‘When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous’

When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but dismay to evildoers. — Proverbs 21:15

Dave Weigel: “How We Found Out”

“The mandate is constitutional! It was upheld! Roberts went for the swing vote! Yes! Oh my God! The individual mandate survives as a tax!”

Did you work on passing the bill? I asked.

“No!” said Hilary Matfess, a young policy analyst. “I just have lupus!”

Paul Krugman: “The Real Winners”

How many people are we talking about? You might say 30 million, the number of additional people the Congressional Budget Office says will have health insurance thanks to Obamacare. …

Add in every American who currently works for a company that offers good health insurance but is at risk of losing that job (and who isn’t in this world of outsourcing and private equity buyouts?); every American who would have found health insurance unaffordable but will now receive crucial financial help; every American with a pre-existing condition who would have been flatly denied coverage in many states.

In short, unless you belong to that tiny class of wealthy Americans who are insulated and isolated from the realities of most people’s lives, the winners from that Supreme Court decision are your friends, your relatives, the people you work with — and, very likely, you. For almost all of us stand to benefit from making America a kinder and more decent society.

Jesse Curtis: “Thank God for Obamacare”

The Republican propaganda says it is bad that things will be better for my wife and I in the future. That somehow our society can’t afford it, or that somehow my freedom is threatened more by taxation than by poor health. That’s crazy.

The righteous know the rights of the poor; the wicked have no such understanding. — Proverbs 29:7

Karoli: “ACA Is Of, By, and For People”

When you have a chronic illness, when someone you love has a chronic illness, when your child has a chronic illness, you will give up everything to help them get better, even when it means losing everything.

… Do you have a chronic condition? Does anyone in your family have one? The ACA means they will have the same access to health care as anyone else, without regard to their illness.

Ann Werner: “Much Ado About Obamacare”

Here’s what I want to know. Why are conservatives so pissed off about the Affordable Care Act? … I want to know what is so terrible about:

1. Keeping your kids on your policy until they reach the age of 26.

2. Eliminating the lifetime cap on benefits.

3. Stopping insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick.

4. Lowering the cost of care and medication for Medicare recipients. …

Adventus: “Can I get off here, please?”

In what reality are children not participants in the market for healthcare? … Are the [dissenting] justices so old or childless they don’t recall childhood diseases, injuries, accidents, are unaware of children in hospitals, with cancer or other illnesses? Tonsillitis, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus? Do these words mean nothing to the dissenting justices? Are they too old to know about ear tubes and ear infections and all the ills young children are heir to? Do they think children are magically immune to medical needs until they reach middle age, or at least the age of majority when they can buy insurance? Do they not begin to understand the reason most children in America live to the age of majority is because of healthcare, not in spite of it?

If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and not be heard. — Proverbs 21:13

Steven D.: “Why I am happy (with caveat)”

Why am I happy? My son can remain on our health insurance plan for three more years.

If we lose our health insurance because of the bankruptcy of our former employer, NY has a plan in place to which I can apply in 6 months (not ideal but better than nothing) and in 2014 the insurance exchanges will provide competition and lower cost policies — again not an ideal solution, but something.

My son, daughter and I will not have to worry about the not being granted health insurance or non-coverage of claims because of our pre-existing conditions. The donut hole for my wife’s medicare prescription drug coverage will continue to go away. Caveat to my happiness: If Romney is elected all this will go away.

Atul Gawande: “Something Wicked This Way Comes”

Tens of millions of Americans don’t have access to basic care for prevention and treatment of illness. For decades, there’s been wide support for universal health care. Finally, with the passage of Obamacare, two years ago, we did something about it. The law would provide coverage for people like those my friends told me about, either through its expansion of Medicaid eligibility or through subsidized private insurance. Yet the country has remained convulsed by battles over whether we should implement this plan—or any particular plan. Now that the Supreme Court has largely upheld Obamacare, it’s tempting to imagine that the battles will subside. There’s reason to think that they won’t.

Rachel Stone: “One Deadly Infection, Two Health Babies, and Three Broken Legs (or, How Government Health Care Totally Saved My Behind)”

It should be within every person’s ability to take care of their health, and that of their children, without going bankrupt…and I think the free market has had a fair shot at making that happen, and lost.

I have to chuckle when I hear reference to “the US healthcare system.” Because there isn’t one. There just isn’t.

The poor plead for mercy, but the rich answer harshly. — Proverbs 18:23

Tobin Grant: “Most Evangelicals Likely to Lament Supreme Court Health Care Ruling”

Evangelicals, more than any other religious group, wanted the entire health care law scrapped, according to a June poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. In poll results given to Christianity Today, three-quarters of evangelicals disapprove of the law, a number higher than any other religious tradition.