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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.
First dissent
If you don't do what the government wants, you will find a new "tax" will appear to make you do it.
I find it interesting that it was found Constitutional under taxing power. I don't recall anyone pushing that angle to support the Constitutionality.
I already have health insurance. It's expensive and overly complicated, but I do have it. So, will this actually change anything for people like me? Hopefully I won't be picking up the tab for so many others who opted not to buy insurance before getting sick. But otherwise I don't see a huge impact.
What did you expect? These people know not to bite the hands that feed them.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What ever happened to the public option? You know, cutting the profit motive out of funding health care, so that people do not have to fight with their insurance companies or with hospitals just to get the treatment they need?
Palm trees and 8
I got MY healthcare.
You and your family can take a FLYING LEAP.
The most selfish American generation says SCREW YOU!!
Medical insurance is not only incredibly frustrating to deal with, but a huge unnecessary expense in the system.
Threatening to deny states funding unequally is almost certainly a violation of article 1, section 9, and I wish the supreme court would go further with prohibiting that kind of language.
Maybe you could, I don't know, skip the article?
Brilliant brainstorm, save the most important piece of democratic legislation written in decades by calling it a tax. The fact that a conservative Republican is the one that came up with this is true irony.
It's not a tax. Obama even said so. We have a honest man in the house. Why are you all doubting him?
Life is not for the lazy.
Flush twice.. It's a long way to the cafeteria...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Can we please stop with all the fucking political news stories now polluting slashdot? This use to be a great site that delt with technical stories, now it's just legal bullshit between samsung and apple and political garbage such as this and non-stop global warming nonsense.
You're Right!! Let's go back to the good old days of SCO vs IBM.
One, Justice Roberts took something that was not written as a tax, only defended as one, and changed the legislation.
Two, Justice Roberts confirmed that every time Pelosi, Reid, and Obama claim something isn't a tax, they are liars. Which most of us already knew.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Quite surprising to see Roberts cross the aisle on this decision. For all of its flaws (and there are many), the Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction. Health care is one of the major issues of our time, and it's not realistic to suppose that a single piece of legislation can resolve it.
It seems like increasing the demand for health insurance will make the price of go up. Could someone please explain why that is wrong?
tax:
noun
1. a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.
2. a burdensome charge, obligation, duty, or demand.
As the mandate is to give money to private insurers, and not the government itself, it does not fall under the Constitutional definition of a legal tax. I'm a bit shocked to see the SCOTUS uphold the law under an obvious and blatantly false definition of taxation, although after Citizen's United, nothing those berobed assholes do is really all that surprising.
So, the real question is: Our government is imposing an illegal tax on the people in direct violation of the Constitution; what do we do now?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.
The individual mandate was designed (by Republican think tanks) to avoid freeloaders, who we've all been paying for when they show up in the emergency room.
I also have insurance and the 2 big things it does for me are that it'll be tougher for an insurance company to deny benefits based on a pre-existing condition (which has been interpreted ludicrously loosely at times) and that if I (or someone close to me) ever does have huge medical bills, it will be less likely to bankrupt me.
I'm already taxed for not having a mortgage, not producing "clean" coal, not having children, and numerous other things that we as a culture have decided should be incentivized. The former two items in your list would be a clear violation of the first amendment, which this case did not rest on, whereas the third would be constitutional(but also kind of silly).
While I understand your sentiment I think legal proceedings have been a focus on /. for quite some time. This is also highly relevant to all freelancers, contract workers, and those that are self-employed. Which I'd imagine is a good chunk of the reader base.
I'm actually shocked that the legality of the House to levee the tax passed. If anything I thought they'd walk it back and require that provision removed. It seems ill advised to apply more blanket tax burdens to support individuals without the means or forethought to prepare for the future. Given how these sorts of Government run systems balloon out of control.. I suspect this one might implode faster than Social Security.
Yet another reason to stop voting for any of these candidates in this 2-party system. Yea, if we vote Romney in, I'm sure he'll overturn this debacle. But at the same time he'll figure out other ways to funnel our tax dollars in to industries that him and his party supports. Burn it all down.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
You want a technical aspect? Computerized medical records are one of the most complex software systems being worked on right now. There is an entire programming language that was developed for that purpose:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS
Palm trees and 8
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” Alexis de Tocqueville
I don't think the government knows what profit is.
"Leftover money? What's that????"
It's a new tax to cover the healthcare costs of those who end up in the hospital without insurance.
You can get a tax break for having your own insurance, as proof that you won't be costing taxpayers anything when you end up defaulting on $200k of hospital bills after an accident.
I don't know why the democrats couldn't shape the message that way. That's really what it is, and sounds better than "pay up or pay up".
Nonsense.
There are all sorts of contingent taxes.
Profit comes in many guises
seems like the same set of rules that each state can choose to abide or not abide by.
The only parts of Article 1 Section 9 that seem remotely in context, I don't see how they directly apply here. Were you thinking of something else?
"No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another."
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
It is clear you have a human conscience.
