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Judge Declares Federal Healthcare Plan (Partly) Unconstitutional
healeyb writes "In a surprise move, US District Judge Henry E. Hudson issued a ruling today that the universal healthcare law that was pushed through by the Obama administration is unconstitutional. Specifically, he invalidated the section of the law that requires all citizens to purchase healthcare insurance, arguing that it does not fall under the purview of Commerce Clause of the Constitution, as has been asserted by the government. The ruling represents the first major setback for President Barack Obama on an issue that will likely end up at the Supreme Court. Two other courts have shot down challenges to the law."
The same guy that went after Michael Mann and others after it was thrown out. He's a young Republican with an agenda that he's forcing down everyone's throat since day one. From trying to change the state seal (it has a mammary in it!) to just stating that "Homosexuality is wrong."
I'm not saying he's right or wrong in this matter (the judge seemed to agree with him) but he's one of those guys and he's a state Attorney General for Virginia pushing his conservative agenda to a national level.
My work here is dung.
Too bad "unconstitutional" is only defined by which party has the bench packed at the Supreme Court, currently
Oh really? Anyone who at least didn't question the constitutionality of this really (regardless of where you end up standing) needs to get a clue.
In brief terms how laws in the US pass? I thought it started from the senate, and the president has veto rights.
But now Judges can mess with the laws?
Thanks in advance.
I don't think the story is flamebait. While the presentation may be slanted, this judicial ruling is certainly newsworthy. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the higher courts.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Oh right, this was reported on the internet, so it is relevant here.
How can it possibly be constitutional to force someone sitting at home who has no insurance to leave that home, to forcibly purchase anything? It is like forcing a license to live.
While I think it foolish not to purchase said insurance if possible, I cannot see anyway to legally compel this action by force.
"It seems that we are at the age where life stops giving us things, and starts taking them away..." Indiana Jones
I would love to see the rationale for this being unconstitutional, but the War on Drugs being A-Ok. They've already decided the commerce clause let's them do anything that could potentially affect interstate commerce, so this is certainly covered by that. People would be purchasing different insurance than otherwise, which could affect the market in both that state and others.
The odd aspect of the current plan is that you can be compelled by law, just by dint of being a citizen, to purchase a product from a private company.
If it was an across-the-board tax for across-the-board health coverage it'd clearly be constitutional. But for some reason we have to keep cutting in a for-profit industry that adds no real value to the process and pretend that's better than having the government pool the cash and disburse it as necessary to doctors.
They actually found a worse solution than socialism to the problem.
Only in the US is healthcare a privilege instead of a human right. That so many in a 'civilized' country are opposed to universal healthcare should make people wonder if the term 'civilized' is appropriate at all.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
...ask yourself who this is actually a victory for. After all, this was only a ruling against a part of the law, not the entire thing. And this was really the part that was the biggest corporate hand-out of the bill - had a real liberal written it we would have seen a single-payer option instead of forcing people to give more money to large corporations.
So in other words, if this part goes, and the rest stays, what are we left with? A bunch of smaller corporate hand-outs that don't fix much of anything in a horrendously broken system. Most people will still have the shitty insurance they already have, and they will see their costs continue to rise the same way that they would have if nothing at all had happened.
So whether it goes away - in part or in entirety - or not, we still have a crappy broken system. Maybe, just maybe - if we are really truly fortunate - this will motive our politicians to actually write a bill that addresses some of the existing problems and then hold an honest discussion on that.
But I suspect at this rate I (and anyone currently reading this) will be dead before that happens in the US.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
his guy is a gw appointee. he owns part of a gop consulting firm. the republican party is paying him money. http://www.judicialwatch.org/judge/hudson-henry-e
Forcing insurers to accept pre-existing conditions without a mandate should put them out of business.
I think the only part of the story that is flamebait is the editorial statement "In a surprise move."
This is NOT a surprise move. The individual mandate has been widely debated by academics and lawyers with many dissenting viewpoints. It was pretty much inevitable that at some point a portion of the bill (and most likely the individual mandate) would end up in front of a judge who didn't find it licit, and that it would end up in front of the supreme court.
I would bet anything that President Obama and and most of the people behind the health care bill were certain that it would at some point be reviewed by SCOTUS.
did something to help people? I can't think of anything, really.
What is the point of our government if it can't even help its people in times of non-stop crisis?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Claiming that the Federal government does not have the ability to tax people for doing something is ridiculous. If the government has the right to tax us for doing something, it has the right to tax us for not doing something.
Their arugment is specious.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
this wasn't going to work without a public option.
Too bad Obama is a politiician and not a statesman.
So, let me get this straight: the government can force me to have auto insurance, but not health insurance? Well that sure makes sense.
----- Connection reset by beer
We finally pass meaningful health care reform, and there is a Republican Judge, waiting to strike it down, killing thousands in the process. Not that Republicans ever give a shit about their fellow Americans.
Everyone who has voted Republican has the blood of sick Americans on their hands. As well as the blood of Iraqi civilians, and the stench of their stolen oil.
.complaining about activist judges in 3...2... ...no? Really?
Jonathan Shapiro, a Fairfax defense attorney who first met Hudson when the two attended law school at American University, called him "gracious" and "professional," although he said he's always found Hudson to be a conservative thinker who tends to side with the government against criminal defendants.
In a 1983 Washington Post profile of Hudson, Shapiro recalled that he and Hudson were enrolled in a class called "Legal Problems of the Poor."
"I got the impression he thought it was supposed to be 'Giving Legal Problems to the Poor,' " Shapiro said then.
Shapiro remembers the quote now with a laugh. Hudson never seemed to hold the quip against him, he said.
See, he doesn't always rule against the government.
Anyone with a memory better than a gold fish can laugh with me as I recall that insurance mandates were originally the Republican plan. Republicans loved the idea of a mandate, and Democrats hated it.
Now? The Democrats folded like a cheap suit, gave the Republicans what they had been calling for for 15 years, and suddenly the Republicans hate the idea of a mandate.
I think it'd have more creedence if it wasn't some goobers protesting the federal government.
to make comments on subjects about which one is badly uninformed, such as the law. Slashdotters could not pursue this hobby in the absence of any posts on legal topics.
I have to admit, though, it's a great idea. I'm going to play the flip side of this coin by starting a blog where lawyers (typically educated in history, political science, and various fields of law) can offer up their thoughts and opinions on the latest Integrated Development Environments, new chip-fabrication technology, 3rd Amendment analysis of Apple's latest iPod features, etc.
