2 year-old "Obamacare" ready to be reviewed by Supremes, with few sprectators

(From The Economist)
“HELEN R.” is an elderly woman who is currently on seven different medications. Thanks to Barack Obama’s health reforms, however, she gets cheaper medicine and cancer tests. “The health-care law is about people like me,” Helen R. explains in a new video on a government website. Republicans may deride the health law as “Obamacare.” Helen R. prefers to call it “Helencare”.

Mr Obama’s health reform turned two years old on March 23rd. The White House is doing its best to sell it as a success. The video of Helen R. is one of many. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) releases sunny data almost daily. But the campaign still feels defensive. There are good reasons for that: the law’s main provisions will not take effect until 2014, and this anniversary may be its last.

Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail say they will scrap the law at the first opportunity. With an election in November that threat is now real. A more immediate danger looms on March 26th when the fight over the law will reach the Supreme Court.

The main question is whether Congress may penalise those who do not buy health insurance, the so-called “individual mandate”. But the court will consider other questions, too: whether the law coerces states to expand Medicaid; whether the rest of the law can stand if the mandate is struck down; and even whether the whole case should be postponed until the mandate takes effect in 2014. Big rallies will coincide with the Supreme Court’s arguments, but the furore belies an increasingly obvious fact. American health care is changing, possibly for good.

Economist: Heal Thyself

(From Huffington Post)
The Supreme Court's health care cases don't begin until 10 a.m. Monday, but the line for the general public to see the action started more than 72 hours earlier. By the the middle of Friday afternoon, the line was already about 10 people deep. The only one not getting paid to be there -- that is, the first actual spectator who will gain entry to the proceedings -- was Kathie McClure.


"I originally thought that I was going to be starting here tomorrow," McClure said. "I came over here to do some recon and there were four people already in line, so I thought, 'Oh gosh.'"

McClure, an Atlanta-based trial lawyer, rushed back to her hotel room in northern Virginia, "dumped everything" into her suitcase, and took her place along the Supreme Court sidewalk to guarantee her ticket to witness history.

The wait will not be easy. Weather forecasts call for thunderstorms beginning Friday night and lasting through Sunday. No tents are allowed. Supreme Court police told HuffPost there will be a single line for all four oral arguments scheduled from Monday through Wednesday. Those at the front of the line can pass on a ticket for Monday's more technical argument to keep their prime spot for the main event -- Tuesday's test of the individual mandate's constitutionality.

McClure said she wants to attend Tuesday, if she can make it four days on the sidewalk. As president of VoteHealthcare.org, she's is in town to make a bold statement of support for the Affordable Care Act -- a sentiment that comes from own family's experience. "I have two chronically ill young adult children," she said. "My son has diabetes and my daughter has epilepsy. We need the Affordable Care Act to be upheld by the Supreme Court because people like my kids, without the Affordable Care Act, won't be able to buy health insurance" because their pre-existing conditions would make them uninsurable.

"They have insurance now because they currently have jobs, but it's been a long battle for our family," McClure said. "They were both diagnosed at 14 and we paid $35,000 a year to insure four people, which is ridiculous."

Big Supreme Court cases often draw long lines, but multi-day overnights are rare. The last such long haul was for a major Second Amendment case two years ago, which compelled a California gun-rights enthusiast and his friend to begin the queue 30 hours early.

For some, the wait is a badge of honor. McClure, however, sees her trek as a black mark upon the court's no-cameras policy. "I think it is absurd that I have to travel to Washington, D.C., and sleep on the sidewalk for three days to get a seat in front of the Supreme Court of the United States," she said. "This is our judicial branch, our institution, and it's essentially for all practical purposes closed off to the public."

Of the 400 seats in the courtroom, the court normally guarantees only 50 for members of the general public to attend a full session. Because the health care cases have commanded so much interest, 60 seats will be made available. The court also will release audio recordings of the arguments several hours after each one finishes, departing from the practice begun in 2010 to post all of the recordings at the end of the week.