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."
What other products will they eventually mandate that we buy from corporations, purely by virtue of existing?
At first glance I read "Healthcare Law Applied To Supreme Court". I bet that would get it struck down pretty fast!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Strike down ObamaCare, and you've got years of unraveling to do (especially in IT, which has been starting work in anticipation of several key dates coming up), as well as a apoplectic progressive left. Uphold ObamaCare, and you've got a drum upon which every libertarian and conservative will beat any time there's the slightest increase in health insurance costs, and who knows what kind of crazy social conservative will be the one to carry the mantle of the White House (even though most people just want fiscal conservatives).
The sad part, though, is that none of this fight is about health care - it's about insurance. We could mandate universal auto insurance (even for non drivers, since they are either passengers or pedestrians who interact with cars), or we could mandate universal fire insurance (even for non homeowners, since they might start a fire that spreads, or be affected by smoke inhalation from someone else's house), or we could mandate universal food insurance (since hey, everyone eats food). None of that changes the facts about risk and scarcity in our world.
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Just what we need to drive up costs a bit more.
(Current Most Relevant Search Engine) is my Family Physician, Specialist Omnibus, and triples a plumber.
Dental is where things get tricky.
opponents say it represents an unconstitutional encroachment of federal power.
Don't you mean encroachment of state's power?
Single-payer national health insurance, like Medicare, would have had no constitutional problems. If the "public option" had been retained in the bill, it might have ended up as the only option.
That's not a bad thing; Medicare's overhead is about 3%, while private insurers run a lot higher.
had the argument been framed as "medicare for all" I think it would have gone much better and would have cut back on the people with "keep the government out of my medicare" signs.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Why don't you move to Somalia? Libertarian paradise.
Except single-payer wouldn't have primarily benefited the healthcare industries like the HCR law does.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Citizens of USA should pay exclusively for the maintenance of the roads they use, the electricity of the lampposts that light their garages' entrances, and the police man-power required to patrol their neighborhoods. Anything else means the communists won.
Disclaimer: perhaps I'm trolling, perhaps I'm not.
Perhaps I'm trolling, perhaps I'm not.
Still on the home page in the tag, at least. For how long, "no man can say."
Discussion System prefs link: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm
Yeah, because a nerd would never care about politics that may affect them.
Medicare's overhead is 3% because they don't pay anyone (relatively speaking anyway) to investigate and then deny false claims.
Fewer than 5% of Meidcare claims are audited.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/12/AR2008061203915.html
Everyone always talks about the part of the healthcare law that mandates insurance--the part that was supported in the past by Romney, Gingrich, and, I think, Nixon.
But what about all the rest of it? There's quite a bit of it besides that, like eliminating pre-existing conditions and many other things. Repealing everything is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Of course, not including a public option made the new law only a pale substitute for what it could have been. But the public option will never happen, because the huge corporations and their paid big-media mouthpieces (and the millions of gullible believers in that big media) will never let it happen.
Yea, because its not like there was a shit ton of lobbying done by the insurance industry to kill the idea of a single payer system.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I feel as though if I have a savings account for accidents, why should I have to buy car insurance? Usually I'm told something to the effect of "well they have to make it law or there would be too many people driving around causing accidents and not paying for it". OK, so how is that ok but health insurance is off-limits? Seems like people without health insurance going to emergency rooms are also not paying and racking up bills. Nobody has been able to give me a straight answer. I suspect much of it is irrational hatred of Obama. But I would love to hear a rational argument, either for or against, why I need health and/or car insurance. The government has been mandating one for ages and the other more recently, and so I'm trying to reconcile it in my head (though its likely futile I'm sure, society doesn't have to always do things that are rational and consistent).
The only way this will ever get better in the U.S. is when we have a single payer system, that covers everyone. There is simply no excuse for us to not have it. This is what has been most disappointing about Obama. He's passing center-right and right wing policies (mandates were originally the Republican idea, folks, Clinton rejected it in the 90's), and The Left is taking the blame for it. If we had a real liberal in there, he would have fought for "Medicare For All", and not a 1990's Republican plan.
Private insurance companies also spend much more than Medicare to investigate and deny legitimate claims.
are you suggesting that the people who are covered by this law don't have the right to vote or do you not remember the rallying cry of the Boston Tea Party. It wasn't "No taxes" it was "No taxation without representation." If you are still allowed to vote then the Tea Party reference isn't very appropriate.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
had the argument been framed as "medicare for all" I think it would have gone much better and would have cut back on the people with "keep the government out of my medicare" signs.