Because really, the #1 best feature of the internet is that it gives people a worldwide platform to talk about subjects on which they are utterly clueless and have no meaningful basis for making an intelligent comment.
How is it a surprise that one of the two judges in the various challenges to the law that have been widely been reported as conservative judges that opponents of the law have been very careful in forum-shopping to get their cases before because they are likely to be sympathetic on this particular argument -- that the individual mandate exceeds the Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause -- has ruled that (surprise?) the individual mandate exceeds the Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause.
Especially given that the judges leanings on this issue were heavily telegraphed in the hearings and earlier preliminary rulings in the case, calling it a "surprise" defies reason.
Long story short: it starts in the corporate boardroom, and ends in a room full of senators on a pile of hookers and blow.
I'd really like to see that version on Schoolhouse Rock!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
But this is pretty clearly unconstitutional under current precedent.
In our system, congress has limited powers. The only power coming close to what they want to do here is the power to regulate interstate commerce (which has been read pretty broadly in recent years).
But the interstate commerce clause is about regulating *commerce*. Congress could pass a law forcing insurance companies operating in interstate commerce (which is basically all of them) to offer coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, etc, and that's clearly within the commerce clause power.
However, saying "joe blow in IL must have health insurance or pay a fine" (which is what law says) has precisely nothing to do with interstate commerce.
Folks are counting on a broad reading of the commerce clause from the supreme court, which has been hit and miss.
See United States v. Lopez for one side, and other recent commerce clause cases for the other.
There is NOTHING in the Constitution of the United States of America that give the federal government the power and authority to FORCE individuals to buy (or pay for, whichever you prefer) . In this case the item we're inserting is Healthcare coverage. We're not talking about a universal, socialist-style system where everyone is taken care of. We're talking about a system which MANDATES that every Citizen of the United States spend their hard earned money on a specific item - there is no choice. What? You say there is a choice? Not really, because if you don't pay for healthcare coverage under the Obama plan you are _penalized_ -- fined to the tune of enough money that you are basically paying for healthcare anyway.
Is that really a choice? Really?
Here is my choice -- the American government has gotten too big and the "nanny state" has gone too far. I say we need less of each. Let's start with not forcing any Citizen of these United States to spend their money on something that is not by choice.
Next they probably rule that being poor is unconstitutional because you cannot buy enough stuff and therefore damage the economy which seems to be the only important factor in the U.S.
Meanwhile I realized that the difference between Obama as president and McCain is probably not much more than the color of their skin. They are both spineless idiots that just follow the way that money leads them. I guess the only way to go for you guys is further down the same road that you apparently chose as the only truth: money, money, money. Will be interesting to see where that will lead you to. I presume civil war at some point when the gap between the rich and the poor has reach a level where the masses won't shut up anymore and even tanks and armed forces will be the lesser evil compared to poverty and the lack of a proper future.
The justification in the law is that it is simply a $750 tax on people who don't purchase health insurance. Or if you like, everyone's taxes went up $750 and you get a $750 rebate for purchasing insurance.
The $750 tax is enforced by the IRS. You can't face any criminal charges for not purchasing insurance.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
If he had simply put a tax increase in the bill to pay for it, it would be totally constitutional. That was not possible from a political PoV, so they came up with the individual mandate.
IMHO, the fatal flaw with the bill is that it doesn't (as a first step) try the low-cost solutions to fixing our system:
1. Abolish the anti-trust exemptions for health insurers. Yes. You heard me. I bet you didn't even know that so-called "progressives" are so ready, willing and able to ignore one of the key ideas of the original Progressive Era, circa 1900.
2. Price transparency. In most states you can't even check to see if you're being ripped off because price lists are secret!
3. Eliminate provider networks. All insurers must pay the same rates from all providers, and must accept claims from any licensed practitioner.
4. Uniform, standard billing codes.
2, 3 and 4 would combine to reveal the regime in ways heretofore unseen, a veritable Wikileak of our current healthcare insanity. It would also help to eliminate over-billing of our current government programs.
None of these very low cost alternatives got on the table. Instead, not only were the inneficient inscos not punished, they were actually rewarded with the individual mandate! It's just another example of how powerful interests have bought government.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I wanted real health care reform, not to be forced to prop up corrupt insurance companies.
Then again if the whole thing gets tossed out, the odds of the new congress doing anything better seem slim.
There's a lot of FUD out there about health insurance. So here's the facts:
Country A: Health insurance is optional. So only the sick get health insurance. Their premiums are high, because they use their health insurance a lot. The young and uninsured meanwhile, a few of them need to go to the hospital too (broken arms, etc.: anyone can have a health emergency, even the very healthy). However, since the young and uninsured are usually poor, they can't afford the bills. They avoid them. Or declare bankruptcy. The hospital passes the unpaid bills onto the state and feds, and your tax dollars pay to keep the hospital from going bankrupt. Since no self-respecting society can turn away the sick, this already is universal healthcare, just paid for in the stupidest most expensive way possible. As well as destroying young people's credit and encouraging them to freeload and act irresponsibly.
Country B: Health insurance is mandatory. So everyone pays premiums. The premiums are low, because only a small percentage of the insured population actually use the insurance. The young need insurance because they can get sick too, and no, it is not wrong to be using some of the money of the young to treat the older and sick. This is called morality in most societies: you care for the elderly and sick in your society. Only in an immoral society are you encouraged to not care for your elders and your weak.
So why is the USA stuck in Country A status? Because insurance companies are making money hand over fist in the broken system, and don't want to lose their profits. They pay for FUD propaganda about government death panels, massive expense increases, etc., the naive and foolish believe the FUD, and the naive and foolish wind up supporting a system that hurts their health.
And then there is the criticism of quality of healthcare between country A and country B. And it is true: crisis care in country A is superior to crisis care in country B. Why? Because crisis care, like heart attacks, is expensive, therefore generating revenues. See, country A is all about making money, not taking care of your health. Meanwhile, country B actually delivers a genuine higher quality healthcare, at a lower cost, because the emphasis is on preventative care: making sure you get screened, diagnosed, and put on a diet/ pills so you don't even get that heart attack in the first place... but that approach doesn't make as much money, see? It has to be about making money, not taking care of you?
Look: car insurance is mandatory in the USA. If you understand the logic behind that, you understand why health insurance should be mandatory, and not some evil socialist plot to destroy America, blah blah blah, FUD and propaganda paid for by health corporations.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I support universal health coverage. I support government-sponsored universal coverage.