We'll talk about that whole Citizens United thing later.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy. unreliable attributions
Chief Justice Roberts: “It Is Not Our Job to Protect the People From the Consequences of Their Political Choices”
There you go... bring on the consequences!
So who's job is it to look out for the best interests of the country? Is that one of those mystery jobs that Americans just don't want to do?
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
your argument is the same kind of argument as "if gays can marry, soon you can marry dead people and animals!"
or "if marijuana is legal, soon meth and coke will be too!"
it's bullshit fearmongering. your point of view depends upon the fact that people don't think and can't tell the difference between different subject matter and weigh them separately
of course they can. well, maybe you can't
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Whether or not you like the Act, it is a great victory for freedom.
Conservatives bitch about activist judges, until they get the majority. Then liberals bitch about activist judges until they get the majority.
Judges should let the legislators legislate, as much as possible!
The Federal Government must not allowed to bootstrap powers merely by passing a tax. That is a horrible precedent that muddies things even further.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
You can't skip by tags.
" That is all that matters."
That is incorrect, the Commerce Clause was limited in this decision, specifically, the activity/inactivity distinction was recognized as valid and upheld.
"On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional"
That is also grossly incorrect, it is currently UN-Constitutional as written. I don't know why she decided to emphasize it that way.
have been for decades
when someone uninsured shows up at the hospital with a broken arm, then avoids the bill or declares bankrupcty, we bail out the hospital from bankrupcty and you pay the bill
the only thing that has changed is that irresponsible people, people who think freedom means not to taking responsible for their healthcare, now have to do that, and stop freeloading off of us
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Probably so--the individual mandate was a Republican idea to begin with.
I admire the Democrats for helping to tackle health care reform. There are some really good things in there--preventing insurance companies from rescinding coverage, allowing parents to insure kids up to 26, etc. But as a Democrat, I have mixed feelings about today's decision. I do not like the individual mandate, as like you, I feel that Congress shouldn't have the power to make you buy something from a private company.
I was actually hoping that the law would stand as-is, except for the individual mandate, which I was hoping would be overturned. At that point, insurance companies would be screwed--they'd still be forced to cover those that they traditionally worked so hard to drop off the rolls, but without money coming in from those who are statistically healthier and less likely to pay for insurance. At that point, one of two things would happen: either 1) the insurance companies would lower prices on their policies to reasonable levels to be more conducive for healthy people to buy, or 2) the insurance industry would basically petition government to expand Medicare to cover those that they don't want to. Either way, it would be win/win.
Ultimately, the only answer is a single-payer system. As long as you have private companies in the insurance business, there is a perverse incentive to screw their customers over. People whine and complain about government's incompetence, and I'd never say there's no waste or that government is perfect. However, I trust government a hell of a lot more than I trust the insurance industry, which has proven time and again that they're scum.
I don't think the ACA is a bad bill, but it misses many opportunities for better healthcare reform. The biggest for the Tech community in my opinion is that it keeps up the relationship between health insurance and employers. In the Tech industry we need the ability to change employers fast and to start up new companies inexpensively. It makes it harder to start a new tech statup if I have to offer employees healthcare. As an employee I'm less likely to work for a new start-up as I fear it failing and losing my health insurance. Also, in technology we have a lot of people working for themselves, these people have always had trouble getting insurance. We need to eliminate the relationship between employment and health insurance. It should be illegal for employers to give you health insurance. Everyone should buy on the open market, there should be no more "groups". In short we should buy health insurance like we buy car insurance.
I don't see why people that get government approved insurance don't pay it. If it's a tax and not a shitty way to coerce people into the program then it should apply to everyone.
To only apply it to people that don't get the policies is a bill of attainder.
You are nuts. There are GOBS of taxes that not everyone pays. Do you pay Alternative Minimum Tax? How about the Luxury Tax? Estate tax? etc., etc., etc.,.
Get a clue.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
1. Canada and the UK have socialised medicine handled by the government. You don't have to buy insurance, you just pay taxes, fill out some paperwork, and voila, medicare (however, in Canada, different provinces have different schemes for drug insurance) I don't understand this idea of forcing Americans to BUY insurance. Isn't it usual that if the government forces people to BUY something for whatever reason (eg: you have to goto drivers school to get a drivers license), then the thing they are buying will suddenly sky rocket in price?
2. What are HMOs?
3. Why are Americans so convinced that amoral profit seeking corporations have their best interests at heart, and not an elected government whose power is given to them by the people?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
You can skip by not clicking links.
Write failed: Broken pipe
If you don't think government is driven by profit, you're dreaming.
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. P. J. O'Rourke
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
Well, not entirely absolute. You can always vote for someone else.
If the mandate is a valid exercise of congress's taxing power (despite congress going to great lengths to not calling it a tax in the legislation), then why does the Anti Injunction Act not apply?
Essentially from the ruling summary I'm gathering that the mandate is considered a tax for constitutional purposes, but for the AIA's purposes it is .... not a tax? How does this make any sense?