Except the Republicans (and blue dog dems) fought to get this option removed.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I always considered /. to be the union of those two sets, not the intersection.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"You can't win... If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Ah, if only it involved killing foreigners. Then you don't have to worry about laws.
Bush is really lucky that Cheney did that whole 9/11 thing. After that he did whatever he wanted.
I looked it up and found that John Adams signed a law mandating sailors to purchase health insurance. Here is a link to the law: 5th congress passed law and an article talking about it: daily KOS article So if precedent means anything it doesn't look like the law will be struck down. Though stranger things have happened before.
.
Through the 1990's, various Republicans submitted health care bills specifying the individual mandate.
The Republicans are, as usual, being quite hypocritical in their objections to the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Perhaps it is time for the Republicans to back away from their objection to everything and roadblock generation, and get down to the business of governing.
For those that are in favor, answer me this.. Why shouldn't ALL income go to the government first, have all programs paid for, and then (if anything is left over) divided by 340 million is our "new" income. What is your argument against that? Everyone is dancing around the most obvious. We simply can't afford everything we want.
It was inevitable it was going to get there. Guess they wanted the economy to wallow a little longer in uncertainty while they waited to take this up. Too bad Obama blew his wad on a coverage bill rather than focusing on spiraling costs. Now no one is gonna touch that for several more years.
The net effect of a lack of a mandate is that we absolutely cannot eliminate preexisting conditions (something with near-universal support).
Maybe a Constitutional lawyer will come along and straighten me out on this, but that seems to be a clear-cut instance of regulating interstate commerce.
If the "public option" had been retained in the bill, it might have ended up as the only option.
That's not a bad thing
Unless, of course, you were an insurance company, or on the take of insurance companies (in other words, most of Congress).
If Congress were really trying to create the highest quality health care system the world has ever seen for the lowest cost possible, we'd be talking about how to introduce a completely socialized system into the US. That's because all of the top-notch health care systems are completely socialized, and even within the US the most socialized systems (like the VA) do far better than the most privatized systems in terms of providing care at low prices. There are ways of getting kinda close to that with a highly regulated private system, but there's very little question that's the best you can possibly do.
I am officially gone from
If the SC kills the healthcare law, the Republican model will be considered dead for good, having been rejected by Clinton and now the Supremes. The elections would then very likely include a proposal from the Left in the form of single payer unless something else can be envisioned.
Currently it looks like a win-win for Obama et al.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
This is not true. When people say they walk away from a mortgage, it essentially means they are declaring bankruptcy and their credit is destroyed. If you sell a house below the price you paid for it, you will take a loss and still have to pay off the loan.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Right now, we're at about 300 million population. By some estimates, about 30 million are uninsured. That's about 10%. Let's say that ALL of them become insured under Obamacare, or whatever it devolves to. This should represent, on average, a 10% increase in health care load.
I don't think you can make a legitimate case that this will create "queues of ambulances" or any other kind of major change in the quality, delivery, or cost of health care.
But it sure will make a difference in many of the lives of those who were previously uninsurable, or simply uninsured.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
When you abandon your house here the bank forecloses on it; i.e. they take possession of it and sell it. They absorb any losses, and your credit record is marked in a similar way to how it would be marked if you go bankrupt.
Typically, someone whose house is foreclosed on in unable to get another home loan for several years.
the base insurance which covers a LOT but not everything (the basics real medicine is covered for ill or injured people, the fruity stuff less and less) is going up from 1107 euro this year to 1211 euro for the next year.
hah!
My health insurance costs around 882 Euros PER MONTH.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Except the Constitution explicitly gives congress the power to collect taxes. It is not at all clear that it has the power to "mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die".
All laws where similar things are done (such as requiring car insurance, requiring contractors to be licensed and bonded,etc), differ in significant ways. Some are enforced by the state, not the federal government, who have different powers granted to them. Some only apply when participating in an arguably optional activity not to everyone alive. Some are only required to engage in business, and thus more clearly fall under the interstate commerce act. This is an open legal question, one that was bound to challenged when the law was passed. The faster it gets resolved in the Supreme Court the better.
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.
No it isn't their job. Their job is to interpret the law and constitution as it is written, not according their own personal opinion/logic nor yours.
Not the auto insurance thing again.
If you don't have a car, you don't have to buy auto insurance.
