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Healthcare Law Appealed To Supreme Court

Posted by samzenpus on from the just-a-matter-of-time dept.

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."

35 of 1,019 comments (clear)

  1. What other products by tripleevenfall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What other products will they eventually mandate that we buy from corporations, purely by virtue of existing?

    1. Re:What other products by FunkSoulBrother · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Clothes. Try walking around town naked and homeless.

    2. Re:What other products by Gr33nJ3ll0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seatbelts, and motorcycle helmets are a couple of good examples.

    3. Re:What other products by tysonedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The distinction here is that health care is pretty vital to "promote the general Welfare" (US Constition - Preamble)
      welfare |welfe()r| (noun)
      the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group

      To that end, it seems pretty obvious that the founders of the United States cared enough about the health of it's citizens.

      We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

      --
      Thirty four characters live here.
    4. Re:What other products by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Informative

      The distinction here is that health care ,,,

      We are talking about health insurance, not health care.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    5. Re:What other products by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem isn't that we're mandated to buy it. The problem is that it's a mandatory service that *SHOULD BE PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT*.

      I'm ok with being denied service based on my wages for a lot of things but when it comes to life saving medicine I don't see that as a "would be nice" feature.

      This goes back to the "Do you let them die?" question. Should a hospital let someone bleeding to death die in their Emergency Room if they have no insurance? I think except for at republican debates the answer is "no".

      So we've accepted that getting medical treatment is guaranteed.

      I'm going to probably shock people with this but you're already required to buy all manner of things. Do you want airbags? Too bad, buy a car and you get them. Do you want a life raft space for you on all cruise trips? Too bad, you have to buy one.

      Now yes you can choose to not drive a car or ride a boat but you can't choose to not be born. And once born our medical system is your life's liferaft.

    6. Re:What other products by RingDev · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On the other hand, we are forced to pay for Healthcare of others. It's already a socialized system. No one will be turned away from an emergency room. And our payments are bloated to cover the loss from uninsured patients and set-cost payments (medicare).

      So if I'm already forced to subsidize everyone else, why shouldn't they be forced to either subsidize along with me (the socially responsible choice) or to pay a penalty, to atleast put some skin in the game.

      It is unfortunate that we don't have much for non-profit or a government option. Because I'm getting pretty sick of paying 20 cents on the dollar to pay Cigna's CEO's pay check while getting raked for $20k+ a year in health care expenses.

      -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
    7. Re:What other products by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have been in single payer nations, never saw such thing. Are you paid by the insurers or are you their lackey for free?

    8. Re:What other products by Moryath · · Score: 3, Informative

      Water. Try owning a house in any city without running water. You'll be fined/charged.
      Electricity. Pretty much the same, unless you (like the Amish) can drum up some form of "religious objection." Good luck managing it unless you're Amish or Mennonite.
      Clothing... check. Either you buy it, or someone buys it and gifts it to you.
      Education. You pay, through your taxes, for it. One way or another.
      Retirement. See also: Social Security. You can argue over the semantics all day long, you can argue you are "paying now for someone else and others will pay for you"... end of the day, you are contributing funds to a government program designed to ensure that the elderly are not left Completely Fucking Destitute.

      The list goes on pretty considerably.

    9. Re:What other products by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Government isn't mandating that you buy [a yacht] -- just that you have it."

      So now Obama is trying to make me buy a yacht? Bloody hell, how far will this guy go before people wake up. I'm going to write up an email and send it to all my friends. Our president is clearly in the pocket of "Big-Yacht".

      It was the result of compromise with the GOP, which calls it a suitable employment program - the only problem is the Yachts will be coming from China, not US factories, so it fails again.

      The people don't understand the ObamaCare plan - not entirely sure I do either, as it's a bit of a Frankenstein plan, rather than best plan which we couldn't get, not because of "Socialism", but because the major Healthcare companies have the GOP (and some Dems) so buttoned up in their pockets that the best plan of all could never get passed (the plan which cuts them largely out of the loop.)

      Imagine if you will, there was no Social Security in the United States and any administration trying to get that system through today, with the way big business interests have so many politicians on a gilt leash. It'd be horrible and the only people really benefiting (besides lawyers, who seem to find a way to prosper from anything) would be businesses, not the people it was meant to serve.

      A basic national healthcare system is in the interests of the people, but they've been so baffled with BS they don't know what they're getting they've completely confused in the debate, often siding against their own best interests and subscribing to slogans like 'It's socialism and it's bad' - right, sure you got there by a car, on a highway, built with federal legislation and funding, but who's speaking up for tearing them all up and turning all the major highways back over to private hands and turnpikes, eh?