However, love it or hate it, this law is blatantly unconstitutional.
Any change this sweeping REQUIRES a constitutional amendment. Trying to sidestep the Constitution undermines the rule of law. My friend, I don't care if you are a whiny, greedy, bitching liberal or a racist, tea-bagging fascist; it doesn't matter. What matters is that the laws be fair, equitable, just, and constitutional.
The "individual mandate" is the most controversial part of obamacare, and it's unprecedented. "You breathe therefore you must buy X" has NEVER been tried before. Hillarycare got around this by being all out single payer (ie: government) health insurance.
Should this mandate survive the Supreme Court (where it is clearly headed) beware, the commerce clause would be ruled to be so all powerful that it can MANDATE PARTICIPATION in interstate commerce... ie, lobbyists could grease the right skids and get virtually ANY product to be mandatory to purchase...
Corporatism != Free Market
I guess we should rule this unconstitutional as well as I see little difference between health and auto insurance.
I was just reading a column this morning: http://planetthrive.com/2010/04/the-sick-care-economy/. The author is a bit off the wall on some topics, but he has a unique take on the health care legislation.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
No? Oh, right. JA is defined as a judge doing what I don't like, i.e. being liberal.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
It is worth noting that while this judge says that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, two other Federal judges (one in Michigan, and one from a different case in Virginia) have said that it is just fine. This will doubtless go all the way up to the Supreme Court.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
It does not matter who appointed him or who he gets his money from, this particular decision is the right one. The provision is nothing more than a hand out designed to enrich a small group of already large and powerful corporations, and should not have even been on the table.
Palm trees and 8
There is no provision in the Constitution that affords the central government the power to force citizens to purchase anything. They have authority to "Regulate" commerce but NOT FORCE people to participate in that commerce!
The primary principle behind the US is liberty. Liberty to chose to do business with a cutthroat banker, doctor, or lying politician are all rights. The problem with today's generation is that they are willing to give up their liberty for temporary security! The phrase "Give me Liberty or give me Death" is an anathema to most people today. 9/11 proved that the majority of Americans are more willing to die than defend their liberty!
Quoting Judge Hudson, "At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance—or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage—it's about an individual's right to choose to participate."
The problem with his perspective, is that the eventual goal of universal healthcare is aimed at prevention. Not matter how incomplete the current health care bill is, the eventual goal is to decrease high cost of health care associated with late complications of TREATABLE diseases.
If you are sick right now in this country and you walk into an emergency room, they are obligated to treat you. You can't not be turned down for care if you can't not pay, so long as the care is necessary. So if you can't pay and you have no insurance, somebody's gotta suck up the cost. Doctors, nurses and pharmacists arn't going to work full time jobs for free. Guess who has to pay? The taxpayers, through government giving hospitals checks so they don't go bankrupt.
Now take Billy Bob, he is a 40 y/o truck driver, smokes 1 pack a day. He has no health insurance, so he doesn't see a doctor. No one tells him to quit smoking. He has hypertension, but he doesn't get treated because he feels fine and doesn't see a doctor. At Age 50 he develops diabetes, he feels crappy from time to time but he doesn't see a doctor(no insurance) At Age 58 he has an heart attack, get sent to the ER. They find he can't be cathed, and has to go through a bypass procedure. Except he is also is in chronic renal failure from chronic diabetes and hypertension. To save his life they do a bypass and his kidney is shot for good. He stays in the ICU for 2 weeks sick as a dog after his surgery, because
he has COPD and his lungs won't work. Then he gets to go home but is living on dialysis. At age 60 he has a big head bleed from all the anticoagulants he takes for his heart. He goes back to the hospital and slow waste away after a Tracheostomy and PEG(Percutaneous endoscopic gastrotomy or feeding tube.) He dies six weeks later in a nursing home from pneumonia.
Was his care good? Absolutely, top notch care, they did everything right. Except for the last 2 years his life sucked, and he died a miserable death. What's his cost of care? It's probably more than Billy Bob ever made in his entire life. And taxpayers are paying for it.
So what's the alternative? Billy Bob has insurance, he sees a doctor. He can't quit smoking but at least he start taking his blood pressure pills and his diabetes pills. His first heart attack comes at age 68 but he is not as sick so his bypass goes much smoother. He get scared and finally quit smoking. Great, that's a lot more years on his life, that he can enjoy. A lot more years where he is contributing to society by driving a truck. And as a Tax payer...I like the fact that ten years of blood pressure pill and insulin still cost a hell of a lot less than Emergency Bypass+ICU+Diaysis+Trach PEG and nursing home. I think if Billy Bob had to pick, he'd pick this route as well.
That is why everyone should have insurance. Now the other alternative is stop paying for Emergency Care. Grandma has an appendicitis? No insurance...let her die. You wife get shot in a drive by? No insurance...bleed to death. Your kid came out with some rare genetic disease that's gonna cost tens of thousands to fix? No insurance...good luck. You can crawl to the doorsteps of the ER, and they'll shut the door on you if you can't pay.
But are we ready for this kind of society? I don't think we are...yet.
So since I am a taxpayer, and I have to pay for people who can't pay...I rather pay less. So what is wrong with universal health care? Every dumb idiot out there who isn't covered and seeing a doctor, is making me pay more out of my pocket. Because when they are sick enough, they all come to the hospital.
I disagree with Judge Hudson, it's not about an individual's right to choose to participate. It's about if I have to pay taxes, I like to pay less.
The whole law was not ruled unconstitutional. Only the part about a mandate to buy insurance is. This mandate exists so that the health insurance companies have more money so that it's less of a risk for them to insure sick people. However, the mandate doesn't take effect until some years in the future, and it would only affect a relatively small number of people since most of us get health insurance from our jobs.
I am very pro-health-reform and I don't see this as a large setback. Bad for insurance companies? Probably. Will the insurance companies use that to justify rate hikes? Whether justified or not, they probably will. They'd probably look into other ways to hike rates too. But I don't see this provision being struck down and real reform as mutually exclusive. Doesn't sound like a big deal.
On the other hand this ruling is far from the end of it. This will make its way to other courts and who knows what happens from there.