I guess if your dead, then you don't have to buy Health Insurance under Obamacare...but don't quote me on that. Odds are that some idiot bureaucrat will insist some recently deceased person is required to show proof of health insurance.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I know that for instance mortgage is a different thing in the US, in Holland the debt stays with you and if selling the house doesn't cover the debt you get to keep paying, whereas Americans can apparently just abandon the house and walk away, the debt is with the house. That changes things a lot, in Holland loosing your house often results in personal bankruptcy.
You can't legally walk away. The situation in the U.S. is pretty much the same as you describe in Holland, with maybe two differences:
1.) What should happen and what does happen may be different things. In some cases, American mortgages have changed hands so many times that quite literally nobody knows who owns the paper on your house. In the wake of the mortgage crisis of a couple years ago, if you walk away, it might take more than a year for someone to come knock on your front door to find out why you haven't been paying your mortgage. That doesn't absolve you of the debt, but who cares about debt when you don't have to pay the money every month?
2.) Bankruptcy in America is really not so catastrophic a scenario. It can create hardships, making it more difficult for you to obtain credit, but the bankruptcy laws are designed so that bankruptcy doesn't really destroy you financially (what would be the economic purpose of that)? I know several people who filed for bankruptcy at a fairly young age and have since paid their way out of it. In the meantime, life goes on. Donald Trump -- a famous, rich real estate developer -- has filed for bankruptcy several times. So while walking away from a mortgage will probably end with you filing for bankruptcy, so what? Especially if you're in the last 1/3 of your life, maybe in retirement and on fixed income, default and bankruptcy can be strategic decisions.
Breakfast served all day!
Republicans and affiliated constituents have been trying to tear this healthcare bill down from the moment it was passed into law. Obama blew all of his political capital on this stupid bill. Only now when he knows that he needs to boost his approval rating (if he wants to get elected) does he start pushing jobs. meh what a total waste.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Not only does Congress not have the power under the Commerce Clause to regulate inactivity, but I have the freedom of associate. If I don't want to buy something from any private entity, I still retain that right.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Medicare pays above the marginal costs but not the average cost, so putting everyone into Medicare wouldn't work without controlling costs. In other words, everyone else subsidizes Medicare.
It's like the jerk driver who cuts in front of everybody at the last second waiting for an exit. If everyone engaged in that behavior, it wouldn't work.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
the base insurance which covers a LOT but not everything (the basics real medicine is covered for ill or injured people, the fruity stuff less and less) is going up from 1107 euro this year to 1211 euro for the next year.
Average rate is now almost $5,000 USD per year. Yay America!
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-09-15-insurance-costs_N.htm
Libertarianism requires a framework of laws to protect the rights of all parties, and provide for legal recourse should the rights of one party be infringed by another.
Even at its worst, Somalia operated under a combination of religious law (Sharia), feudalism and anarchy.
Please, tell me: which one of the many different governments in Somalia has implemented a Libertarian society?
Rhode Island does not require auto insurance. Others let you self insure.
By the way, what is a "Federal Road"? - and are they not goverened by state laws - not national ones?
Your complaint is rather baseless. Of course if you were to stop existing that would be a plus, since I'm tired of having to subsidize the parasitic tendencies of self important idiots like you in the first place.
The best possible arrangement is two separate pieces of property, one owned by each person, no marriage, so you both have independent addresses, independent security, and immunity from the abuse the government and society will dish out to married persons as a consequence of the actions/positions of just one of them.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It is not authoritative, but an aid to interpretation. The Constitution is about granting limited powers to governments and securing the rights of the people. The founders thought this framework would "...promote the general Welfare..."
Note I said "governments." There are two levels of governments involved, and each is granted powers. The federal government's powers are limited and very narrowly specified. The states' powers are much broader and undefined, expected to have more to do with the day to day lives of the people.
Universal healthare could be accomplished under the Constitution, but it must be accomplished by individual states. A lot of people complain about "RomneyCare" in MA, but at least he did it within the powers of the state, according to the Constitution.
The federal government was given nothing close to the power it attempts to seize under ObamaCare. Its multiple conflicting arguments defending this have been absurd.
This is why I have no hope for anything anymore. Even little things like this are parsed into unreality and woven into the tapestry of myth, lies and nonsense that represents "truth" for most people. I can;t even talk politics to anyone anymore because it's constant triage figuring out which lies they believe to fix first, and you can't fix them anyway, because they "know what they know". This applies to ideologues from one end of the spectrum to the other.