      There's a good solution, but it takes a strong leader to make it happen.

      I'm afraid people will finally wake up when healthcare is only affordable to the 1% and some plague is sweeping the country.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    10. Re:What other products by ravenspear · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People do not have to wait for life threatening care with single payer, just non-immediately needed procedures sometimes. Stop your ignorant talking points.

      What we have now is wealthcare. The wealthy like the fact that they get quicker service for non life threatening care by removing millions of people from being able to access care at all. That's not equal opportunity for all.

    11. Re:What other products by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes it is. Move to Canada or Europe if you're so in love with socialism programs.

      Move to Somalia if you want to live in a libertarian fantasy land.

      Or we could both acknowledge that a country's healthcare system is just one small aspect of where you want to live.

    12. Re:What other products by fyngyrz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No one will be turned away from an emergency room.

      ER's don't provide reasonable care for anything that can't be fixed immediately. They'll put your arm in a cast or stitch up a cut, but you're not going to get anything even CLOSE to adequate cancer treatment, diabetes amelioration, allergies, and so on.

      It is simply disingenuous to hold up the ER as evidence that anyone can get reasonable medical care.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    13. Re:What other products by Beyond_GoodandEvil · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To that end, it seems pretty obvious that the founders of the United States cared enough about the health of it's citizens.
      You know what is pretty obvious? What James Madison(the guy credited w/ writing the Constitution) had to say about that particular clause. "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions." So no, he didn't think that general welfare should be used to let Congress do what ever it wanted.

      --
      I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
    14. Re:What other products by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With regards to your question... the federal government does not mandate automobile insurance for drivers on the interstates. The federal government mandates compliance with state laws on the interstates, and not all states require automobile insurance (just proof of assets equal to state liability minimums, such as Wisconsin.)

      Are you often caught arguing without the facts?

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    15. Re:What other products by gearsmithy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The "auto insurance" canard. There is a big difference between compelling someone (with force) to purchase a product as a condition of exercising a privilege (driving) and compelling someone to purchase a product as a condition of being alive.

    16. Re:What other products by Chowderbags · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

      Article 1, Section 8

    17. Re:What other products by ravenshrike · · Score: 3, Informative

      All of which use separate insurance pools for each state.

    18. Re:What other products by hedwards · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's constitutional. I'm not sure where you got the idea that the health care overhaul legislation isn't constitutional. The Federal government has the right to regulate commerce. And, the reason why the costs have been spiraling out of control is that nobody truly opts out of health insurance. Eventually they do get sick at which point the doctors and hospitals turn the costs over to taxpayers or insurance companies.

      At this point only a very small section of the law is even in question and it's unlikely that Kennedy is going to side with the folks claiming that it's unconstitutional.

      Absolute worst case scenario is that it's thrown out in court and replaced with either Medicare for everybody or single payer, both of which are way beyond any challenge. The GOP just doesn't seem to understand that it's challenging the compromise that it was given and most of the other options are less palatable to them.

      Beyond that, if this really is that obviously unconstitutional they shouldn't have been pushing for it in the past.

    19. Re:What other products by compro01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Paul said no, but the screaming nuts in the audience certainly said yes.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    20. Re:What other products by bzipitidoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      No one will be turned away from an emergency room.

      I beg to differ. Some years ago, one of my cousins was turned away from ER. He was uninsured of course, or he probably would have seen a doctor a lot sooner. He was suffering from terrible headaches, couldn't even sit down because that made the pounding worse. He died the next day, presumably from an aneurysm in his head. He was about 45 years old. ER might not have been able to save him, who knows? But it should never have escalated to that point. Could he have been saved if he'd had access to basic health care months before his problem reached the crisis point, when he himself probably didn't think it was anything serious?

      Everyone seems aware of the problems with health insurance. But hardly anyone bashes the medical providers for their crazy billing practices. It's insane, and downright fraudulent the way doctors run the business. You see very few prices up front. They claim they can't give you any price until they know more. Maybe, but there are plenty of known prices they keep from you until well after the fact. If you ask about the price, they'll tell you not to worry (bad for your health, maybe?) insurance will cover it. Then they sometimes demand that you sign a blank check. They push you to sign a form that says you'll pay for something if insurance doesn't. And they won't tell you the price even when it's for something easy. They pulled that one on us for a wheelchair, and not a motorized one either, that turned out to be just over $800. Another stunt they pulled on us was having us keep a medical device for an extra week, unused, without informing us that it cost $1100 per week to rent!

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    21. Re:What other products by Uberbah · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, it does - how else do you expect to promote the general welfare without the government paying for services, which requires taxation.