I'm just a bill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ
. . . a comprehensive, all-encompassing attempt was an absolutely terrible idea. It was doomed to fail from the start. The reason that the reform that was passed was 2,000+ pages was because it was so full of corporate handouts and other special interest nastiness which further screws the taxpayer. That was the highest priority, and beyond that, increasing the number of Democrat voters by increasing the size of the insured pool. Real, meaningful healthcare reform would have actually addressed the cost-related issues in small, incremental amounts, with demonstrable benefits, rather than just handing over trillions to corporations at the citizens' expense, while claiming benefit to the unwashed masses -- all so Obama can declare to his supporters that he passed "the most meaningful healthcare reform in the country's history," just in time for the 2012 reelection campaign. Yeah, meaningful alright, as in prohibitively expensive and overreaching to the point of being unconstitutional.
Why was big pharma left out of the dance? How about tort reform? If we're looking to cut costs, the drug makers and fucking lawyers would sure be at the top of my list.
Before anybody else jumps on it--point 3 has an issue. You'd need to allow insurers to disregard a portion of the claim from "premium" practitioners. Doctors with spotless credentials should be able to charge more, but insurers shouldn't necessarily have to pay the full bill for that unless they were the only practioner available.
I'm not in favor of trying to give everybody the same standard of care. As much as that sounds like the moral highground; it turns out to be the moral low ground due to the evils that come about in the attempt to force equality.
Plainly the devil's in the details on point 3; but I don't think it's an insurmountable problem. A simple "exceeds the mean price by 1 or more standard deviations", is a good starting point. We can work from there...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Who, exactly, is supposed to benefit from health care reform? Why punish people who do not want to enrich the very set of corporations that represents one of the most embarrassing problems with our current health care system (which is the fact that it is based on profit, rather than actually helping people)?
Instead of punishing people who do not want to buy their health insurance from a greedy minority of the population that could not care less about whether anyone other than themselves lives or dies, the government should provide health insurance to those people -- health insurance that cannot be denied to anyone. It is really quite simple: if the point of this bill is to benefit Americans by improving our ability to get medical treatment when it is needed, then the most effective measure for doing that (the public option) should be the center piece of the bill.
Palm trees and 8
Other countries in the world have national health care. It works for them and they like it. There are no crap insurance companies taking your money when you are healthy, then dumping you the second you get sick. Because their primary interest is in making money, insurance companies can't work. As soon as anyone gets sick, the company drops them, and the whole purpose of having insurance is lost (they take money for nothing). In other places, people are taxed (O! M! G! not taxes!!!), and the money goes to the hospital to help the sick and dying so that they quit being sick and not die. Its humane. (Sorry, for a Republican, the word Humane is a dirty word). People don't get gouged at the hospital. Prescriptions are subsidised, but because common pills can be purchased in bulk (of 5000 common kinds of pills, buying in lots of 10 million means big discounts on a per-pill basis), likewise medical supplies. "THE AMERICAN WAY" has fucked this up. The focus of other countries health care is on people, not on making a profit. I can understand how it doesn't fit the American standard model. It costs a lot, but people in other countries wouldn't have it any other way. Its not communism. Its not sub-standard. I read the story about how its illegal to force people to buy health insurance, and I'm asking 'why the hell do you want them in the middle sucking money out of the system anyway?' The part I really don't get is how courts can try to kill this (even though its bad, see my last sentence), yet the courts gave a blind pass for YEARS AND YEARS to insurance companies screwing millions of people over by weaselling out of every contract where anyone got sick or needed a hospital. Talk about corporate welfare. I hear people crying out "COMMUNISM" when talking about people, what about COMMUNIST COMPANIES on the corporate welfare dole, inefficient, doing nothing, and demanding in the name of the corporation to be paid, either by people or the government or both. Those crying "Communist" are way past being two-faced.
The only thing that will stop blatantly unconstitutional laws from being passed is for the sponsors of the legislation to be held personally liable for the damages caused by laws ruled unconstitutional.
Personal liability (of CEOs/CFOs for example) has improved the corporate accounting system, and reduced corporate financial fraud. No, it's not perfect, but it certainly has improved under SOX.
--Joe
never heard about government mandated life insurance - otherwise known as Social Security. Or is that too unconstitutional?
What really needed to be done is:
1. Single payer system for basic healthcare. You can't have surgeons and insurance company execs who drive Ferraris and reduced healthcare cost at the same time. No pain - no gain, something's gotta give. In the system where the normal pricing rules don't work (because prices aren't even advertised, and you won't bargain anyway when it's your health or life that's on the line), someone has to have the authority to fight the more extravagant examples of creative pricing (i.e. pharmaceuticals that cost 1/10th the price once you cross either of the borders)
2. All premium services (i.e. shit you wouldn't die from if denied care) require separate insurance, with stiff premiums.
3. A separate, progressive, mandatory federal income tax for healthcare (and yes, I know it would hit me disproportionally, since I make quite a bit).
4. To reduce the tax burden, reduce Pentagon budget by 4/5ths or more and get out of fucking Afghanistan. Winning there is _not possible_. If we're so into spending money we don't have, let's at least spend it on things that matter.
5. Put the Congress and the Senate on the same insurance plans as what their constituents have. Not gold-plated, diamond encrusted Cadillac plans they pay $0 for right now. Make them feel the pain of the common man.
As a liberal, I find complaints about healthcare hypocritical, without similar complaints about no child left behind and the patriot act
NCLB is particularly odious to any traditionalist, as primary education has long been the purview of the states
Beyond that, there is something narrow minded and picky about the objections; how on earth can you actually run a country if every single thing has to be spelled out ?
You recall that seen in a few good men, wiht tom cruise and j nicholson, where cruise asks about regs and the mess hall ?
George Bush said if your spouse is not a citizen, he could break into yoiur house, steal your kids, send them to a foreign prision to be torturted and you object to.....a health car bill ?
That doesn't mean the bill is good; it just means that picking on obamacare, and not NCLB or Patriot is hypocritical
You seem to be referring to the insurance mandates that were part of Mass. Gov Mitt Romney's plan, for which he has been roundly criticized by the base of the Republican party, the conservatives. It was a major source if his presidential Republican primary woes and undoubtedly will be again in 2012. I haven't heard of any other case where a Republican championed insurance mandates, but I'm happy to be corrected.
Wait wait wait...saying its a setback for obama? Obama didn't want mandatory insurance, republicans forced it on him on lieu of public option. WTF? Retarded.
Why is this unconstitutional while social security is still constitutional? This makes no sense, SS is a federal mandated retirement program.