Actually, this is just John Roberts' very clever plan to swing the presidential election to Mitt Romney. It's pure genius!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I assume to know who will get 'taxed' on this? There are swaths of exemptions, eg if you already have your own insurance you won't to pay the monthly $286 per family tax, military is exempt, VA exempt, religious organizations who oppose are exempt, the poor are exempt etc. The people who the tax is targeted at are those who can pay but refuse because they'd rather be parasites on the rest of us who do pay, such as yourself I can only assume.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x110608
each following administration will keep and the build on it to further the totalitarian state they both want.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
From THEN on out. It's not like, in 2012, the government started charging people more or less income tax depending on whether or not they do business with mortgage banks.
The Income Tax amendment has decades and decades of precedent and acceptance by the public, for broad interpretation where any condition or expression, not just the amount of income you have, can be part of the function for how much tax you owe.
If we didn't like this, we should have challenged it nearly a century ago. But that's how it is, now. If you don't want the federal government to have this power, then whether we're talking in 2012 or 1962, the situation hasn't changed at all, and you can still advocate a new amendment that is more explicit about the fed's taxing powers.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
So it's only absolute power to oppress a minority.
...why did we need the law?
Or try this tactic ... go ahead and pay the penalty (which is lower than insurance premiums) and then demand the health care you paid for.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
+3000 insightful.
I have no idea at all what is in Obamacare. I really do not care because health insurance is a scam. They (the insurers) do anything they can to not actually PAY for anything so it really is irrelevant if I am covered or not (except that it costs me money).
Since at best, it only seems to be a slight negative that it passed, I would like to comment on how the summary characterizes the ruling:
All I can say is holy loopholes batman! This means that the federal government can write legislation concerning ANYTHING at all as long as the penalty is just a "tax". Don't like something? Tax it so high nobody could possibly pay it. Enforce the tax law with guns and prison. Voila, instant criminal penalties for anything the government wants to legislate.
Is this really the road we want to go down or is the summary way off (as usual)?
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts knew you would do this, and knows you will vote for Mitt Romney, who will repeal the entire ACA and give control to the Health Insurance providers. He's so clever and smart.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
My favorite is the conservatives who, upset that the SCOTUS upheld the individual mandate, say they're moving to Canada because America is just too socialist.
Four Supreme Court Justices say:
Feds send you off to kill or be killed? Okay!
Feds tax you to support thousands of nukes? Okay!
Feds make you be able to take sick kid to doctor? Fuck no!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Healthcare should NOT be a for-profit industry. It is complete and utter barbarity for a so-called "civilized" society. I've stated before and will continue to state that any government that does not provide for the care of its people has no use.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Churches are already tax-exempt, so I have to pay for services that they use that they don't have to pay for. So, in essence, I am already paying for churches that I don't go to. Also, some places have passed laws requiring you to have a gun.
At least the ACA forces private health insurance companies to spend 85% of the premiums they receive on health care and limits overhead to 15%. A lot of people received rebates from their insurers this year because of that provision.
John Roberts is evidently the only one with any sense. All along, I thought conservatives and libertarians were just pretending to be offended by the individual mandate as a political means to overturn Obamacare, which is a horrendous tax and system. That the individual mandate was called a "penalty" was just an oversight (resulting from the hurried way it was passed after the election of Scott Brown), for Congress could have just as easily raised taxes on everyone and then offer a tax credit for those who purchase healthcare insurance. No one ever called the solar panel tax credit, the electric car tax credit, or the first-time homebuyer tax credit a "compulsion" to purchase those respective products.
But no, today conservatives and libertarians are rattling on and on about how the government can now "compel" people to purchase whatever products the government wants, that this decision is somehow a landmark decision. And now I think they really believe that.
The government has been "compelling" people to purchase whatever the government thinks is "good" for decades via an ever-growing tax code. The problem is the Sixteenth Amendment, which has effectively given Congress unlimited power. The power to tax is the power to destroy.
John Roberts was just following the Constitution (if we assume, as he had to, that the Sixteenth was properly ratified).
We need to repeal the Sixteenth, have the federal government exist only on import duties, and put the responsibility for human welfare back with the individual, the family, the church, the local government, and the state government, in that order, following the principle of subsidiarity.
I hope that y'all get something like, say, cancer, with this law repealed.
Let's offer one scenario:
You get treated in 2001.
You lose your job and go on COBRA ($$$)
The insurance co jacks up the price until you can't afford it (FL, 2003-2005, 100% increase in premiums for folks who've rolled off COBRA to "individual plan")
NOT ONE SINGLE INSURANCE CO IN THE US WILL TALK TO YOU OTHER THAN COBRA UNTIL AT LEAST 5 YEARS AFTER THE END OF TREATMENT (BC/BS REP, IN PHONE CALL, 2002).
Years later, not one of 'em wants to offer you a policy (2008)
Great health care scheme, there. Any of you note that one of Ron Paul's top campaign officials DIED becuase he didn't have/couldn't afford health insurance?
mark "is there stupid being put into the water in the US?"
