Emporia, Kansas is spending ov er $100, 000 for four monu- men tsone tobe erecte d ateach of thei r four entran ces.Wilming ton, N. C. ’s gat ew ay is a shor t rad io to we r wi th thr ee mic rop hon es on stands in front of it. The radio guys love it. I’m not sure every- els doe Agenb road’ s Bed Bread and Water (the city jail) with a sign sayi ng “T ext while you’ re driv ing andYOU getto sle ep her e!” ; and my favo rit e a hug e bl ack bear smi lin g wit h a sig n tha t reads “This is my town…behave…or else.” If you have a suggestion, idea gon na be HUG E! (th at darn Honda guy has me saying huge to everything.) I ran into Ti m Ha rri son at Krogers then a few hours later at Nort h Par k on the walking/j og- ging trail last week. He had no wild animals in his care at either ti I fe ltsafe Hi vi th tigers for lunch. I said, “Let me think about it for a while.” Since Greg got the tigers teeth f ixe d he’s been eat ing rea ll y we ll I heard. Lun ch wit h a peng uin ma ybe , a tig er….no t so sure . Is it just me or are specialists in the medic al fiel d mor e int o pha eut ica l sal tha the we ek and my ope nin g wo rds were,“No Enb relpleas e. ” He did look at how bad I have it and gave me a couple of scripts for a crea m to sto p theitchi ng andtold me to consider the Enbrel, he’d love to clear it up for me and that’s what works the best. I got about two minutes worth of talk 4 Thursday , July 5, 2012 Springboro Sun OPINION Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. - The First Amendment to the United States Constitution S UPREME C OURT U PHOLDS H EALTH C ARE L A W In support of ACA Against the ACA David Goldman/AP An opponent of President Barack Obama's health care law demonstrates out- side the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, June 28, 2012, before the court's ruling on the law. Opponents of the Affordabl e Care Act, disappoi nted in the Supreme Court’ s majority opinion upholding the Act, are calling the Act a ‘tax.’ Congressman Mike Tu rner wasted no time issuing a press re leas e along th ose lines. The Act is not a tax. But we ARE currently being taxed every day because the Affordabl e Care Act has not yet been full y imple- mented. We are all taxed when a citizen in this country shows up at the emergency room at their county hospital with- out health insurance. Whether it for themselves, or a sick family member, when people arrive at their local hospital — which is required to provide “indigent” care for them — we all pay. We pay property taxes, sales taxes, cigarette taxes and a myriad of local fees because of this strain on local and state governments to provide services. Sit in the emergency room for an evening and watch them come in…wearing $150 sneakers on their feet, with every member of the family with a cell phone, driving up in their new car with a $399-a-month car pay ment. All of th ese exp endi ture s are made ev ery day by peo ple we kn ow w ho hav e elect ed NO T to buy health insurance for themselve s and their family . Y ears ago, with the growth of automobil es driving down public roads, both individual states and the federal governments agreed that allowing people to drive on pub lic wa ys wit hout ca r insura nce wa s a crisis. Da il y, we all face the risk of someone crashing into us, damag- ing our car, or causing us personal injury. The law requires all drivers to carry liability insur- ance. Drivers can elect not to protect their own vehicle, but the y must carry au to insu rance fo r the dama ge the y might cause our car or our person. The law says that you must carry car insurance, at a level establi shed by the collective action of the U.S. gov- ernment, state authorities and insurance providers, so that we are all protected from undue financial harm as the result of an accident. The Congress passed t he Affordabl e Care Act for the same reason — because too many Americans refused to take responsibility for insuring their health. Additional ly , the Congress recognized that the health insurance industry needed to be regulate d; the Act insures that health insurance companies can not drop us — peopl e who are wil lin g to pay for hea lth in suran ce coverage — because we are sick, or our children or spouse become ill. And, it will control the cost we can be char ged for serv ices , and contr ol the pri ce of medi - cines prescribed. It protects us, no different from the other public safe- ty functions of government we all depend on, such as our local police and fire departments. There is a role for government in all our lives — the need to step in for ‘the greater good’ when indiv iduals can not, or will not, provide individually. Most of us see the value of police and fire departments– government; and public school systems — government; and trash collection — governme nt; and safe water management — gov ernme nt. This does not mean that we should not demand well- run governm ent. We do and will every day here at the Xenia Daily Gazette, part of the sacred mission of the media … the daily watchdog of the job done by local, regional, state and federal officials on our collective behalf. The President and the majority of Congress took a dif- ficult stand, after years of research, to provide us another level of government protection to enhance our lives. Does Congress have any limits? Apparently not, according to the ruling by the United States Supreme Court upholding the Affordabl e Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Based on the ruling, it would appear that the reach of Congress to regulate and mandate behav- ior has no limits as long as the penalty for not complying is called a tax. That Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Court’s liberal wing in the majority , and not Justice Anthony Kennedy, was a shocker in itself, but the rationale behind the ruling caught many off guard. Convent ional wisdom held that the individ ual mandate, the funding mechanism for the ACA, would be struck down and that the Court would have to dissect what could be salvaged. The irony of the ruling is that in oral arguments befor e the Supre me Court , the Obam a Administration stated over and over again that the mandate was not a tax-because they, like many others, thought this would be the most likely way the Act would be held unconstitu tional. Instead , Justice Roberts’ finding that the mandate is a tax is the only reason the ACA surviv ed. Toda y’ s r uling means the federal governm ent can tell you that you must buy health insurance, regardless if you want it or not. If you choose not to buy insurance, then you will be taxed, and we all know what happens to those who don’t pay their taxes. The fee that the government will impose is 1 percent of your sa lary . Many pe ople wi thou t healt h care probably don’t have jobs, so what good would a fee do? One percent of nothing, is nothing. What’s next? Will the government mandate we all buy solar panels?American-made cars? Broccoli? That becomes the real question, becau se under this ruling the government can force us to buy anyt hing it wa nts under th e penalty of a tax. Another group that could be negatively affected by this ruli ng is small busi ness own ers. If they will be required to offer health insurance to their employees, their cost wil l ultimately go up. The domino effect of this is that businesses will be forced to fire employees or demote them to part- time status in order to cut costs. The worst outcome could be a stunt in hiring, which is not something our current economy needs at the moment. This ruling could scare companies into sitting on the sidelines and waiting to see what the cost evaluation will be. Companies that may have been feeling more positive about their business and the economy may feel different- ly now. The Act also describes a special tax for Cadillac plan s, whic h are the plan s mainl y affor ded by th e higher-ups in a company. If these plans are taxed, who do you think is going to pay the tax? The bosses or the empl oy ees?The cost will u lti mate ly be passe d on to emplo yees , thus rai sing co sts for middle America. The negative aspects of this ruling outweigh many of positiv e aspects. A better outcome is out there and it needs to be found. Luckily, the ruling only states tha t the Act is constit uational. This means that as a law, it can still be appealed. Obama said today that we need to need to move forward and put the health care debate behind us. How is that really possible when this ruling affects so many future decisions? David Goldman/AP Supporters of President Barack Obama's health care law celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, June 28, 2012, after the court's rul- ing was announced. Is Springboro ready to be a gateway? MERGE WRIGHT B y Don Wr ig h t Times