I'm not sure whether the figures are quite right, but the basic story they tell is quite accurate.
The cheapest health plans I could find (via a quick search) for a 50-year-old non-smoking male were about $2160 (1585 euro) per year. However, all of those plans have a high deductible, so even if you are sick or injured you have to pay up to $10,000 (7340 euro) before the insurance company pays anything. And if they can, the insurance company will attempt to avoid paying the bill entirely, leaving you stuck with the bill but still requiring that you pay the insurance premiums.
The new health care law requires everyone to get insurance, and also puts a dent in some of the tricks insurance companies use to avoid paying the bill. At best, it makes the US system more like the Dutch system.
I am officially gone from
What are the American insurance rates for a single male who won't see 40 again and doesn't like taking to much risk? Both under the new system and the old system?
This is a difficult question to answer, because the plans are fairly complex.
I'm a male who is not quite 40. I pay about USD $250 per month for health insurance. I'm willing to bet, however, that the level of coverage my insurance gives me is different than what you get in Holland.
For one thing, my insurance only covers 60 percent of most health care costs. I'm personally responsible for the other 40 percent. This also assumes that I'm using doctors and other health care providers who have agreed to my insurer's terms (they are "preferred providers"). My plan allows me to use any doctor I want, even if they are not "preferred"; some plans don't. If I use non-preferred services, however, the rate my insurance pays goes down (I think it still pays half).
There is a hidden savings here also. Doctors tend to bill as much as they can for their services, but the insurance companies dictate how much they will pay for each class of service. It's illegal for doctors to bill insurance companies a different rate from individuals. But in practice, if an insurance company will only pay a certain amount, doctors will usually write off the difference between what they billed and what the insurance company actually allows. They would not do that if they were billing you as an individual. Therefore, if you don't have insurance, the actual amount you'll end up having to pay will be significantly higher. You can often negotiate such bills if you can make the case for financial hardship (which is easy to do -- medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S.) but that's obviously not as easy as to sit back and let your insurer do the negotiating for you.
The insurance also has a "deductible," which means your bill must reach a certain amount before insurance will pay anything. I believe my deductible is $1,700 -- so I must pay $1,700 out of my own pocket in any one calendar year before insurance will pay anything. Really basic services, such as doctor visits, X-rays for broken bones, and things of this nature tend to be exempt from the deductible, though. These things aren't free, but you get them for a flat rate. So a doctor visit with insurance might cost $35; the same visit, without insurance, might cost $170.
Maybe the most important thing with my plan is that it sets a maximum amount that the patient must pay in any calendar year; in my case, I think it's something like $6,500. That might sound like a lot of money, but a friend of mine twisted her ankle on the street, broke it in several places, and by that afternoon she had a hospital bill for $30,000. To me that's completely unmanageable, but $6,500 per calendar year is not.
There are many other factors, such as whether your plan will pay for non-generic drug prescriptions, whether it covers eye care and other types of care, and so on. One of the biggest factors for women is whether their plan covers pregnancy. If a woman got a similar plan to mine at a similar rate, it would not cover pregnancy. If she got pregnant, pretty much every insurer would offer her a plan that does cover it at a significantly higher rate, and she would be able to switch. (In San Francisco, however, the city offers prenatal care and similar services essentially for free.)
Anyway, like I said, the whole thing is very complicated, and there are further options I have not discussed, such as insurance combined with a health savings account. It's too much to go into everything, and even what I have written here is simplified.
I spent a long time weighing different plans and imagining different scenarios in which I might need to file claims against them. The bottom line I came to was: Different plans pay for things in different ways, but unless you can predict exactly what injury or illness you'll get in the future, there's no way to know which one
Breakfast served all day!
Please read this through.
What was struck down by the lesser court was the mandatory requirement that says everyone must buy (private) insurance. This clause was put in *by the insurance companies* because otherwise the "cannot deny anyone health coverage", and "no lifetime benefit limit" clauses will bankrupt them. Only by forcing the healthy to participate by law would the insurance companies be able to stay afloat.
Now, if this clause is struck down, then insurance companies will all go bankrupt up or must ask government for subsidies, which means we'll end up with basically a government paid health insurance (single payer), or a government run health insurance.
There is really no way the insurance companies can wiggle out of this one. They either have to accept a single payer system to stay in business, or pay the conservative governors to drop the law suites. Oh the sweet irony.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
Taxes are admitted to be required to maintain the basic level of services necessary to secure the rights of the people.
