Court

Every time I heard Romney say he would overturn Obamacare if elected I knew it was all talk because he would need 60 votes in the senate to overcome the filibuster that the Democrats would use. Since the Supreme Court ruling on Obama care, all of that has changed. Since the court ruled that the so called penalty for not buying insurance is in fact a tax it is a new ballgame. Through a process called reconciliation a law can be overturned with 51 votes if it involves taxes. With this new ruling, if Romney is elected and the Republicans gain three seats in the Senate they will be able to repeal Obamacare. The other thing the court did was to make it more difficult for congress to pass further laws regarding the commerce clause. This was the clause that allowed the government to pass laws that the states objected to. For example they passed Obama care as insurance reform and said anything that is sold on an interstate basis could be regulated by the federal government. Another part of this changed the way congress could encourage states to follow regulations by taking away funding. The law says that states must accept money from the federal government to implement the Medicaid portion of Obama care. In the past if the states refused the feds would cut off all funding but the court has called that coercion and it is no longer allowed.