Two Great Days for America: Obamacare and Marriage Equality are Affirmed

Over the past two days the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Obamacare will continue and that same-sex marriage must be recognized in all fifty states. The effects of these momentous judgments will go down in history as major turning points in the story of the security and rights of the American people. They represent a complete vindication of the liberal/progressive position on both issues, by a majority-conservative court, no less. They also cement the prominent place of President Barack Obama among those presidents who have effected truly transformational change.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) ruling in King v. Burwell is as potentially important as the 1937 Helvering v. Davis decision that upheld Social Security. As NPR correspondent Nina Tottenberg described, conservative activists "flyspecked" the ACA looking for any errors they could attack. They found a drafting error, "exchanges established by the state," that called into question whether the Act's subsidies to help Americans of modest means to afford health insurance could be granted to residents of the 34 states who have been relying on the federal exchange to purchase their health insurance. The 6-3 vote to sustain the tax credit subsidies was the right conclusion. The ruling, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, properly found that the entire intent of the law was to provide help to all eligible Americans, and that it should not be judicially invalidated by one drafting error in a 2,000-page law. The principle that all Americans should have access to health care and that the federal government will help make that a reality is now enshrined in our country. Even if they win the next presidential election Republicans will find it extremely difficult to take away benefits that 16 million people already enjoy. Just as they have found with Social Security and Medicare, Republicans will face nearly insurmountable political obstacles in getting rid of it. People are going to get to go to the doctor whether Republicans like it or not.

The marriage equality ruling was perhaps even more decisive from a human rights perspective. The 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges orders all states to recognize same-sex marriage, based on the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, which says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This is as decisive and permanent as the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case that outlawed bans on interracial marriage. The four conservatives on the court who voted against the majority felt so strongly against this that they all wrote individual dissents, even resorting to personal attacks against their normally fellow-conservative colleague Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, who wrote the majority opinion.  He sided with the liberals as he has before on LGBT equality issues. Their objections will all be relegated in time to the historical ash heap along with others who down through the years have tried to hold back the march of equality across the pages of American history. Gays and lesbians are going to be able to marry the people they love whether conservatives like it or not.

It's been a great two days for America.