So apparently Obamacare is a tax. The right wingers are already starting to make hay of that. But I think they're missing something.
The only people being taxed under Obamacare are those with enough money to buy insurance but who choose not to do so. We have a term for people like that -- idiots. It's an idiot tax. Obama is taxing idiocy.
I'm okay with that. Tax the idiots, the morons, and the short-sighted braindead rubes all you like, Mr. Obama. I will never pay that tax, because I am not an idiot and I intend to always have healthcare of some sort. It's about time we assigned a penalty in this country for being unable to put two and two together to make four.
I am now eagerly awaiting the new taxes for taking up two parking slots with one car, and for buying ice cream, lard, and diet coke in the same shopping basket. If we can find out who pisses all over public restroom stalls, let's tax them too.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Tax code is where most political power resides. Companies buying political favors are usually looking for tax breaks. States use dueling tax incentives to lure people/companies/film production to their state. Individuals receive various tax breaks for being good little wind-up-robots and doing what they are told.
Anyone who believes we will ever have a flat tax doesn't understand they are asking government to neuter itself. It just isn't going to happen.
I don't think churches pay taxes, though they do consume city and state services, hence my tax bill goes up to cover their non payment.
Nullius in verba
is they can't get cheap preventive care
now they can
so they get $100 worth of care and stay healthy and stay working, rather than $100,000 worth of care later when they are already sick, because they don't have the financial resources to attend to their healthcare
sanity prevails
thank you justice roberts, you have a human conscience
we'll talk about the citizens united thing later
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Quite surprising to see Roberts cross the aisle on this decision
Yes, especially for those of us who, seven years ago, were rabid Republicans who thought that the confirmation of John Roberts was the Second Coming for conservatism.
I'm a very different person now than I was then, and one reason for that is the realization that politicians will betray you every time. This is just more confirmation of that. That's not the only reason, but today this is the reason I'm reminded of.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Vote for someone else? What someone else?
This is like saying "You can always pick up the turd by the clean end."
I'm already taxed for not having a mortgage
Are you retarded? You are not taxed for not having a mortgage. If you have a mortgage you can use it to pay less in taxes, but you still pay more money out of your pocket with the mortgage. If you do not have a mortgage then you are actually keeping more of your money.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Yes, that is how democracy works. Welcome to real life, we have Cheetos.
Laws are badly written. They use imprecise language. They use convoluted phrasing. They use terms that don't have precise technical definitions or that have multiple definitions.
The purpose of our appeals courts is precisely to look at those badly written laws and label them as they really are for the purposes of making sure they comply with precedent and the constitution, as best they can.
I don't see why people that get government approved insurance don't pay it. If it's a tax and not a shitty way to coerce people into the program then it should apply to everyone.
To only apply it to people that don't get the policies is a bill of attainder.
You are nuts. There are GOBS of taxes that not everyone pays. Do you pay Alternative Minimum Tax? How about the Luxury Tax? Estate tax? etc., etc., etc.,.
Get a clue.
Ah, but the taxes you cited are because of economic activity by the individual. The ACA is taxing people for INACTIVITY. In other words, people are being fined (which Justice Roberts equates to a tax even though the word "tax" does not appear in the 2,200 page law) just for living. Something that was previously not allowed by the Constitution.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
It's OUR country and OUR job to look after OUR own interests through the democratic process. Those whackjobs we send to the legislature are OUR representatives in the process.
You want to point a finger, point it at yourself.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
as frankly, I think that most of the american public is tired of Obama. Then where will we be??
In order to get to jail you'd have to be convicted of wilfully avoiding paying your taxes. This I believe would make you a felon no? Bye bye right to vote. Is it worth that?
In the near future, the moment someone is born, they will be required to buy - Health Insurance, Auto Insurance, Life Insurance, Disability Insurance, etc. etc. Everyone will have such a huge price tag on their head, we will all be slaves to the government to pay for our existence.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
It destroys the GOP's attempt to make Obama look ineffective.
I think Justice Roberts did this because he is an honest, fair, intelligent man, not a partisan hack (unlike Scalia)
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Hold on there, Casanova. How many slashdotters do you think can just pick up women in a bar? Be sensitive to the other 99%, bro.
coding is life
Someone sleeping in a homeless shelter isn't going to pay. There are exemptions. Most people will not understand the full extent of Obamacare's impact until the plan takes full effect in 2014.
I wanted exactly one thing from health care reform and didn't get it: I want to carry my health care plan from employer to employer. I've been in a plan with my employer for ~14 years. If I change employers I need to worry about per-existing conditions (for me, my wife, my kids) impacting my premiums or perhaps disqualifying me altogether.
Allow me to buy Health care using pre-tax money the same way I do right now, but allow me to keep that plan as I move forward in life.
Is it going up *directly* because of the ruling, or because the perception that it will cause prices to go up and so no one will question corporate's attempt to get more money out of you for doing nothing? You bitch about government taxing you while they keep the profit and laugh. And if you fight it in government and get it repealed and give businesses/insurance companies more power to deny people that need help, they still win. They win either way. We should be more upset about the culture of greed surrounding a very humanitarian need than government taxes.
are the primary benefactors...
