SCOTUS and the ACA Ruling, Context and Analysis: Part 3 – Conclusion: a Pyrrhic Victory?
The coverage of the PPACA ruling has tended to run as follows: “Dramatically, Chief Justice Roberts upheld Obamacare, giving a big victory to liberals. The one qualification on their victory was that moot opinion on Medicaid, which may in practice protect states’ rights, but on the individual mandate, their needs were met. Even though the commerce clause was not found as a constitutional basis for the individual mandate, a constitutional basis was found, and cited, by Roberts, who delivered victory to Obama and the Democrats.” Hence in this excellent analysis of why Roberts voted as he did (which I haven’t really touched on), Reuters label the commerce clause ruling as a “pyrrhic victory” for conservatives, inconsequential when the costs of upholding the law are counted.
This way of looking at the ruling is myopic. It is appropriate when considering the policy alone; it is true that Obama’s biggest victories in the upholding of the PPACA followed from the protection of the individual mandate and his biggest defeat was the qualification of the use of Medicaid provision to coerce states to comply. However, as follows from my previous posts, constitutionally, the invalidity of the justification of regulation under the commerce clause is a much bigger event than the retention of the principles in federal transfers to states that have been practiced since 1923. Far from a pyrrhic victory, Roberts’ reasoning used a justification for the individual mandate – that it was a tax – that had been publicly disowned by the Obama administration during the arguments, and further restricted the clause in the constitution that, when expansively read, had justified the New Deal.
And so while today Obama may well toast the Chief Justice for a policy triumph, it is possible that in a year’s time, Romney will be in office, Obamacare will be repealed through legislative action and a restrictive reading of the commerce clause will be more firmly established as judicial precedent. At that point, liberals may wonder for whom this victory was pyrrhic.
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