If hospitals are required to treat an accident victim why aren't people required to have, at least, 'catastrophic' health insurance? The economics of getting healthy people involved in the health insurance is important, but I think the argument against requiring insurance is silly when those same people who are complaining would still expect -- demand! -- health care in case they had an accident.
From a Liberals perspective, meaningful health care means you provide free health care to all, the resulting quality of which is so poor only the richest people can have decent health care because anyone who really wants good care pays out of pocket.
Instead of a system where even poor people can buy catastrophic plans to have access to really good health care when needed, the middle class have excellent health care through reasonably priced policies, and you have a safety net of basic coverage for people that cannot afford anything.
The last option of course makes the most sense. If you make something totally free to all the quality will suck as people abuse the system. We are not anywhere near the ideal system because of runaway costs in the system, but the real question is the ideal we should strive for, and a system that is free for all and good for none is not my idea of the best end-goal.
Forcing people to buy health care is not a great idea if you take away choice as to what they can buy and make sure that all plans you can purchase are loaded with options many may not want.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What's the difference?
As many problems as Republicans have had also being addicted to spending, they had an alternative health care plan (read the house summary PDF) that actually tried to address costs within the system instead of forcing you to buy into a broken system. Just the ability to buy insurance across state lines alone would improve things.
So the best case scenario is the bill gets repealed and in three years or so we get a bill written that actually lowers costs across the system.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There goes my plan to end homelessness by forcing people to buy homes.
Just simply get rid of health insurance all together and charge people for visiting hospitals and doctors. Once you get rid of all of the BS that goes on between insurance providers and Medical providers and charge reasonable fees for services, then I would believe that people could afford to go to the doctors.
If the consumer would sock away what they would be forced to pay in insurance in their own private account to help cover medical bills, and everything was paid out of pocket, you can be damned sure people wouldn't just run to the doctor's over a runny nose. And if you're one who does not get sick then you have extra savings for when you do.
My guess is that if you take out all the insurance crap, that prices for services would become more reasonable. People would go see their family doctor's more often and more regularly.
This would avoid any constitutional arguements, and save the tax payers millions of litigous lawsuits fighting Health Care Reform, thus allowing the population to be a bit more self-sufficient. Companies would love it too.
"In an easily foreseeable move, US District Judge Henry E. Hudson issued a ruling today that the universal healthcare law that was voted for by super majorities in the House and Senate is unconstitutional. Specifically, he invalidated the section of the law that requires all citizens to purchase healthcare insurance, arguing that it does not fall under the purview of Commerce Clause of the Constitution, as has been asserted by the government. The ruling represents the latest setback for Senator McCain (R-AZ), who introduced the mandate, on an issue that will likely end up at the Supreme Court. Two other courts have shot down challenges to the law."
That reads a little more accurately now.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
But they are forcing people to buy from private industry. I've researched the topic at length and decided that if they had just taxed everyone an additional 5-10k/year and gave them their choice of healthcare insurance providers at no cost (the provider could file then all would have been kosher. But forcing someone to buy from private industry is totally outside of the powers granted in any stretch of the meaning of the consititution.
Meanwhile people die because some bastards have been paid off to stop a health care plan that is far less ambitious than the Republicans were pushing under Nixon. You can bet he's not doing it because he's a "flaming crazy" but the only way to show that is to follow the money.
...it's actually all unconstitutional if one part of it is. This law lives and dies as a single beastie, and if any part of it is struck down, all of it is struck down. While technically not deeming other parts of it unconstitutional, they would need to be repackaged as a new bill before becoming law again.
We are not anywhere near the ideal system because of runaway costs in the system,
And why are those costs running away?
First, because people pay for insurance and they feel that they are entitled to recover what they paid for that insurance. Too many people get unneeded medical examinations that they wouldn't dream of getting if they had to pay a fair price for each one.
Second, too many juries award damages for medical malpractice that are totally out of proportion. In a response to that, doctors started prescribing every possible sort of test to each patient, just to make sure they cannot be sued for negligence.
If you want a reasonable health care system, there must be a way to avoid all those unneeded tests and examinations. There should exist a reasonable limit on what can be claimed as damages for malpractice and hypochondria should be punished as insurance fraud.
Without controlling costs, there's no chance of a reasonable system, either free market or state provided.
...means you might want to stop laughing. With ObamaCare, if any single itty bitty part of it is deemed unconstitutional, the entire thing becomes null and void as a whole.
It's very likely that there are insurance company folks rolling on the floor laughing right now...
The point of taxation is to get money from people in order to finance the operation of the government. That's why we have the income tax amendment. But that amendment does not authorize the government to collect "taxes" that directly benefit some private (insurance) company. If you really want to call it a tax to fund national health care, then the government should be getting the revenue, not the insurance companies.
Somebody on Thom Hartmann's show said this was basically a tax increase, was written like the mortgage credit that you would get back if you purchased health insurance, and, as such, would be constitutional. Guess not.
On the other hand, Hartmann did a video for RT saying it's basically Richard Nixon's plan from 40 years ago. And, yes, it sucks...so whatever.
Who gets to decide what constitutes the "general Welfare of the United States"? What if the people authorized to make that decision are wrong?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Seems like an amendment could address the 'constitutionality' issues. Of course, those are hard to pass. Then again, there's a reason for that.
Either we have a Constitution, and it applies, or it does not.
Why is this insightful? Human language, the U.S. Constitution in particular, is not a finite state machine.
And then you follow with an artful interpretation of the situation. Good work making us all poorer!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I regularly have people from the US tell me how I am unfortunate because I do not have the 'benefit' of the US constitution. I am still not convinced.
Apparently, universal healthcare is so evil and unconstitutional that your slightly right-of-centre president was only able to offer a feeble, watered down, insurance based version. Even that is unconstitutional?
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Obviously that judge is corrupt. Just how can a man decide that compulsory auto insurance is legal whereas compulsory health insurance is somehow different. Government has all kinds of requirements that force people top buy insurance. Even insurance on both the interior and exterior of one's property is not uncommon. Perhaps we should all refuse to buy auto insurance to watch this judge try and hold his ground.
No one is taking your kidney without your permission
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
Should the right to have Life be dependent on the money that you have? If so perhaps the liberty and happiness is the same (well it seems to be that way)
Liberty is defended by our US military, a voluntary military, this service is provided to all Americans.
The pursuit of happiness is helped by our public school system and other social services, again provided to every American.