Libertarianism does have a large diversity of thought regarding the degree of the role of the state, but in no case does it look anything like Somalia. Where you see the rights of people being violated by those in power, you do not have libertarianism.
Replying to my own post: I should add, I'm talking about insurance rates because you asked what insurance costs. I am self employed and therefore buy insurance as an individual. Most people in America get their insurance through their employer. That means they usually get a better level of coverage than individuals who buy insurance on their own, but their out of pocket expense is less. Their employer pays for the majority of their insurance premiums (in addition to their salary). They must pay the rest out of their salary, but it's usually no more than 20 percent of the total cost of the plan, and the money is taken out of their salary before taxes are assessed (so the money they spend on health insurance is tax-free). Like I said before -- it's all very complicated.
Breakfast served all day!
Just try finding a specialist who accepts Medicare, even with supplamental insurance. You may not find one in your city. Quality of care under Medicare is pretty crappy, much like trying to do anything else on the cheap.
And even so we can't afford it. The unfundd liabilities of medicare exceed the total wealth of every citizen, corporation, and small business in America combined. It's somewhat pointless to talk about "Medicare for all" when we have no sort of plan to pay for Medicare as it is now.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Are these figures accurate?
They sound about right. For reference, the total population of the U.S. is ~300 million. Despite decades of social programs we have not been able to get the poverty rate below about 15%.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Are health and justice.
Without a method of law and justice, there's anarchy. And a civilization can't exist in an anarchy (well, not a big one anyway, and certainly not a world player).
Hand in hand with that is health. When you're sick, you're returned to work, or the ability to go and get the next job.
Without both of those, life would be hard. That's what prompted the NHS in the UK years ago, and much as though it's a popular whipping boy sometimes, and a big money sink, we do have a well functioning medical body that will fix most things.
If you want it faster, by all means, take up private insurance as well (hell, when things go wrong at the private hospitals, they pack the patients back to the NHS where they know it'll be fixed).
If you really don't think the state should be involved in the general wellbeing of the people, then how do you feel about a completely privately owned police force and court system. You think you get it rough now with the MPAA and RIAA lobbying to get through a heavily one sided deal? It would be orders of magnitude worse under a completely private, for profit, arrangement.
Personally, I rate my health as highly as I rate a chance at getting a bit of justice (the legal system doesn't always give you the answer you want, same as a hospital won't always give you good news, but at least everyone should have a shot at getting some, without having to reach for a credit card).
That's part of what I call freedom. If the world falls apart around you, at least you have your health 'eh? What, you can't afford the medication, and you have to put yourself in someone's debt to be able to do so? Hmmmm...
Healthcare should be a function of government, with commerce adding the nice bits on top.. Faster, newer, hopefully better, but definitely more expensive. The real grunt work of keeping the masses healthy should be simple and cheap.. Not necessarily profitable.
Those warlords build their own fiefdoms, with alliances and fealty going up and down. That part of the operation of Somalia is more like feudalism.
Currently health insurance companies are licensed and regulated in each state individually. In many cases the larger name (such as Blue Cross Blue Shield) is just a cooperation between multiple state-level insurance companies. IMHO, those proposals don't fly because insurance doesn't always constitute interstate commerce.
The simple solution is to allow insurance to go national. A company in New York can sell insurance anywhere in the US. That is absolutely interstate commerce, and the federal government could say, for example, if you want to sell inter-state, you must not discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions.
But the liberals don't want to lift the state-specific operation. The reasoning is that insurance companies will supposedly all move to the one state with the most lax insurance laws, and everybody will be subject to them. They forget the federal law aspect taking over as insurance becomes a national, inter-state operation.
Why should people in prison get better health care? then sick people? What about people with jobs with very poor plan?
I'm not sure that's true. There's not any innovation at all going on in health insurance. For a long time, the innovation was just them looking for new and inventive ways not to pay out. And innovation in health care is limited to developing new drugs and treatments, not streamlining old ones and increasing efficiency. Health care in the US is shockingly poorly managed. You might be surprised what cost pressures will do for the industry, if they ever come to pass.
That said, anything is better than what we have now. Even if it does turn into a single payer system, I'd count it as a win, and I'm an anarchist.
Just like you are taxed differently if you purchase a house, buy stocks, take out a business loan, or a zillion other products and services.
