Opposing Obamacare on principle

Associated Press File PhotoIf the Supreme Court rules against the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, states have few options and the GOP hasn't in five years offered alternatives to the 14.7 million now covered by private insurance subsidized with tax credits.
Associated Press File PhotoIf the Supreme Court rules against the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, states have few options and the GOP hasn't in five years offered alternatives to the 14.7 million now covered by private insurance subsidized with tax credits.

It has been cynically assumed that everybody who may get medical coverage under ObamaCare "reforms" will naturally give wholehearted support to the law. But it was encouraging to read in The Tennessean newspaper that that's not the case.

The Nashville paper highlighted a 19-year-old Nashville resident and college student, Alé Dalton, who does not currently have medical insurance. "If anyone would seem a likely supporter of last year's federal health care reform, it's Alé Dalton," the newspaper reported, declaring that she "fits the profile of Americans that federal health care reform laws are designed to help."

But Dalton opposes ObamaCare, or at least its most oppressive provision: the requirement that almost everyone buy government-approved medical insurance or be punished for not doing so. She said that whether or not she would personally benefit from ObamaCare, "I don't agree with the unconstitutionality of it. It's not just my opinion, but it is unconstitutional for Congress to mandate people buy something from a private institution."

Her views echo overwhelming Tennessee opposition to ObamaCare. Vanderbilt University's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions surveyed more than 700 Tennesseans and found more than three-fifths want ObamaCare completely or partially repealed. Not even a third want the law to stay on the books as it is or to expand.

Like the student in Nashville, many who oppose ObamaCare object to the mandate that everyone buy government-approved insurance.

It is refreshing when individuals reject a bad law on principle, not complacently accepting it in the hope of "getting something."

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