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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.
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.
Long story short: it starts in the corporate boardroom, and ends in a room full of senators on a pile of hookers and blow.
...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.
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.
The same way it's possible to force him to pay for roads he doesn't use, police he doesn't need, or libraries he doesn't want. It's like people never heard of taxes before.
As for the Commerce Clause, yes it's been mutilated in the past century. I'd be in favor of rolling back those abuses. But as long as the courts hold that Cannabis grown for personal medical use in ones own home can be considered interstate commerce this challenge doesn't have a chance.
Where the hell were all of you limited government people 5 years ago?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
.complaining about activist judges in 3...2... ...no? Really?
At a very rudimentary level . . . A bill can be introduced in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. After being passed in one, it must then be passed by the other before it is sent to the President, who can sign the bill into law or veto it. If one chamber has added amendments that the other didn't, or if the two chambers have passed bills that are similar but not exactly the same, then the differences must be worked out by a conference committee and the compromise bill re-passed before it can be signed.
Any law can be challenged as being unconstitutional - you just need somebody with standing to file the appropriate suit in the appropriate court.
The judge is not "messing with the law", he is making a judgment on whether or not it violates the Constitution.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
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.
Healthcare is not a personal liberty, it's someone else's goods and services.
Talk about piracy...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
We passed "meaningful" health care reform? Was there a replacement bill passed recently that was not publicized?
All right ... all right ... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order ... what have the Romans ever done for us?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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"?
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
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?
From a Libertarian's perspective, "meaningful" means all of those in addition to axing the health insurance industry. That system is the biggest part of the cancer that is killing us. Once healthcare providers have no choice but to make services affordable or run out of customers, they will find a way. As long as health insurance exists, they will have no need to make services affordable.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
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.
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.
When they quite literally have you by your life, they can charge whatever they want. It's the definition of unbalanced contracts and negotiating from a position of weakness.
The ______ Agenda
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.
Well, a lot of the problem comes from the bastardization of the concept of INSURANCE when it comes to health care. Insurance should be there ONLY for catastrophic health events(ie heart attack, accident). Routine health expenditures, should be saved and budgeted for like any other necessity of life (food, shelter, beer...).
If this were the case, then insurance wouldn't be so damned expensive. Also, if we went back more the "in my day" days...you'd have the independent Dr. out there again hanging his shingle out, and could charge reasonable rates, often based on what the person could pay. My uncle was an MD, I saw how this worked in practice. Medical costs weren't outrageous like they are now...IMHO, this is largely due to bean counters and other non-health leeches on the system ratcheting things up to the mess we have today.
Why not go to insurance for more emergency usage, and expand the program for HSA's (Health Savings Accounts) for everyone, to save for their own routine medical/drug needs PRE-Tax, and unlike the FSA's, let everyone have a HSA that is not use it or lose it.
Why should routine health care not be a personal responsibility like anything else in life?
This also might break the strange connection between health insurance and work...which often today, ties one to a job for people that are worried about changing jobs and jeopardizing benefits.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
every single fucking dime they had before they died. that's how much.
You are REALLY good at CAPITALIZING random words in YOUR posts.
Support SETI@home
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!