own healthcare exchanges.
Obama said that more that more than 16 million Americans now have access to healthcare insurance because of the Affordable Care Act.
Chief Justice John Roberts, the swing vote that upheld Obamacare as constitutional three years ago, wrote the majority opinion.
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the court, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia dissented.
Scalia wrote the scathing 21-page dissent and said, in part, that the majority, relative to the unprecedented court decision at issue, "favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites."
The Supreme Court ruling is another win for America's first Black president on the controversial healthcare mandate that will define his presidency in coming years.
Now in his third year of a second four year term, Obama campaigned on the issue in 2008 , and gained the endorsement of the late U.S. senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts for the Democratic primary for president over Hillary Clinton, partly because of his push for universal healthcare, something Kennedy, a brother of President John F. Kennedy, favored.
At that time Kennedy told Reporter Kathy Wray Coleman, who was writing a story on his campaign stop in Cleveland for Obama that was later published in the Call and Post Newspaper, that endorsing Obama over Clinton, who is making a second bid for president in 2016, "was one of the most difficult decisions of his life."
Kennedy said then that his hesitance in endorsing Obama was because of his relationship with former president Bill Clinton.
No doubt, Thursday' Supreme Court ruling is a blow to congressional Republicans that have tried to repeal since the president signed it into law in 2010. They say the law is irresponsible, increases healthcare costs, and minimizes America's clout in the international market place.
The president says that that analogy is bogus, and that his congressional foes on the healthcare matter want corporate entities, including insurance companies, to continue the war on poverty through unfair and unconstitutional public policy measures.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
