Greetings!  Thinking about anything local today is out of the question, given the Supreme Court Decision about the Affordable Health Care Act. 

I'm glad for the decision.  The non-partisan Congressional Budget

Office reports that health care costs will NOT increase, despite claims to the contrary by opponents of the Act.  As President Obama said in his speech, typically ugly Washington politics will ensue, but this is a victory for everyday people. 

Employees will no longer have to stay in an unpleasant job just to keep their healthcare coverage. They won't have to leave a job they love to find a new employer who offers needed insurance.  They won't have to find themselves bankrupt because their child has a genetically-based disease, or their spouse has been in a terrible car accident.  

None of us will have to carry, through our premiums, the healthcare costs of those whose only medical recourse is the emergency room.

Many elements drive our economy, including fundamental human expectations of what tomorrow will bring.  Fear holds us back.  Optimism allows us to move forward.  In the past decades, we have seen the herd instinct create bubbles and crashes that cannot be explained by the usual economic models. We have experienced the constrictions that public insecurity places on economic growth.  We have seen how paying for critical care more easily than preventive medicine shapes the way people handle their health. 

When people no longer have to worry that they and their families can be wiped out by illness overnight, they are likely to live more expansively and more assertively.  They are likely to see more opportunity in the world and be willing to take more risk in their careers and business endeavors.  If anything can give an economy forward motion, it is a confident public.  The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Health Care Act couldn't come at a better time for the American psyche and economy.  A decade from now, we will look back on this historic achievement and wonder what all the fuss was about. 

Until next week...Jima Rice