Health care is not necessary for civilization, because people will usually heal on their own. It's more of an efficiency and quality of life improvement. People say that it's absolutely necessary are deluding themselves. Here is a list of things that are more important for a society:
actually necessary:
Nutritious Food
Clean Water
Breathable Air
more important than health care (in no particular order):
Shelter
Transportation Infrastructure
Education
Currency
Mineral Resources
Communication Infrastructure
I don't know how much I missed, but there's probably a lot more.
health care is pretty vital to "promote the general Welfare" (US Constition - Preamble)
Your premise is that Obamacare promotes the general welfare. One point of disagreement between proponents and detractors is whether, on balance, healthcare provided by The State results in lower quality care at greater expense. This is far from a settled question and so it is premature to hide behind the "general Welfare" argument.
Why does there even need to be a national health insurance system on federal level? Why can't the states figure that out on their own - those that want it - and then those that do want it work with the feds to arrange for cross-state agreements, account balancing etc?
You know, just like it works in Canada.
Technically, anything forced from you under threat is theft or, more correctly, robbery. Taxing (at least income taxes) is forcing you to give the government money under threat of being put in jail. Businesses are forced to collect sales tax under threat of being fined and put out of business.
However, if you consider your relationship with the government to be consensual, and individual taxes as being consented to, then there is no theft. But in our current system the individual taxes really don't have much to do with the consent of the people.
The end goal of libertarianism is liberty -- the free and consual association of people. At a minimum you need enough government to guarantee that. But government can very quickly be the agent that restricts that freedom and the consensual nature of the association.
Hospitals here are already overcrowded with people dying in emergency room waiting areas, and we're already subsidizing them. Just at a much higher cost than we would for a single-payer system.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
That's only the case if you believe the hype that the U.S. is the world's most free country. Sure, it's a reasonably free and pleasant country, but Americans, even libertarian ones, seem to have this strange tendency to think that only darkness and chaos lie beyond the border, and that's not so. Americans' seeming disinclination to emigrate in search of a better life is all the more strange in that they're (almost) all descended from people who did exactly that, in most cases not many generations ago.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Having experienced what happens in a socialized, European system through what happened to my grandparents, I can tell you that you really don't want it. When they finally identified the cancer with my grandmother, they only would give her pain medication. They would not treat her with surgery, chemo, radiation, or whatnot. She died in the hospital and there was a state-mandated autopsy. When my grandfather needed anything, they gave him pain meds and sent him home... no matter how my mother or my aunt argued with the doctors. The "death panels" are quite real... though they aren't necessarily called that. They do make decisions in those systems regarding what they will and won't do based on a person's age, condition, etc.
Socialized medicine works fine for an overall healthy population that takes care of itself and doesn't have junk food shoved down its collective throat. Until you can get the corn refiners and big pharma out of their shared bed, the US will continue to be a generally unhealthy population.
OCO is Loco
The United States Public Health Service came into being in the early twentieth century, I believe. What you're referring to was a loose collection of hospitals on the east coast for merchant marines paid for by taxing merchant marines. It wasn't a mandatory, universal payroll tax. The only people who received its benefits were those who paid into it. This organization eventually DID grow into the Public Health Service (isn't mission creep grand?), but its mission has NEVER been to provide universal health care.
This is also the organization that provided fake medical treatment to black men for forty years (without their knowledge or informed consent) to collect research data on syphilis. Obviously a stellar example of the benefits of government health care.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Insurance company profit margins are typically in the 3-4% range. I'd love to see a reputable study and an apples to apples comparison. Considering all the Medicare fraud, I'd say 3% is a hopeful and blatant lie.
Amazing, you mean if I pay a shitload more in taxes I can save less of that shitload on cheaper insurance?! Why, sign me up - I don't like money!
That number is manufactured by assuming all sorts of impossible things, such as zero economic growth, etcetera. I'm not sure which fake "medicare crisis' number you're pulling out of your ass, but would you mind terribly producing your sources before we just swallow this fantastic lie whole?
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Hmm, interesting.
The thing with healthcare is that hospitals don't really turn away people from the emergency room. So it could be cheaper for everyone to take that ounce of preventative maintenance to keep themselves out of the expensive emergency care when they let a chronic condition go unchecked.
I think the U.S. is actually doing pretty well with regards to shelter & infrastructure (at least in populated areas). As to the rest, there's that old saying "health before wealth". Invest in getting your population healthy and well-educated, and the wealth will follow. But I suppose that depends on whether you see people as a resource or a liability.
