The U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding most of the federal health care reform law “will clearly define” the presidential election this fall, U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., said Thursday.
After the ruling, GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney reiterated his pledge to repeal the law if elected, while President Barack Obama promised to continue to fight for the law’s major provisions going into effect in 2014.
“The president refuses to go back to the way things were,” Nancy-Ann DeParle, assistant to the president and White House deputy chief of staff, said in a statement posted on www.whitehouse.gov.
Roe, in a conference call with reporters, took issue with the high court’s ruling that mandating health insurance coverage is constitutional and considered a tax.
“Nowhere in this bill is the (health insurance) penalty referred to as a tax...” Roe said. “I think the mandate is unconstitutional. I don’t think the federal government in 220 years of this Republic has forced us to buy something.”
Roe also wasn’t swayed by the court’s ruling that the federal government cannot force states to expand Medicaid eligibility.
And Roe, a retired obstetrician/gynecologist, reiterated his opposition to the law’s creation of an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) to rein in Medicare spending.
“IPAB will determine how Medicare dollars are spent. ... This will restrict (patient) access,” Roe said.
Gray Democrat Alan Woodruff, Roe’s November general election opponent in the 1st Congressional District, responded that the only parts of the law Roe ever talks about are the parts that affect physician and hospital payments from Medicare.
“He wants to put Congress in charge of rate-setting so as to protect the interests of doctors and other special interests,” Woodruff said. “I’ve never heard him talk about actions to contain health care cost per se. Instead, he focuses on reducing the cost of Medicare to the government by reducing benefits or by turning Medicare into a voucher system where seniors themselves have to pay whatever the insurance companies demand.”
On July 9, Roe said House Republicans will again attempt to overturn the law.
“It will die in the (Democrat-controlled) Senate as you well know. ... The president would veto it,” Roe said of the move. “(But) I think it’s a statement that we are opposed. ... We want to overturn the whole bill.”
Roe also said that, long term, the law might make medical students reconsider getting into health care.
Roe’s Southwest Virginia counterpart, U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, was equally disappointed in the Supreme Court decision.
“I was hoping that the Supreme Court would take the decisive first step to unshackle the country, but sadly they did not,” Griffith, R-Va., said in a prepared statement. “Instead, nearly every person in the country will now face a new ‘tax’ if they don’t want to comply with this law. ... In line with the dissenting justices, I still think that this law is an unprecedented overreach of federal power. ... Now the only path to stop Obamacare is at the ballot box. The rule of law and our Republic suffered a huge blow today, but our spirit is not crushed and we the people will ultimately overcome it.”
Griffith’s November general election opponent, Abingdon Democrat Anthony Flaccavento, spoke positively of the high court decision.
“We have already seen the positive impacts of several provisions of this law,” Flaccavento said in a prepared release. “For example, recent college graduates and other young people are able to stay on their parents’ coverage until age 26, and millions of previously uninsured children now have access to health care. As the entire law goes into full effect over the next two years, we will begin to experience the benefits of tax credits for small businesses to provide health insurance for their employees, and coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions.”