The Supremes and ObamaCare

I wrote this last week, but see that I didn't hit the "publish" button- sorry for the delay, fans!

Big news today of course is that the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act on a 5-4 vote.  This is certainly good news for liberals like me, but it's only one battle in a war that won't end until the law is fully implemented and Americans grow to love it like we love Medicare... or until Republicans manage to repeal it.

Some thoughts:

• I saw that Anthony Kennedy, writing the dissent, would have struck down the whole law.  Wow- I haven't been able to find the reasoning he uses there, but most of what I read in the leadup to this noted that only the mandate was really in the discussion of unconstitutionality, so it could have been invalidated without taking down the whole law.  The stuff I can find, including the link above, notes that Kennedy rejects seeing the mandate as a "tax".  But why would that mean the entire law would be invalidated?  That seems odd, and frankly really activist in the extreme.
• I think John Roberts makes the right call from a conservative perspective, showing how nothing in the ACA is unprecedented.  That still doesn't mean it's a good law- government gets bigger, and conservatives don't like that, but it's just not unconstitutional.  Scalia and Thomas were expected to vote against the law, and in some ways that's not even very inconsistent of them.  We've come to learn that these two are really radical jurists, and if they had the chance to strike down Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, I think they would do it.  That's a backhanded way of saying that their dissents are in keeping with their judicial philosophies- a good reason to keep Republicans out of the White House, as their judges will bring us back to a pre-New Deal America.  Kennedy I have a much harder time forgiving for his position, as he has a history of relative moderation and has criticized judicial activism- his dissent stinks of raw partisanship.
• Now the battle moves to the 2012 elections.  If Republicans sweep both houses of congress and the presidency, they'll certainly repeal the law.  I would certainly hope that Democrats use the filibuster in the Senate in the same way that it's been used on them the last 3 years to try to block it, but as I've said before, as soon as the Democrats use that tactic I fully expect Republicans to use the "nuclear option" and end the filibuster entirely.  That's why I want Democrats to do it themselves first, but unfortunately my side insists on bringing a knife to a gunfight.  If the Democrats hold on to anything in 2012, the law goes fully into effect before the next election and would be much harder to repeal in the future.  I guess it always seems like the next election is Extra Important, but in this case I think it really is.
• If moderate Democrats cave on the ACA at any point, I'll have to just give up.  The wimpy nature of the people who are supposed to be looking out for the little guy will just be too apparent.  You can't win if you're not willing to fight.