Bobby Jindal: Supreme Court Decision Is Not the End of the Obamacare Debate

Thursday, the Supreme Court had its say on Obamacare; soon, the American people will have theirs.

As a matter of law, the Court’s decision upholding subsidies for states participating in the federally run insurance exchange, healthcare.gov, violates the plain text of Obamacare. The statute expressly restricted insurance subsidies to those individuals purchasing coverage through an “Exchange established by the state.” But just as Chief Justice Roberts three years ago decreed that the individual mandate functioned as a tax, even though both Congress and President Barack Obama stated that it wasn’t, the Court decided that “Exchange established by the state” meant any type of Exchange, whether established by states or by Washington.

It’s a sad outcome for the rule of law — and the English language. But when it comes to the political debate surrounding Obamacare, the Court’s ruling ultimately decides little. Of course, Obama, who took an entirely predictable victory lap yesterday, would have you believe otherwise. But we’ve seen his triumphalism before — and have seen it come crashing back to reality.

Three years ago, Obama stated he wouldn’t “refight old battles,” mere hours after seven Supreme Court justices — including his own former solicitor general — struck down the law’s mandatory Medicaid expansion as unconstitutional “economic dragooning” of the states. On election night 2012, the president promised to “move forward” — months before at least 4.7 million Americans received insurance cancellation notices thanks to Obamacare. And this April, the president arrogantly declared that “the repeal debate is and should be over” — mere weeks before his native state of Hawaii shut its failed insurance exchange, an effort the federal government spent more than $200 million funding.

So, much as the President would like the debate on Obamacare to be over, it isn’t. The debate persists in large part because the law has singularly failed in its prime objective: Containing health care costs. Consider why this Supreme Court case mattered so much to the administration in the first place. The law spends over $1.7 trillion on subsidized coverage to make insurance more “affordable,” largely to offset the new mandates and regulations that have raised the price of insurance.

And with myriad insurers proposing double-digit premium increases for next year — some as high as 50% — candidate Obama’s 2008 promise to lower insurance premiums by $2,500 per family is further away then ever. No wonder the law remains singularly unpopular. When it comes to winning the debate on Obamacare, there is still all to play for.

But in order to win, we conservatives first have to play. That means outlining our alternative vision for health care: How we would restore freedom and choice to a health care sector currently lacking for both — and most importantly, how we would slow, and hopefully reverse, the trend of skyrocketing health care costs.

As I write this, I stand as the sole major declared presidential candidate (with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders) to put forward my vision on health care, and an alternative to Obamacare. As proud as I am of my plan, that is a boast I wish I were not able to make. Because Republicans, from the top down, must outline a clear and coherent vision for health care to win the trust of the American people to repeal this President’s health law.

While we should be shouting our vision from the rooftops, many of my fellow candidates have managed barely a whisper about how exactly they would repeal Obamacare, or what they would do to tackle the main issue plaguing our health care system: rising costs. Sen. Mike Lee recently stated that lack of an Obamacare replacement plan should be a disqualifier for any conservative presidential candidate. He’s absolutely right. We owe it to the American people to release our plans well before November 2016, and to have a robust debate within our party about what should come after Obamacare.

Because, contrary to this President’s self-proclaimed edicts, yesterday’s Supreme Court decision is not the end of the debate on Obamacare.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, the debate shifts back to the elected branches of government — the ones that caused our health care mess in the first place. It is there that conservatives can complete our work to repeal Obamacare.