Doctors and Nurses not so much...
those who already are covered not so much...
those not contributing more than some but not as much as they expect
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Thanks republicans... they say they will repeal it. But the precedent still stands... they can tax you for anything.
Obamacare is bad because the single most important provision was left out. The one that extends medicare to everyone, and allows the government to negotiate rates. If the government can make medical care for those in their 60s possible, it should be a walk in the park for younger people. This would put pressure on prices to come down, and I'd have no problem paying a tax to make it happen.
Instead, they force everyone to buy insurance with no controls on the price of insurance or what is insured. Insurance companies must be loving it. I've already had my insurance doubled over the last year in small steps.
Obamacare is bad because we lost an opportunity; it vented the social pressure built up over years of medical costs increases such that now it will be impossible to fix it for a number of years until things are that bad again. There was sufficient pressure to make happen the right way but they caved in to commercial interests.
Obamacare is bad because it still does not allow people to buy medications from Canada or other countries, effectively making us slaves to US drug company prices and therefore insurance (since no one can afford their drugs without insurance in this country).
The only good thing is removing the preexisting conditions clauses but without price control or price arbitration via government parallel negotiation, that will just increase prices for everyone.
This ruling is bad because it establishes the precedent that the government can tax you for not paying into a private insurance scheme, no matter how expensive that may be.
They don't put you in jail anymore for not paying a tax. They just wait till you have a job and take what you "owe" plus penalties. Funny how our forefathers came here to evade this sort of thing only to have their children re-implement it here.
I'm pretty sure women are also paying premiums, some of which ultimately go to your future prostate exams.
Welcome to democracy
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Dude,
Why are you surprised?
the government already gives favorable tax treatment for homeowners and college grads.
Hell the 16th Amendment which allows the income tax is broadly written, and it's 16th so it amends the First Amendment, which means that a 110% income tax on Jews is almost certainly Constitutional.
If that's what you wanted, you've picked a bad way of accomplishing it. In 2009, the average individual health insurance plan cost $4824/year (sorry, I can't seem to find more recent figures). If we guess that the premiums will increase by the same amount in the following eight years as the ones before, we are looking at doubling that to $9000. The penalty for not having insurance is $695/year or 2.5% of income, whichever is greater. With a $9000 premium, you break even when you earn $300000/year. If you are making minimum wage, $8000 is a humongous chunk of disposable income to waste on health insurance, so you most likely wouldn't have bought it before either. Since you can buy and sell insurance at any time, there is no benefit whatsoever to having it when you are healthy.
In fact, getting rid of your insurance now makes a lot of financial sense. Most serious diseases do not strike suddenly. Cancer takes years to grow. Heart attacks may be sudden, but you usually know when you're succeptible. Although anybody can get a heart attack, most of them happen after 65, at which point you are on Medicare anyway. Theoretically, you might even be able to apply for insurance while having a heart attack, and then dump it a few months later.
As a right-winger myself, I'll tell you that I find this particularly amusing because it is all done by raising the taxes on the poor. Now all those welfare freeloaders finally have to pay more taxes. If you're making minimum wage at $15000/year, you would have previously paid 10% after deductions, or something like $600 in federal income tax. With the mandate penalty (which you'll pay, because minimum wage jobs are not the ones providing health insurance), you'll pay more than twice that. Of course, this minimum wage worker might have been paying even less, due to earned income credit, food stamps, or whatever. The mandate penalty may thus increase the tax rate on the poor manyfold.
No right to vote, yet they can still tax you. Isn't that a hoot.
exactly
and speaking of getting jobs to americans: if we detach healthcare from hiring decisions, if we free small companies form this burden of having to provide healthcare, can you imagine the hiring spree they would go on?
already, those under 26 are being hired more regularly because the hiring company doesn't have to worry about providing healthcare for an untested college grad. less of a burden, less of a gamble, more people to hire
god bless america
sanity prevails
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
doing those things, then why shouldn't you have to pay it?
Or do you think the rest of us should have to subsidize your desire to save a few bucks by destroying the earth and not pay a cent for your health care? Because I guarantee that when you have some devasting health problem you will show up at an ER and demand quality care.
when there was absolutely no penalty for doing so. ... ...
Some of us were told the US was a free country though. Guess not.
Effectively, people who don't go to church are already taxed. Economically speaking, getting a tax break for donating to a church is very similar to others having to pay a tax for not donating to a church. It's not 100% the same since there are some benefits to keeping your money or donating it as you see it, but it's definitely not as far-fetched as you're trying to make it sound.
It's $695 a year. And you don't have to pay it. They can't arrest you solely for not paying it.
If you have an income tax refund it's gonna be $695 smaller, and I wouldn't put it past the IRS to roll over the penalties so if you don't pay it for two years your refund gets docked $1,390.