The idea that someone will force you into surgery to remove a vital organ is a plain red herring. What you don't want is to have to pay any money. As far as I know it isn't a right for you to make as much money as you do now. Don't confuse the issue, if you feel that someone else should die from a curable illness so you can buy a new TV just say so.
Plus:
5) Allow government to negotiate prices since it has a lot of power and can bring prices down. Currently government is not allowed to do that for most parts of Medicare at al.
6) Allow importation of drugs from other countries. The Pharma companies want to play the foreign labor game against local wages, we should be able to level the playing field by buying from out-of-country legally. Probably should apply to any product not just medicine (CDs, DVDs etc come to mind).
Supposedly the requirement for liability insurance for cars is to prevent people from being stuck with huge liabilities due to an accident. If I don't have liability insurance on my car, I could lose a lot of money or someone else might lose a lot of money if I can't pay the money I would be liable for. Health insurance, on the face of it, is like collision insurance which takes care of my car in an accident. The relation to health insurance is not quite the same sort of beast. A person without collision insurance could lose a car, while a person without health insurance is likely to go to the emergency room and run up debts which will never be paid. So, to some degree, a person without health insurance can be a liability to us all.
Ray Seyfarth, ray.seyfarth@gmail.com, http://rayseyfarth.blogspot.com
There are two basic ways to look at the origin of government power in any society. The first system is all power and rights originate with the government, which in turn grants rights and power to people. France is explicitly organized this way. The second system is that all power and rights originate with the people, which in turn grant powers to the government. The US is explicitly organized this way.
This leads to two very different ways of defining which right people have. The first must list what people can have (e.g. a right to healthcare). The second leads to what government can do (e.g. the US Constitution).
The US also has what is called a Bill of Rights, which was considered redundant by the writers of the Constitution, but is very explicit in the limitations of government power. Americans tend to think of these when they think of rights. But we also have rights to everything not listed in the Constitution, including healthcare.
Because the first system is a list of what government says people can have, people hold their governments accountable to deliver on the list. Healthcare as a right and delivered by the government seems natural
Because the second system is a list of what government can do, people expect government to limit itself to that list. Granting an new government power over a personal thing like healthcare seems alien to people in this system. The side effect of having 100% right of personal control over healthcare is that it comes with 100% responsibility (such as paying for it).
Summarizing things in the context of your comment: Americans have access to healthcare as a right, because the government has no right to prevent us from getting it. But we cannot force another American to give it to us. Same as a million other activities.
Here's a great way to interpret the US Constitution, rights, and why it takes so long to gets stuff like universal healthcare sorted out: It's a contract between people on how to govern themselves (what rights to give up). If it's not in the contract, it's not in the domain of government. And if you want to change the contract, everybody has to agree. That's going to be a battle.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
How is it flamebait? People have been saying this portion of the plan was unconstitutional since before congress passed the thing...
Were you there defending your liberty at the airports during thanksgiving?
Right, tax evasion is illegal. Not having health insurance causes your tax bill to go up. And if you pay it you never go before a judge, get a criminal record, etc.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
I'd take that bet.
First, I don't assume anyone involved read/understood the law as it was signed - they expected the details to be ironed-out when the regulations are written...
Second, POTUS considers himself a Constitutional Expert (and if he doesn't, he's surrounded by enough people that claimed he was that it is a reasonable conclusion, IMHO), he brushed off constitutional questions/challenges during the debate last year.
I can't predict the outcome of the challenge, but all eyes are on the 20 state lawsuit now...
Ken
Actually, the judge only declared the provision of the new law that requires everyone to buy health insurance unconstitutional, not the entire law (link). The provision that prevents an insurance company from canceling your insurance because you got sick is not affected by this, for example.
This is just one round of a fight that will certainly end up being decided by the US Supreme Court. There's no reason to panic or celebrate (depending on your point of view) yet.
Does this also mean that laws requiring everyone who drives a car to care insurance is also unconstitutional? So much of the political/social/economic system is based on the petroleum industry. This ruling is a sign of the other major power industry: pharmaceuticals. Connect the dots between the two industries and you discover almost everything that is wrong with the US.
"So don't get programmed by anybody but yourself" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire
My suggestion is a Constitutional Amendment that entitles every person to treat any infringement of their 'God given' rights as if it were a deadly threat.
Thus entitling said person to pull out their gun and shoot the infringing individual. Whereupon the incident enters the legal system, and, if charged, the defendant need only on juror who agrees with his interpretation of 'civil rights' and infringement thereof.
Good QA : catch the problems while they are small.
Good sociology : young crazies act to produce stable gov.
Good government : gov employees would act like Wells Fargo employees, extremely obsequious.
I hope the current law is found unconstitutional. Although I don't think it is, and don't think the SC will find that it is, such a ruling would allow us to pass better reform, which would be a single-payer universal socialized medical system supported by heavily progressive taxes.
Anyway I hold to Jefferson and Madison's opinion that the US was meant to have a FEW enumerated powers, while most of the powers remained with the Member States. Just like the modern EU.
dont go there! dont hold the bunch of corrupt head up their asses unrepresentative scumbags (or the supposedly representative, but more accurately porkbarrelquaffing donothing wasters) as a system worth emulating! The EU is a disaster for the majority of the populace of the member states who were hoodwinked into it.
Maybe more troll than flamebait, but either way it's almost guaranteed that the comments will contain more heat than light, and there isn't exactly a nerd angle in the summary to justify selecting the story.
That makes it immoral according to the categorical imperative, which states that you should only act in a way that can be universally applied. If no one were able to reproduce, society would end. I do believe, however, there are other options for reproduction, such as in-vitro fertilization.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
You have some serious cognitive dissonance. How exactly does health care not become a right if people have a right to life? Perhaps you should ponder the concepts behind the quotes. While you are there, please note that the statement explicity holds that women are inferior (minorities implicitly), that it is an assertion, requires the existence of a Creator (no evidence, appeal to authority). In other words, it leaves a lot to be desired.
"If, however, you believe that a RIGHT can be secured by the TAKING from another, then I suggest that you lock your kidneys up, because someone's right to LIFE might require them to TAKE your kidney, regardless of how you feel about it. If you can demand of me to give to another to secure a "right", then society has the same ability to do the same thing to you in ways that is most unpleasant."
Strawman much? Be very careful of any open flames. And you had better be a pacifist. Because if you are not, then you support precisely what you are strawmaning against.
"It cost money to produce, people to work for it, technology and skills to enhance it."
