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Supreme Court: Affordable Care Act Is Constitutional
This morning the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. The health insurance mandate, also known as "Obamacare" was found to be "permissible under Congress's taxing authority." The full ruling (PDF) is now available, and the court's opinion begins on page 7. Amy Howe from SCOTUSblog summarized the ruling thus:
"The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding."
Further coverage is available from CNN, the NY Times, and Fox.
The whole problem with this is the insurance angle. This becomes a guaranteed income stream for private insurance companies. They have so many ways to hide their finances, people will pay ever higher costs for reduced care. There are a thousand studies saying health care costs will increase in the future, not including inflation. There are many ways the government could improve health care and reduce the cost of it, but this is not it. If the government was the insurance company that would be different, all they would have to do is add .5 % to the current medicare deduction. Simple. Let anyone that wants join a government health plan (with no existing condition clause). Simple.
What, you mean the OTHER Republican-originated plan that the Republicans blocked so that Obama couldn't look good by doing his job? What the hell do you think happened to it? It went the way of other Republican-originated ideas that are now demonized by the Republicans once a Democrat signs onto it, like cap and trade, etc.
Justice Roberts had this little gem hidden in his commentary.
"The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause.That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it.
But in the odious 1942 Wickard V Filburn case the Court ruled exactly the opposite. The Court decided that Filburn's wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn's production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce. Thus, Filburn's production could be regulated by the federal government.
In essence, they ruled that he can't grow wheat for his own use he MUST BUY IT IN THE MARKET.
I wonder if this ruling can be used as precedent to challenge Wickard v Filburn?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
It was disconnected until 1973 (or so) when the government required large businesses to offer it. Over the years "large business" was redefined to be 50 or more employees. My employer presently has 49 employees and has no interest in increasing by even one employee... that 50th employee will be an expensive chap.
I am surprised and disappointed by this ruling. But not for the reasons you might expect.
I want the US to have universal health care, but I think the mandate was a back-asswards way of getting it and I dont think it will be successful.
It would have been far better to just make it a tax. This mandate only helps the health insurance industry slow its inevitable downward spiral.
Accoding to a 2007 study by Kaiser Permanente, http://www.kff.org/insurance/7692.cfm
Healthcare spending has risen steadily and has outpaced wages. This means that less and less people can afford healthcare, and in turn less people will be purchasing insurance. Of course this is cyclical, since with less people buying insurance, the insurance sompanies will ahve to increase their premiums.
And so the health insurance industry is already in a downward spiral that will eventually collapse.
I fear that the health insurance mandate will not stop this downward spiral, since it will be less expensive for healthy people to just pay the fine than to buy insurance. Eventually, the US government will have to intervene.
Taxpayers already pay for a large percentage of the populations medical services. If you count Medicare, Medicaid, Federal, State, and Local governments, that makes up over 100 million users, or 30% of the population. As less people can afford healthcare, the government will be shouldering a higher percentage.
Dont fool yourself. You are paying for this one way or another. Either by taxes, or by rising insurance costs. If your company is paying the premiums, you may want to ask them why you did not get a raise this year and they will tell you it was eaten up by premiums. insurance is after all a 'tax' that you pay in order for 'services' to be available when you need them. The healthy people end up paying for the sick people with chronic problems caused by obesity, diabetes, heart disease, lung and liver diseases, all could be prevented by good diet, exercise, and staying away from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, fat, and sugar. How does that make you feel when your hard earned dollars are going to pay for someones lung cancer treatment who has chain-smoked for 20 years?
Not that I am bitter or anything. i paid more for health care in the last 5 years than I did in taxes. The last 2 years I paid more in health care than I did for my mortgage. And that is with an employer sponsored plan and a healthy family. But the good news is that this will HAVE to change. We know it and there is a clear path to where we need to go. In the next 5-10 years we will have universal healthcare whether we vote for it or not.
oldhack: "Security is a waste of money until shit hits the fan. 5 minutes later, it becomes waste of money again. "
What should concern everyone, and the reason John Roberts supported the mandate, is that it sets a precedent to allow privatization of taxation.
The "Left" supported it because the mandate was attached to health care, but this is a step towards corporatism much bigger than Citizens United.
The belief in free markets?
In the Netherlands, they are running an experiment where dentists were allowed to set their own prices (I have no clue how this worked before). Goals were to have better care, to have more efficient care, and to reduce prices for consumers. Noticeable effects so far: prices are up about 6% (on average), and dentists are flat-out refusing "partial" jobs (if you need drilling in two teeth and setting a bridge to fix your one broken tooth, you cannot go to a cheap "driller" and a cheap "bridger").
The intermediate results of the experiment are so egregious, that parliament called for ending the experiment prematurely.
I think free markets work well when buyer and seller have equal power. When you're broken, and the other guy is not broke, there's no way you're at an equal power level.