Of course the Supreme Court found it Constitutional. When was the last time they told the government "no" to having any power that matters?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
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. "
Actually all the ruling does is say that congress can levy a tax penalty for a behavior in the same way that they can levy a tax break for a behavior.
Functionally the two are more or less equal. If they raised everyone's tax by 2 grand a year and gave everyone with insurance a tax break it would be the same effect.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
As long as you have private companies in the insurance business, there is a perverse incentive to screw their customers over.
This "pervese incentive" is what free markets like to call "profit".
Not really. It's like saying you can "vote" not to be forced to eat turds. If you lose, you eat turds.
It's supposed to be great, because if you win ... you can force the losers to eat turds. Isn't that great?
Obama's lawyers said that it is independently authorized under both the commerce clause and the taxing authority, and then made the case [with precedent] that in cases where a law would be constitutional under one clause of federal authority but unconstitutional when read under another clause of federal authority then the Supreme Court is obligated to interpret under the clause which renders the law constitutional, regardless of the language within the law or political verbage utilized when debating the law outside the courtroom.
The majority opinion said that it was unconstitutional under the commerce clause, but clearly constitutional under the taxing authority, regardless of the labels used.
That argument makes a lot of sense to me as an engineer who is far more concerned with mechanics than with labels.
Great case for off shoring everyone.
Got Code?
Ultimately, the only answer is a single-payer system. As long as you have private companies in the insurance business, there is a perverse incentive to screw their customers over.
Actually, this opens the door to other options by using the framework against itself. Strong copyright was used to implement copyleft. In the banking world you have credit unions that are structured to operate efficiently and for the benefit of depositors. On wall street, Vanguard is structured like a credit union for mutual funds.
I can see the eventual rise of a mutually held health insurer that can keep costs very low by removing profit skim and focusing on efficient care. Of course, the for-profit companies will fight it as hard and dirty as they do against single payer, but the new consumer-focused requirements of the ACA will probably make it easier to break into the market.
coverage--why haven't they?
When it's a tax! Frankly, after reading this ruling I'm still shaking my head. Roberts shot down every argument made by the Federal government in support of the ACA, then in order to sustain the act, made some convoluted argument that what was clearly labeled as a penalty was in fact a tax. This ruling has to be the most f**cked up ruling I've ever read.
Imagine if Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, etc were president. Would you be comfortable with the power they have? If not, the current president and congress have to much power. Period. You should always imagine a 'bad guy' in the seat of power and act accordingly because someday, the bad guy will be there.
Single payer:
1. you pay taxes according to your ability to pay
2. some entity provides you with healthcare
ObamaCare:
1. you pay premiums/taxes according to your ability to pay
2. some entity provides you with healthcare
What's the difference?
It is not job of SCOTUS to weed out bad legislation. Talk to your congresscritter if you want the country to be on a sustainable path (not saying "I" agree it is unsustainable, though - just running with your premise). SCOTUS is supposed to decide if a law is constitutional or not. Anything else is "legislating from the bench", which Republicans are supposedly opposed to.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/people-moving-to-canada-because-of-obamacare
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
living in a society in which women have health care coverage? No wife, mother, sister, nothing? Born in a test tube?
If you do benefit, then you aren't paying your fair share. Why should the rest of us have to pay your share?
My preexisting condition drinks your milkshake! Mwahahaha!
while it "goes to collections". How does ruining your credit pay for doctors or medical equipment? Seriously, who pays?
I do. Stop being a freeloading bum.
"Healthcare" is a limited resource, consisting of the time and money of doctors and nurses, of the people involved in the creation of medical devices, compounds, and procedures. To say you have a "right" to healthcare is to say you have a right to the time and money of other people. Your right to free speech doesn't mean anyone has to provide you the means to speak, the right to keep and bear arms does not mean you will be furnished a gun. This is huge step in blurring the definition of a "right", and in my opinion just pushes us further towards a world with no consequences for failure or motivation to succeed.
Health insurance is not required for healthcare. They are two separate things. If a tree crashes through your roof and you don't have home owner's insurance, you can still get your roof fixed.
What we've done with Obamacare isn't "making healthcare affordable". It has nothing to do with looking at "why" various components of healthcare are expensive, it just bluntly tries to spread the money around and artificially cap expenses. We've basically made private insurance companies tax collectors. Everyone must pay them now. That means you and I are part owners of that big pool of money, and we will be responsible for making sure it never gets drained. With the added burden that now everyone must be covered by health insurance, the 9 pack a day smoker who eats 12 sausage links at each meal and can't leave the house will be free to drain that pool for their cholesterol medications, Mucinex, eventual cancer drugs, etc. But it is up to us to pay more and more to keep that pool full.
