Slashdot Mirror
Healthcare Law Appealed To Supreme Court
26 states and a small business group have filed separate appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to strike down Obama's 2010 healthcare law. In August, an appeals court in Atlanta ruled that the individual insurance requirement was unconstitutional, making it almost certain that the bill would go to the Supreme Court. From the article: "The Obama administration earlier this week said it decided against asking the full U.S. Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit to review the August ruling by a three-judge panel of the court that found the insurance requirement unconstitutional. That decision cleared the way for the administration to go to the Supreme Court. The administration has said it believes the law will be upheld in court while opponents say it represents an unconstitutional encroachment of federal power."
It's clearly established that the US government can force you to pay a tax for services you never use. The health care law is less restrictive than that. It still forces you to pay, but you can choose the entity you pay. If the government can force you to buy something from a single source, then it certainly should be able to force you to buy something from one of many sources.
However, I have no reason to believe that the Supreme Court will come to the obvious and logical conclusion here. That's not their job. Their job is to provide legal cover for the corporate agenda.
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I've long thought the best thing for health care in this country would be for the law to be struck down. Too many people in this down economy already like provisions of it (no pre-existing conditions, keeping kids on your insurance longer). Were it to be unconstitutional I think there would be a large swell of folks pushing for them to find some way to re-establish the law and make it constitutional.
Single payer becomes the obvious choice. It may be that the way to single payer is to lose in the Supreme Court.
I have been in single payer nations, never saw such thing. Are you paid by the insurers or are you their lackey for free?
Funny that you mention the pre-existing conditions bit - that is what drove the requirement for everybody to have insurance or pay a tax.
It is a compromise:
1. Insurance companies are forced to sell insurance to everybody whether they want to or not.
2. People are forced to buy insurance, whether they want to or not.
You can't really have the one without the other. Insurers would either go out of business, or policies would become far more unaffordable than they already are.
There is no way the courts would strike this down. If they did insurers would just start denying pre-existing conditions again, and then fight that out in the courts for another 5 years while people die untreated in hospitals. One way or another they'd find a loophole since anything else would be financial suicide.