Are health and justice.
Without a method of law and justice, there's anarchy. And a civilization can't exist in an anarchy (well, not a big one anyway, and certainly not a world player).
Hey, anarchy might not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all! ;-)
And there is no justice, but social justice. There's not really anything completely logical right or wrong, or fair or unfair, just some increasingly formal system of mob rule by whatever mob is in power. The best you can do is just try to fit in with the mob, and maybe push the envelope in whatever direction the balance of power allows.
Aren't taxes theft? that's how this thread started.
is criminal. Agreed?
So do you disagree with the original post which says that all taxes are theft?
Medicare's overhead is 3% because they don't pay anyone (relatively speaking anyway) to investigate and then deny false claims.
Medicare also doesn't pay very much, nor does it pay very often. There is a shortage of professionals that will entertain Medicare patients for this reason.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Because that was the original post.
My experience is that moderate libertarians are unable to agree amongst themselves what things should be paid for with taxes, but they all agree it should be "less". In most ways they are indistinguishable from fiscal conservative Republicans or the slightly washed fraction of tea partiers.
Answer this question, someone who chooses not to (or cannot) purchase any insurance in your Libertarian utopia and then develops a serious and expensive to treat medical condition--should they be allowed to die? Children included? Physically disabled? Elderly?
When park rangers are driving they are on duty, thus the goverment cover's any issues that might come up. And the Fed Goverment "self insures". i.e. they don't pay a private insurance company to pool their risk - they just write a check.
And, there's not an ounce of sarcasm in that statement. It's like a microcosm of politics in our country. One group drops in spewing talking points they've had jackhammered into their earholes since 2009. The other group comes at it with factual arguments whether they're for or against the program. Unfortunately, it's easier, cheaper, and more effective for politicians to appeal to and incite the former group.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
What people of both parties are pushing is a strange bastardization of privatized socialized healthcare where we pay one rate and virtually everything is covered.
Actually, I don't know what newspapers you've been reading, but unless I'm misunderstanding you I'm pretty certain nobody in either party is pushing that.
Checkups aren't a risk: I have no desire to insure myself against checkups.
I don't even do annual checkups. I don't think they've been shown to have any significant preventative effects for young men. On the other hand, most things you go to a doctor for at a young age are just simple doctor visits, for things like a sinus infection. Those aren't generally billed any differently than a checkup is; they're just "doctor visits." If the doctor discovers something unusual, however, you may be sent somewhere for further tests. Thus, the whole process should be insured. It's unforeseen medical treatment and that's precisely what you get insurance for.
Breakfast served all day!
Repeal that stinking healthcare bill. Destroy Obama. Get behind Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare/Medicade as we know them. Pay your doctor, ya deadbeats. I'm tired or paying for freeloaders.
an ill wind that blows no good
We have the FDA and the EPA because we don't like the air being brown and having formaldehyde used as a preservative in our food. The free market brought us these things in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There was a story about a river that was so polluted that it caught on fire. The water was burning. We didn't like that. Richard Nixon, a Republican, gave us the EPA. Want to see what life was like before it? Visit Beijing.
I'm sure I couldn't even begin to list the things our taxes pay for that we take for granted. The Libertarians and the Tea Party have this utopian vision of a world without those things, but I bet they'd be squealing like a stuck pig as the Interstate Highway system collapses and grows over, air traffic grinds to a halt and the country breaks up into a very loose collection of nation-states. Services that Mr. Paul blithely says should be supplied by the states if at all would be much more expensive on a state-by-state level, and no state is going to take responsibility for many of the services supplied by the Federal government. The Tea Party, in particular, are nothing but a bunch of spoiled children whose agenda is clearly to destroy this country and everything that made it great. Their reactions during the debates make their intentions and mentality clear. These are not the people you want in charge of this country. These are not people you want in a position of power.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You'd think the public option would be easy to push through. Just treat it like military service. You pay the monthly fee into the public option (Just make it part of your withheld taxes) and use their doctors. But you can't sue them for malpractice if something goes wrong! Try it in the military and see how far you get! I'm pretty sure the Republicans would be all over that.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That is an argument I've heard from leftists quite often. They talk of descending to the lowest common denominator of state protections for the insured.
Actually, last I checked, that number is manufactured by assuming that Medicare must meet the same standards as a private pension does in terms of money set aside to pay for the eventual payout.
Medicare, if it were a private pension, would have most of its upper management under indictment by the Federal Government for flouting laws governing that sort of thing.