One of the failings of libertarianism is the idea that somehow money is more important that liberty and life.
I'll presume that giving a tax break for investing in an IRA is also unconstitutional.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The fact that it had to be disguised as a "penalty" or "fee" just shows yet again what incredible wimps the Democrats are in standing up to Republican bullying.
As a common law nation, our constitutional law depends both on the constitution itself and the rulings of the Supreme court.
And indeed the role of the Supreme Court as final arbiter of Constitutionality was not expressly in the Constitution itself - but self-interpreted by the Court's observation that, if it so ruled (by procedures at least partly based in common law), the Constitution specifies that there is nobody who can override the ruling.
Nevertheless, where the Constitution and Common Law are in conflict, the Constitution (as an explicit legislation postdating and overriding the common law of the time) wins. This is because the Framers were well versed in the common law, and could be expected to take it into account and explicitly state any way they wanted the laws of the US to diverge from common law.
That also implies that the Constitution froze the Common Law for the US at the point of its ratification. The framers' intent to include any given bit of the Common Law at that point can be inferred from their lack of action to change it. That can NOT be assumed for any changes to Common Law thereafter.
Which is all immaterial...
Centuries of common law have extended the original scope of the document by quite a bit.
No. Centuries of constitutional interpretation by courts have "found" implied civil rights and government powers in the constitution that weren't necessarily obvious in the plain text. Unfortunately, a few of these findings may have been faulty. And some of the arguably faulty findings served as the basic precedents for explosions of fallout.
Two of those were finding essentially blank checks of government power in the "Necessary and Proper" and "Commerce" clauses - allowing Congress to circumvent virtually all the express limits on its power elsewhere in the Constitution.
The "Commerce clause" is the one we're dealing with here. The basic precedent was set when the Federal Government, during the Great Depression, tried to "fix" the market in farm products by imposing bureaucratically determined production limits on farmers - and busted a farmer for growing "excessive" corn to feed to his own pigs. The farmer tried to defend with a claim that feeding his own corn to his own pigs wasn't interstate commerce. But the Court found against him, ruling that, had he not grown the corn he would have had to buy feed (such as corn) for his pigs, which would have affected the price of corn being traded in interstate commerce.
Needless to say such a broad interpretation of what constitutes "interstate commerce" makes it apply to just about anything. And it's been the basis for a massive increase in Federal control - including the Drug War and the federal gun laws.
Which is why any case where a court finds a limit to the powers the Federal Government claims under the Commerce Clause is Big News.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Just the ability to buy insurance across state lines alone would improve things.
That is not entirely accurate.
First, you already can buy insurance across state lines. If a different state approved a plan that you envy, you can buy it. However, you might not be able to make use of it if it is not blessed by your own state.
Second, the application of which plans work where is dictated not by the federal government, but by the states themselves. Do you really want the federal government to strip that right from the states? I thought the republicans wanted to reduce the role of federal government in health care - removing the right of states to approve health insurance plans would do the opposite of that wish.
Third, more plans increases overhead at the level of the practitioner. As it is every health care office already devotes a significant amount of person-time to handling the billing and prerequisites of the health insurance plans they accept. If you force more plans into the system, you will be consuming more time at the doctor's offices as the total number of plans that they have to handle billing for increases.
So in short, the concept of somehow reducing health care costs by "selling across state lines" doesn't hold water. It strips states' rights, increases costs at the office level, and really doesn't get us anywhere that we aren't already.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I love your idea - we should just follow the previous examples! We already have a nationwide network of hospitals for military - VA! All we have to do is to widen and let any citizen access them. Just like we did with highways and the Internet. A great suggestion!
Oh right, this was reported on the internet, so it is relevant here.
This is about challenging the bigger of the two constitutional-interpretation blank checks that Congress uses to regulate anything they care to regulate. If it sticks it could put a big stick in Congress' spokes and knock down a WHOLE LOT of federal law - including a slew of current laws (and possible future attempts at passing laws) that restrict what nerds can do.
This is a BIG DEAL. For nerds as well as for the rest of the country.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
car insurance is mandatory in the USA. If you understand the logic behind that, you understand why health insurance should be mandatory
Car insurance is mandatory only if you drive a car. You can chose to walk or bike everywhere, or take a cab or public transportation, and you wouldn't need car insurance. Hell, if you are adept at mooching rides off of friends and family, you don't need car insurance because you aren't driving. There are plenty of places and situations in this country where you can live without owning and driving a car.
That said, I have been arguing for single-payer universal health care in this country for decades. It is a fucking crying shame that we don't have it, we don't deserve to call ourselves a civilized (or even first-world) country without it. But really, health insurance doesn't compare much to auto insurance with the exception of both are disgustingly profitable to all the wrong people. I have less respect for insurance companies than I have for used car salesmen.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In the same way that saying "voting is a right" is advocating slavery for poll workers, or saying "access to counsel in criminal cases is a right" (hello, Amendment VI) is advocating slavery for lawyers.
"Unreasonable" in policy terms? Sure. Requiring a new purchase every year would clearly make little policy sense. Unconstitutional? No. And you don't even need to look to the Commerce Clause on that one, as Congress has a much more specific express authority to use in that case, the Art. I, Sec. 8 power to "To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia."
No, its a very different thing. But I'll agree that they are similarly situated with regard to constitutionality.
Judges aren't supposed to rule on their personal opinion of logic and fairness. They are supposed to rule according to the law. We have two laws, the constitution and the healthcare bill, which many intelligent legal experts consider to be in conflict, in which case the constitution overrides. Others disagree, but we won't have a final answer until this goes to the Supreme Court. The faster than happens the better, as it will remove any doubt, and let us either move forward implementing the bill, or craft a new one that is on firm legal foundations.
Decades are important, though. You have lived your whole life under this system. The judiciary is corrupt? Where were the presidents who opposed this? Where was the congress that opposed this? Where were The People who opposed it? The entire society is corrupt. How can you hang all this on a corrupt judiciary, when every single living person in the judiciary inherited it on the day they were born, decades before they got jobs as judges?
What were they supposed to do? On the day they got appointed, should they have said, "Fuck all the precedents, I have this piece of paper here called the constitution, and this is what is says."? Will ANYONE back up someone who does this? The two parties who completely dominate government are completely opposed to this and have the support of 99% of the voters. I don't like the situation but you gotta give anyone dealing with this legacy problem a lot of slack. Calling them corrupt is silly.