There are very few people who legitimately can't work. That group gets even smaller if you throw away the ones who very squarely put themselves in a position of being unprepared for life, whether through their financial idiocy of not saving a dime their entire lives, or just a series of boneheaded moves. There are some people who are poor, and nothing they could have ever reasonably done would have prevented it. But there are very few of those people, relatively speaking. Since we can't distinguish those who absolutely CAN'T do for themselves... the ones who actually NEED welfare... from those who have turned society's safety net into a hammock, our system of welfare is slowly eroding the beauty of life and living free... living and dying with the decisions you make. There are risks in life, there are unfair things that happen, there are unlucky out of nowhere things that will totally F you through no fault of your own. I would hope that people can donate their time, money, skills, kind words, to people in those situations. However, forcing "charity" like this is wrong on so many levels.
We have moved beyond charity. We have been marching towards becoming a society which has grown so used to comfort, so used to easy existence, that when something bad happens it must be someone else's fault, someone else's responsibility to fix. You're the victim because you paid for college and the degree didn't get you a job. You're the victim because you developed cancer. You're the victim because you don't have any money at retirement, but man those apartments you lived in your whole life sure looked good full of rental furniture. You're the victim because you made a sure-thing investment in a house, the value went to shit, and now you're under water.
We have abandoned tightly knit social circles, living within our means, and exchanged them for 700 Facebook friends who don't give a shit about us, 4 flat screen TVs in our apartments, and a thought that retirement is when we are given a bunch of money and get to stop working. We don't have any idea what emergency savings are. We lose our minds and are in complete despair that a car problem will cost us $250, but man Starbucks coffee sure is good every day. We think a 25 year old should still be living under the financial wing of his parents.
If people decided to throw their money into a pot and use it for charitable giving for medical purposes, that woul
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.
Government should never coerce, and should have let all those fine gentlemen hang on to their way of life and their slaves in the 1800s.
For the most part, I completely agree with you. We should be free to make our own decisions and live our lives as we wish as much as is possible. But there are some issues that are bigger than us, some personal decisions that affect society as a whole, and we need someone/thing strong to make the good happen for all of society over enormous cultural resistance. It is unfortunate that humanity is so good at getting itself stuck in habits and behaviors that are self-destructive, but that is the reality, and sometimes we need a social push to get passed that limitation.
Quite surprising to see Roberts cross the aisle on this decision..
Not so much. One of his old professors said he'd do this.
This vote establishes Roberts as a different sort of swing vote. If the vote on the merits of a case - without Roberts - results in a 4-4 tie, Roberts has shown he will break the tie in favor of upholding what Congress has done. Roberts does not want close votes to decide large matters - and this is how he chooses to resolve that desire.
A report on msnbc stated: NBC's Pete Williams reported that Roberts reasoned that “there’s no real compulsion here” since those who do not pay the penalty for not having insurance can’t be sent to jail.
I do not understand this statement because currently if I do not pay my taxes then I will go to jail for tax evasion (maybe not immediately, but eventually). Is there some special provision that specifically states that failure to pay the penalty (tax, whatever) cannot be enforced through incarceration? If so, what enforcement measures are allowed: liens, wage garnishment, something else? Are those not means of compulsion? If there are no enforcement measures, then what are the motivations for paying the penalty at all? I do not like the concept that the government can pass almost anything as long as the penalty for non-compliance is not jail time. I'm hoping that the Williams' statement was just a poorly worded extrapolation of Roberts' argument.
A friend of mine posted that on Facebook and was beat back... so anecdotally, yes.
It was voted on by two houses of Congress from the legislative branch (all elected) and signed by the President (also elected) from the Executive branch, and then had its legality endorsed by the Supreme Court from the Judicial branch.
Just because some Fox News opinion polls show that a majority of inbred tea-partiers don't like "ObamaCare" doesn't mean that democracy isn't functioning as intended. You just aren't in the majority on this one.
Also, Libertarianism is stupid.
It is called a surplus when you are talking about governments. And we actually had one in recent history.
But then we decided to go shopping at the war and tax cuts for the ultra rich shop.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Every 1st world nation on the planet has healthcare, I don't get why this is such a debate in the US. Honestly, the style of political campaigning, the retoric and the poo-flinging going on in the States truely is some bizar spectacle when observed from over here (Europe).
I live in Germany and by US standards we've got a Mercedes-Benz class nanny state, the republic just pulled of a hideously expensive reunification in the last two decades and it's now sponsoring a lions share of the aftermath of crappy budget discipline in the southern parts of the continent and still it has one of the most stable economies. (BTW, I didn't vote for Merkel and I won't, but I sure hope she has some verbal ass-chewing ready for Bella Italia at tonights EU meeting)
I can't shake the feeling that you guys must be doing something wrong ... aside from Irak invasions and insane military budgets, that is. Maybe you should just try this healthcare thing for a few years, I'm sure you guys will see the benefits. ... Just saying.
And apologies to all USians who share my opinion ... just pass that on to those fellow citizens who don't get it.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Why would anyone want to eat turds? I don't understand how the turd eating lobby got so powerful in your world?
Ultimately, the only answer is a single-payer system. As long as you have private companies in the insurance business, there is a perverse incentive to screw their customers over.
Sadly, as long as you have private companies, there are generally some choices. With the government single payer system, there will likely not be much choice. E.g., like social security you get "billed" 12.4%, you can't choose a lower amount for lower benefits if you dont' think you need them.