Fortunately for Medicare, the government can ignore its own rules, and just increase taxes as needed to make things work out in the end....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
They sound fairly reasonable. Note that the definition of "poverty" varies from country to country. and even from State to State in the USA. In the USA, in general, the poverty line is 300% of the cost of food for a family (with government assistance such as Food Stamps NOT counted as part of the income).
Note that if you are in poverty in the USA, the whole health insurance issue is meaningless sound, since you're covered by Medicaid (assuming you're under 65 - if you're over 65, you're covered by Medicare), not by private insurance.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Umm, we haven't gotten the poverty rate below 15% because we redefine poverty upwards fairly regularly. Today's poverty isn't the poverty of 1940. Or even of 1980.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
If we had universal coverage, you'd get the psychological help that you clearly need.
That's not really the worst case--the new legislation would need to *pass Congress* again, which would be really hard.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
First of all, I have to correct myself. According to Wolfram Alpha, the U.S. poverty rate in 2010 was 12%, with "poverty" defined as annual income at or below $11,139 for a single person. I think we can agree, no matter where you are in the U.S., it is tough to get by on $11K per year.
So I took a look at the poverty level in 1980, and it was $4,190, again for a single person. Adjusting for inflation to 2010 dollars, Wolfram Alpha gives me $11,237. So I disagree with respect to adjusting the definition of poverty: the definition does get adjusted upward, but in fact is increasing a tiny bit slower than inflation, with the net effect that it's basically stable when viewed in inflation-adjusted dollars.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
But if people start living longer, Social Security will go broke a lot faster!
I am 71. I cannot buy health insurance that leaves me with money for food or housing or clothes. I have no disabilities, mental or other and I am writing this note to you Americans on Slashdot. My BP is 120/70, I have only the degradation in functions (ears, eyes, speed) that comes with ageing.
I live in Canada in Quebec. If I need immediate attention, as happened two years ago when the flesh eating bacteria caught hold, starting at my toes, if it were not for universal healthcare, I would not be typing this note and my family would be with memories of me.
I went to the emergency at the hospital, they immediately did a triage, and within 30 minutes I was admitted and within an hour I was on intravenous antibiotics. I was in the hospital for 6 days before being given antibiotics that I would inject at home for another ten days.
Given my financial situation, what would be my situation in the majority of the 50 states? Would I come out with zero debts? My total expenses were around $400.00 due to having antibiotics to inject while not in the hospital. The $400 is tax deductable.
We in Quebec have a prescription plan with the government that is a fallback one. It is obligatory if one does not have group insurance. In my case, there is a max filling fee of $20/mo, plus the benefit of a percentage discount that the government assumes. There is also a ceiling per year for any citizen for his medication costs. (I am fortunate, no medication).
I have free examinations, xrays, mri's etc. I do not abuse the system. What is my cost? About $1,000 per year on my income tax. If I earned ten times more, it would be about $3,500 . Yes, I have a wife, and she is included in that annual medical portion of income tax that I pay.
Ask yourself this, does your private plan have a ceiling on expenses? We in Canada have Cancer patients and they are not subject to "your allotment of money ran out, sorry".
Hurrah for universal health care. Europe, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Israel, Russia (I think China as well) has Universal health care. The people in all countries are the resources, not corporate profits.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Link's in my sig, Toadly one. Check the cites from there - it's actually based on absurdly optimistic numbers, IIRC, because it assumes that Medicare will pay doctors 20% less than it actually pays (the doc fix problem), but you should check the details yourself if you are skeptical.
But the liability would still be impossible to meet at 1/2 the projected size, or 1/3. We're really far away from funding Medicare properly, and we're so vastly overspending the federal income in the first place that we just have to spend less going forward - there's simply no more "more" to be had.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
who couldn't be easily defeated in debate by a 12 year old. It's actually kind of boring.
Okay, fine, whatever, Somalia is only one possible example of Libertarianism--you know, the one which taxes==theft.
nonsense. "just not"? You can't be a touch pregnant and you can't believe in 'touch' of rights.
That doesn't even make sense. I didn't ever say "touch", you apparently just imagined it. To be honest if you are so retarded you can't even read for respond to the things I actually say there is little point continuing this debate. How can anyone talk to you when not only do you insist on re-defining words but you assume that when someone else uses a word they mean your definition, not the commonly accepted one? And then you start imagining things they didn't even say.
What a complete waste of time.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC