WASHINGTON (BP) — It’s been two years since President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. On Monday, the challenge to the law’s constitutionality finally gets to the Supreme Court.
In an unprecedented move, the nation’s highest court will devote an entire week to its consideration. The week will include an unheard-of five hours of oral arguments for and against the Obama Administration’s effort to forever change how Americans receive their healthcare.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has opposed the law from the start. We believe it will make health care worse for the vast majority of Americans as government bureaucrats step between patients and their doctors. The law will result in poorer care for Americans as government bureaucrats dictate how insurance companies use their available resources to provide health services.
Ultimately, the relentless demands for limited health care dollars will lead to rationed health care, which has occurred in every other nation that has decided to take over its health care system. Already, the government’s own Congressional Budget Office tells us Obamacare will cost twice as much as originally projected, and it hasn’t even been implemented yet.
Already, more than 1,000 waivers have been granted to companies trying to come to grips with the expected higher costs they will bear. Millions of Americans will lose the health care they currently have.
We are also deeply concerned by the Obama Administration’s determination to force faith-based institutions and religious employers to provide abortion-causing drugs and devices to their employees through their health care plans. This blatant disregard of deeply held religious beliefs is a clear violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.
Clearly, the Supreme Court should agree that the administration’s overreach on abortion demonstrates what many of us fear — the federal government is now empowered to dictate to its citizens what they must purchase regardless even of their personal conscience convictions.
Our nation’s health care system does need a major overhaul. Unfortunately, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not the answer. It will only create a much worse system with sinister consequences for the American public.
The Supreme Court should strike down the law as the unconstitutional monstrosity it is. Then we will be able to resume the effort for responsible health care reform. To see what the ERLC considers important components of healthcare reform, read our paper entitled, “Fifteen Principles for Successful Healthcare Reform” at
www.erlc.com/documents/pdf/20091110-fifteen-principles-final.pdf
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Barrett Duke is vice president for public policy and research of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
