Editorial:Good News for Obamacare

Health care reform survived another challenge in the Supreme Court. This time around, the cases against the Affordable Care Act were a cross between hatred towards Obamacare and a view encouraged from some conservative sectors that there is a war going on against Christians in our country.

The case stems from the refusal of employers affiliated to religious organizations to provide its employers with health coverage including contraception, because it goes against their religious values. The Obama administration tried to negotiate a deal by taking this responsibility away from the employer and putting it in the insurance company. The only thing the employerneeded to do was to notify the government about their objection, and who their insurance provider is. Employers opposed the deal, saying that the notification made them “complicit in sin.”

For the Supreme Court, the difference between the government position and the employers’ is so small that it could be negotiated between both parts. This is why they sent four similar cases to their respective appeal courts.

The possibility of an agreement is difficult due to the politically charged atmosphere surrounding Obamacare. The furious Republican opposition knows no limits, from the dozens of repeal votes in Congress to the support for lawsuits that failed in the Supreme Court. What is worse, a detailed Republican plan to replace the law still does not exist.

On the other hand, Obamacare’s reasonable mandate to standardize the health coverage provided by the private sector to their employers has been turned into an attack on religion, because it does not allow every employer to provide work benefits according to their religious beliefs. Such thing would punish the employee and would led to chaos in a society as diverse as ours.

But this becomes secondary for the people who put this Obamacare case in the same bag as gay marriage and the transgender bathroom issue as examples of hostility towards Christians. Republican Senator Ted Cruz is a good example of political exploitation of such issues.

The decision is good for the millions of Obamacare beneficiaries that enjoy a health coverage they did not have before. Unfortunately, some people are still bent on taking insurance away from them, and will go as far as resorting to God to make that happen.