      The 'necessary and proper' clause was the last item in a carefully enumerated list of powers.

      Headed, again, by General Welfare, making it's second appearance in the Constitution. And if you're going the "it's a strict list of enumerated powers" route, keep in mind that means that huge parts of the military, intelligence and law enforcement branches are unconstitutional, as Congress "only" has the authority to fund an Army and a Navy.

      This isn't even a new argument, all this was debated and settled in the Irrelevant Papers.

      FTFY, unless you can point out in the Constitution where it specifies that the Federalist Papers define what the Constitution actually means.

    22. Re:What other products by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Neither is healthcare. It's a human right.

      - you cannot have a right that imposes an obligation on somebody, anybody.

      There is no such thing as a right to a Ferrari, correct? So there is no such thing as a right to food or clothing or shelter or health insurance or health care or education, it's because this imposes an obligation for somebody to supply you with this stuff, so it cannot be a right.

      Get your definitions straight. You may want to have those entitlements, but as long as somebody must pay for these with their time/money/work those are not rights.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
  2. Ridiculous argument by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!
  3. Re:Nothing good comes of this either way by sandytaru · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I heard on NPR today that while 2% of the latest increases in health insurance costs could be attributed to the ACA, the other 98% of the increases were a combination of insurance companies pre-emptively raising rates in case health care costs went up further in the future, and actual increases in current health care costs that had nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act.

    --
    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  4. Single-payer, like Medicare, would have been fine by Animats · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Should have gone with single payer.... by Beelzebud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Should have gone with single payer.... by Above · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Should have gone with single payer.... by Uberbah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Simple economic theory dictates that one provider = higher costs. Many providers = competition = lower costs. But feel free to enjoy your liberal pipe dream.

      Speaking of pipe dreams, explain why no one in France loses their house due to medical bankruptcies. Explain why other countries spend 1/3 as much as the U.S. does while receiving better care. Explain why Cuba has comparable health stats to the U.S. while spending less than $300 per patient per year. Explain why men in their twenties die in the U.S. from an infection that spread from a goddamn toothache, because they couldn't afford to have it treated.

      Explain why a for-profit system that depends on increasing your premiums while denying your claims is magically "more efficient" than a system where you get what you pay for: health CARE.

    3. Re:Should have gone with single payer.... by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Should have gone with single payer.... by LateArthurDent · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or the general hospitals, who treat people who are uninsured.

      Hospitals are required to help anyone at the ER. They stabilize you and kick you out. If it's a condition for which you don't need immediate attention NOW, you're screwed.

      Have you been shot, and don't have insurance? You'll be ok. Do you have cancer and don't have insurance? You're screwed.

      I can make an appointment and be seen TODAY. You can't do that in socialized medicine.

      First, where do you live? Because I have insurance, live in columbia, SC and had a bad cough that lasted a month. When I decided it was time to see a doctor (obviously not an emergency room), I was told the soonest they could see me was in a week.

      Second, have you ever lived somewhere with socialized medicine? I used to live in Brazil, where they have a mix of private and public care. You can say a lot of unflattering things about the public care there, but not that they can't schedule you for an appointment on the same day. I used to call right before leaving the house and make an appointment for however long it would take me to get there. The waiting lists you hear about are for things with limited supplies, such as organ transplants.

      Never lived in either of those places, but I hear places like Canada and the UK don't have the same issues Brazil has with public health care.

  6. Individual Mandate originally a Republican idea by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Insightful
    If you go back to 1989, you'll see that The Heritage Foundation (a very conservative think-tank) floated the idea of the individual mandate for health insurance.

    .
    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.

  7. Perfectly reasonable. by pavon · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  8. Somalia isn't libertarian by any stretch by Quila · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  9. Re:Queues? by Fallingcow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, considering how big a boost single payer or similar would be to economic mobility and entrepreneurship Free Market(tm) loving Republicans should be clambering for it. Trading a shitty "freedom" like picking which insurance company rapes you for a better one like dramatically improved job mobility is a no-brainer, and pretty much the exact kind of thing we have government in the first place.

    Any Free Market worshipper who wouldn't support something like single payer is almost certainly a hopeless ideologue ("who cares that the end is closer to my proclaimed goal, the means to get there are technically counter to my idea of how things should work so screw the whole thing!"), a lying douchebag shill, or a complete dumbass. Maybe all three.

    Want to help the "job creators" hire people? Enact a "socialist" health care law modeled on any of a couple dozen successful systems tomorrow and watch as 50,000 new businesses show up seemingly out of no-where, wages rise, health care costs drop, and offshoring slows.