Looking ahead on health care
Today’s Supreme Court decision upholding President Obama’s health care overhaul raises the curtain on act two, November’s general election, pushing the issue to the center of the political stage even as it boosts the president’s leadership credentials, Harvard faculty members said. In a highly anticipated decision, the court ruled that the law’s central provision — the so-called “individual mandate” requiring that the uninsured buy health insurance or pay a penalty — can be construed as a tax and is therefore constitutional. The decision settles constitutional issues, but doesn’t calm the national political debate. Instead it raises the law’s political profile and makes November’s presidential and congressional elections at least partly a referendum on health care reform, according to Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis, Menschel Professor of Public Health, and director of the Harvard School of Public Health’s Division of Policy Translation and Leadership Development. “The only thing that will...