MORE HEALTHCARE

++Mitt Romney continues to fund-raise on the decision, banking over $2 million at this point.


++Mitt Romney's full view of the decision sounded like a House Republican mime. "It was bad law yesterday and it is bad law today." Besides, in case, you never heard it Obamacare is a "job-killer" as the vast majority of the American Chamber of Commerce will tell you. However, the story is slightly different for small businesses which get tax credits to take advantage of it.


++Erickson at Redstate writes, "John Roberts just made Romney president."


++Charles Krauthammer actually had a decent op-ed praising Judge Roberts' attitude and decision even though he disagreed with the vote. Krauthammer talks about Roberts' sense of higher duty as the chief justice of the entire court and how he is committed to restoring the court's credibility. He also points out how he remains a conservative judge by his attempt to limit the Commerce Clause. It reads like Krauthammer is a little fed up with the tenor of political discussion in Washington and wanted to try out higher themes.


++Judge Roberts, the hero of conservatives in Citizens United, has become a turncoat and right-wing pundits are trying to float the mantra "Impeach Roberts". 


++Louie Gohmert has a better idea. He wants to open an investigation of Elaine Kagan because he thinks there was a conflict of interest in her voting. He didn't mention Clarence Thomas' conflict of interest with a wife who campaigned with the teapartiers against the healthcare law.


++One writer observed that Mitt Romney is trying to energize the base by exploiting the decision but has failed to articulate his own alternatives. Instead, Romney wants the status quo, even abandoning his own Massachusetts model. The problem this writer says is that the United States doesn't want the status quo but is fed up with the current healthcare system. The American people have lived with the current health insurance industry for the past 30 years and wants to be done with it.


++Supporters of the healthcare bill say it just will not be repealed, even if Republicans win the White House, Senate and retain the House. The reason is that the popular aspects of the bill are just becoming known and some just taking place. You simply can not repeal the law with a single page but instead that single page becomes 50 and then you have to restore all the popular provisions. Besides, you would have the Democrats filibuster. It just won't happen. What the Supreme Court did today was legitimize the Healthcare bill since Republicans have waged two years against it claiming it was unconstitutional. While Republicans hold the same view today, what about independents and moderates?


++Former Senator Bennett, who had been ousted by a tea bagger, said "Healthcare reform is now here to stay." Bennett, a conservative Republican,doesn't like Obamacare but says that no one has come up with anything better and that he in fact favors the individual mandate.


++Be prepared for the return of the old mantra, Obamacare is the largest tax hike in history. Rush Limbaugh today claimed the IRS was Obama's private army and you might remember the old claim that thousands more IRS agents will have to be hired to monitor the compliance of the mandate. Naturally, the penalties on the individual mandate will be marginal at best and very few people will pay anything but you will hear this throughout the campaign.


++Meanwhile Howard Dean, one of the most level-head commentators about healthcare reform, told the Morning Joe that the individual mandate is really irrelevant. Dean, who pioneered health reform in Vermont, said that the Americans overwhelmingly want to buy health insurance if it is affordable. He pointed to the development of the health insurance exchanges as the salvation for the program. Vastly enlarging the pool will cut health insurance costs and those poorer will get subsidies. He believes that with the provisions in there now enough Americans will take advantage of it to make the individual mandate moot. He taunted the tea baggers saying if they want to go without health insurance in this circumstance, let them.


++Think Progress posted ten reasons the Republicans won't be able to repeal Obamacare. It is worth a read. 


++The left is concerned about the limitations by the decision on the expansion of the Medicaid program. We will have to see whether they are right. As for the concerns about he Commerce Clause, there again progressives felt that Roberts put that in there to argue cases down the road for further de-regulation.


++But like it or not a right-wing court ratified the role of the federal government to make policy, contrary to the tea baggers, admitted Congress can pass large social policy bills and basically affirmed the whole notion of a President attempting to rectify a national crisis--something most commentators are loath to admit.


++The Republicans are now changing their line once again. They are moving away from hiding behind the constitution and just arguing it is bad policy. Mitch McConnell reiterated this point this afternoon when he acknowledged it was constitutional but said the Congress must work beginning today to repeal it.


++It's great to criticize President Obama for actually having a health reform plan but it is another to put one forth on your own. The Divisions within the Republican Party are so deep that an alternative policy is not possible. The battle cry of "Repeal and Replace" of 2010 has no replacements in it. And to raise one now would undercut the basic message about this election being a referendum on Obama.


++The GOP's deliberate coupling of the healthcare decision with the contempt citation for Eric Holder simply bombed. Eric Holder is the first Attorney-General of the United States cited with contempt by Congress. Obvious to all, he is the first African-American Attorney-General. The covert message was heard loud and clear but the story was eaten up by the Healthcare decision all day.


++How this plays out in the election depends on the Obama Campaign being able to aggressively sell the positive provisions in the bill, something they never did before. And increasingly, the election looks like organization against finances and whether people will turn out in significant numbers.


++One classy bit was the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party wondering aloud if it was time for armed insurrection.