On Wednesday the House is all set to vote on repealing the Affordable Healthcare Act. This is the 33rd time the health care law is under repeal and the first time since June 28 when the Supreme Court ruled the legislation constitutional.
In partial foresight of the court's decision House Speaker John Boehner warned "We've made it pretty clear and I'll make it clear one more time: If the court does not strike down the entire law, the House will move to repeal what's left of it...Obamacare is driving up the cost of health care and making it harder for small businesses to hire new workers," as reported by ABC News.
The real question is if there is a point for this vote. After the green light from the nation's apex court and a Democrat-led senate, there is no way the Affordable Healthcare Act has even the slightest chance of repeal. Then why is the House going through the process? Is there a legitimate goal or is it merely a "political charade" as the democrats are calling it?
Boehner explains, "Hope springs eternal...This is not what the American people want. They want to be empowered to make decisions about their own health care and their family's health care. They don't want the government involved in this, and so we're going to continue to work to repeal this," as reported by ABC News.
On June 28, in the most awaited decision of the year, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the most controversial part of the healthcare plan. The individual mandate clause, which requires every American to have healthcare or incur a financial penalty, was upheld as being within the constitutional authority of the federal government to impose taxes. The Affordable Healthcare Act aka Obama care was upheld in a 5-4 vote.
Justice John Roberts provided the tie-break vote. Roberts vote does in deed surprise, since he is known to be a conservative judge appointed by former President George Bush in 2005. Roberts stated that since there was sufficient precedence establishing the federal government's powers in tax-measures and interstate commerce, the individual mandate clause was perfectly constitutional.
Justice Roberts joined the four liberal Justices - Stephen Breyer, Ruth bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in providing the majority to pass the bill.
