Any day now the Roberts court will release its Affordable Care Act ruling. It could be 5-4 against all or some of Obamacare, or as much as 6-3 in favor. Some people see Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote and that of course is possible. I’d look to Chief Justice John Roberts instead. I think [...]

May 24 will mark the 75th anniversary of Helvering, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, et al, vs. Davis, the landmark Supreme Court decision upholding Social Security. It would be fitting, if the high court rules in favor of the Affordable Care Act, that it announce the decision on the date Social Security was affirmed. The health [...]

The idealistic view of the Supreme Court as a disinterested institution above politics took a hit during the recent oral argument over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Paul Krugman expressed the disquiet many Americans who idealize the court must have felt when he wrote, “The second day of hearings suggested that the justices [...]

On Dec. 4, the New York Times, in a 13-paragraph editorial, took an in-depth look at the prospect of changes for Medicare. “What about Premium Support?” the editorial asked and proceeded to raise key questions about the term being touted by those who would drastically change, if not scrap, Medicare. Among the questions addressed by [...]

Fresh from stalemating the deficit-reduction panel, anti-tax zealots can turn their attention to their movement’s close cousin: the campaign to privatize Medicare. A preview of the battle to get rid of government-run health care can be found in Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott is determined to privatize everything in sight, including the state’s 16 publicly-financed [...]

Republicans who endorsed the party’s plan to undo Medicare got an earful when they met with constituents during the recent congressional recess. If the lawmakers paid attention, they learned that Medicare isn’t just an impersonal government insurance program. When seniors talk about “my Medicare,” they express a sense of kinship based on warm feelings usually [...]

It was all over the news when Federal Judge Henry E. Hudson of Richmond, Va., ruled unconstitutional a key part of the recently-enacted federal health care law. The mainstream press was a lot less diligent in reporting Judge Hudson’s connection to an outfit, Campaign Solutions, whose favored candidates worked to defeat the law. The multiple [...]

Once upon a time I was elderly. I called it quits with that demographic after learning from The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki about the anti-social antics of my former cohorts. Surowiecki wrote that the mid-term election results might accurately be called the “revolt of the retired”. The elderly not only turned out in unusually large [...]

In my work secrecy was a no-no and the right to know sacred watchwords. So when my wife had emergency surgery and the pathology report revealed untreatable cancer, why did I want the truth kept from her? Because she was not an abstraction but a complicated person with anxieties who would be far better off [...]

The Patient Protection and Affordability Act, sometimes known as the full employment act for lawyers, has critics salivating to get into court to challenge the law’s requirement that everyone buy health insurance. The critics are beside themselves over the provision. To hear the moans and gnashed teeth you’d think the very foundations of Western civilization [...]