Daily Herald editorial

The Supreme Court this week began to wrestle with constitutional issues surrounding the nation’s new health care law. Variously called “health care reform” and “Obamacare,” depending on the speaker’s political orientation, the reality is the law has points on both sides of the ledger, good and bad.

Much of the rhetoric surrounding the health care system that the president and Congress pushed into law in 2010 is political and should be ignored. Republican attacks on the law are driven at least in part by a desire to make the president look bad. Democrats’ defense of the law is a defense of the president. Discounting the hyperbole, however, a couple of things do remain clear. First among those is that the basic premise of the health care law — that every American ought to have access to affordable health care — is undeniably correct, as is the underlying assumption that health care costs are currently out of reach for many people. In the sense that it attempted to remedy that situation, the law is good.

Where the law fell short is that it, in essence, requires every American to have health insurance. For most Americans, that makes sense, because most would rather buy an affordable insurance policy than face the alternatives. But what about those who simply don’t want insurance — people who, for example, want to live a solitary, quiet life in a mountain cabin and simply take their chances on health? Or who have significant personal wealth and don’t think insurance is a smart bet? The current law would force those people to buy something they don’t want and possibly don’t need. And that does not seem very American. Our government shouldn’t be in the business of telling people how to live their lives.

We do not know what the middle course is, the path between health care reform and unconstitutional government interference in individuals’ lives. And while the Supreme Court does not and can not make law, we do hope that the nine wise justices can perhaps make a ruling that will provide a glimpse of that middle path.