IMHO the best thing to do is to pass new amendments, even if they are word-for-word identical to the original constitution (although it would probably be a good idea to reword them). Constitutionally overturn stupid SCOTUS decisions that were passed a century ago, reopening public debate on whether or not limited government is a good idea (make the people who are alive today, REALLY OWN IT rather than be heirs to dogma), and so on. Get the people to say it's a good idea or a bad idea, because right now with the public's support, it's just ink on a page.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Turns out that the judge who ruled against the mandate, is also part owner of a consultancy that worked directly for Republican leadership in opposing the whole bill.
Hmmm... nah, it's just a coincidence...
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Is there some way we can turn healthcare into a military project so that conservatives will approve of it when it gets expanded to benefit everyone?
There's always somebody trotting out this argument. It's bullshit. Health insurance makes people who need very little healthcare overpay for it so that the ones who need a lot can underpay. That's insurance; it's a risk transfer scheme that the healthy ones pay a lot for because it protects them if they move over to the other group.
If you think that health insurance should work like car insurance, well, you're making a bad analogy between car accidents and help. Car insurance has these properties:
Health is not like that. Health problems are often chronic and require lifetime care. In addition, unlike with driving, where driving more tends to lead to more accidents and more costs, with health, more health care tends to lead to better health and fewer costs. That's why it makes sense for health insurers to pay for routine care (healthier patients = less cost), but not for auto insurers to pay for your gas (more driving = more accidents).
Because HSA plans can't protect you against the risk of a costly chronic condition. No recipe that models health insurance after the model of auto insurance can do it. If you learn at age 27, just when you've gotten your career really going, that you were born with a congenital problem that's going to require costly periodic treatments for the rest of your life, then you'd be fucked. And if, in addition, you're a valuable member of our society, we're all a little bit fucked for it, too, because instead of doing all the work you'd have done to benefit us all, you're not going to be able to afford the treatments that would allow you to be healthy enough to do that work.
Are you adequate?
"supported by heavily progressive taxes"
Such a system has failed badly everywhere its been tried, including England, France, Greece, Spain, Portugal etc etc.
I guess though, when you're a slacker, you're hoping other people pay for you to sit around coffee shops and complain about the bourgeoisie.
You almost rise to the level of "funny".
May I remind everyone that the Democrats had a super-majority in both the Senate and Congress. Everyone keeps saying that republicans killed the (insert portion of the proposed healthcare bill here)...
How is it that they did that??? Maybe it was because some of the sheep Democrats reps. realized they better listen to their constituents? That is what we send them there for by the way. Not to do what they think is right, not to do what they are told by Pelosi/Reid/Obama is right, but to do what WE tell them we want them to do.
WE the people.
You have some atheists protesting whenever a mayor admits he believes in God, puritans who protest whenever a nipple slips, and environmentalists who protest whenever somebody looks at a whale crosseyed.
All together they make sure everything is challenged. I'd say on the balance it's a good thing, and it provides for some measure of entertainment.
The only question here is whether it is constitutional. In my opinion, absolutely not. Not even fracking close.
But the Constitution has a built-in mechanism to correct its deficiencies.
It's not called activist judges making shit up. It's called amendments.
If they do an amendment allowing this, then by definition there can be no question it is constitutional.
Yes, it's better to pay for insurances than taxes. Send your money to a corporation instead of your government (yourself). Whine about too high taxes and the low quality of public services!
No, I'm saying being constitutional or not is completely irrelevant as to why it is being opposed. It is just an angle that is being tried to stop it while the real reason is purely financial.
Since when were semi-automatic firearms the ultimate tactical weapon of the evil-doing belligerent revolutionist masses? Do people even know what semi-automatic means or has the media completely succeeded in demonizing them beyond rational logic? Does anyone else realized that virtually every major gun design since the late 1800's was a semi-automatic action (or at least a double action revolver, which is essentially the same with respect to projectiles fired per trigger pull)? Does semi-automatic equate with "evil black M16 machine gun" in the typical gun-grabber's mind?
Would it make you happier if people were running around wildly fanning Colt Single Action Army revolvers and muzzle loading some Blunderbusses? I don't get the stigma of semi-automatic firearms. They are no more automatic than a simple stapler.
Great post, I have a 2 observations however.
Firstly the reason that your fictional Billy Bob's hypothetical 2 years after no insurance is so high is because medical care in the us price gouges ridiculously in order to game the rest of the system into getting an actual reasonable care cost. The insurance companies clearly go along with this, and it seems to me that they do so that they have these big scary numbers to quote whenever the cost of premiums gets questioned. The fact that they get insane discounts just proves that they're complicit in the gouging.
The secong observation is that a universal healthcare system that universally pours money into the pockets of third parties that in no way actually contribute to improving the standard of care, or outcomes, is just looney tunes!
The only way for this system to work is for there to be one payer. I am a brit and I thank god for the farsighted people who set up a healthcare that is truly free at the point of use, and a sensible way of having people pay for it!
Obama and cohorts are getting exactly what they deserve. They rammed a bill through without including anything any Republican could claim was a reason to keep the bill when control of the government returned to them. They had a chance to actually create something good and they pissed it away because of their own smugness in doing "their right" thing. There's now a good chance the entire bill will be dead in the near future. It's a shame really.
Insulting them for having principles you don't agree with is just stupid and ignorant, and basically intolerant.
If those principles are what has been leading this country down the road to a fundamentalist theocracy, or economic ruin, then I, for one, and all for being intolerant of them.
Tolerance of other views should only go so far. When those views are going to cause the entire country to crash and burn, they should not be tolerated, but treated as dangerous.
Of course, there is a problem with this position: sometimes, the other side honestly sees us as equally dangerous. The fundamentalist Christians (at least, the best ones) are afraid we're all going to go to Hell, and see it as their (literally) sacred duty to do all they can to prevent that.
Dan Aris
And this one clearly isn't. I wouldn't really mind a hybrid system here, since I lived under the rather effective German one. But it needs to be done constitutionally, which means either getting every single state on board voluntarily, or passing a constitutional amendment.
But yes there are a huge number of people who go by agenda. Look at Obama's ridiculous suit against Arizona's immigration law, or the Thomas More Law Center suing to stop state benefits for same-sex couples. They don't really care whether the action is legal or constitutional or not, it just went against their agenda so they want it stopped.
And it's still a good thing that they challenge unconstitutional laws regardless of motivation.