People whine and complain about government's incompetence, and I'd never say there's no waste or that government is perfect. However, I trust government a hell of a lot more than I trust the insurance industry, which has proven time and again that they're scum.
Actually I think both are quite scummy, but with the incentives in place today it is more likely that insurance companies will pay nice (now there are minimum loss ratios, although unforunatly, they are only 85%). Given the NHS in other countries, I'm not so sure that the government would have any incentive to maintain a loss ratio less than 200% (meaning they'd divert general revenue to pay for healthcare) which seems unsustainable to me...
Under a single-payer system, the government would collect the tax and use it to pay for healthcare. This is already established as Constitutional (medicare, medicaid, etc.). It's conceivable that the government could turn around and pay those taxes to private companies in order to provide those services. Still perfectly OK. Contractors work with the gov all the time.
The mandate just virtualizes the government's typical role as middleman in this equation.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
O god I can already hear them licking their chops. "Wait, we can get the government to MANDATE that everyone must buy our product...?"
According to the precedent set, yes. They can even claim it's for the public good due to "piracy". As long as Congress applies a fine as a penalty for not buying it, it's legal. So says the Supreme Court. Once you're forced to buy movies/music, it's only a short jump to being forced to buy any failing product with enough lobbyists to protect their industry.
Best line ever.
Time to offend someone
He never promised universal healthcare--he promised universal insurance with an individual mandate, which is exactly what we got.
The wars are over, dumbass--nearly all the troops are home. Read a newspaper sometime.
The economy has recovered substantially from the nose dive it was in when he took over. Remember >10% unemployment? A lot of the bailout money has been repaid.
He also promised an end to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"--which he followed through on. And countless other things.
Are you referring to the long string of articles starting with Columbine?
Dude,
Two points:
1) If you think this is new you should re-read the 16th Amendment. the government has had this power since before your grandfather was born.
2) It's not used because it's less useful then you think. If Congress has the votes for your welfare taxes then it has the votes to abolish Welfare. Period. the Abortion tax is probably a violation of Roe vs. Wade. The Illegal Immigrant Tax is quite possible politically, but what are you gonna do if they simply refuse to pay?
Nobody's forcing you to buy insurance. You just don't get the tax rebate if you don't.
let's charge for it. Since there are sneaky taxes in this bill like the 2.5% medical device tax, I think the US should heavily tax non-US citizens who come over to use our system. We can be kind to our friends in Canada and only charge them 100 or 200 percent because they have such a wonderful healthcare system. Rich Saudi princes or Hugh Chavez can pay say 10,000 percent because they can afford to pay. ANd since the "rich" should pay their fair share someone like George Soros or Bill Gates can also pay that same 10,000 percent tax on medical services.
If you liked Public Housing, the Public Post, and Public Schools, you're going to LOVE Public Health Care.
Except that it isn't public health care. It is private health care, mandated publicly. You'll notice private companies handle health insurance like Aetna, Blue Cross, and so on. And they still will. These companies are not going away.
In contrast to that, the US Post Office, public schools, and public housing authority (HUD) are all held by branches of the government. I don't believe the government is going to start buying hospitals or insurance companies and running them. However if they did, your statement would be a valid comparison.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I don't have to keep paying for your wars.
I don't have to pay to subsidize your car accidents.
I don't have to pay when your uncle who smokes, gets emphysema.
I don't have to pay for secret government ops that do not directly benefit me.
I don't have to pay to bail out banks that gamble with other people's money.
I don't have to pay to subsidize roads that rich people drive on, nor the police and firemen that service the wealthy.
I mean after all, if you don't want to pay for other people's healthcare, then why should I pay for any of the above?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
They sell turds. You have to buy them or pay the turd tax. The Supreme Court says so. Then, the government can force you to eat them because you've engaged in "commerce" when you bought them. So forcing your enemies to eat turds is profitable either directly or by tax collection.
There's a 3rd option: Make insurance premiums unaffordable. Then suddenly, everybody goes bankrupt from health care costs, and the government ends up paying for the care. The government itself then goes bankrupt, and there's no health care for anybody except for the wealthy.
Of course, the public option would've been the best. But this is at least a step in the right direction.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Say your mortgage payment is the same as your rent payment. One group is getting preferential tax treatment. We need to kill off all the social engineers.
Nope. Not the same. The government is trying to encourage people to invest in homes and properties.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
You do realize that in order to drive on public roads, you are required by law to buy into private auto insurance? This isn't a new phenomenon.
But I'm not required to purchase a car and drive. I'm only taxed for public roads AFTER I make my own decision to purchase a car.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Nobody's forcing you to buy insurance. You just don't get the tax rebate if you don't.
That's not how it works. And people with a brain don't get tax rebates - they pay in.
If you don't buy insurance the government is fining (taxing) you. You are being taxed for being alive.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
gasoline is already taxed (eventhough this tax doesn't cover the full society cost of gasoline): so isn't that tax an unfair imposition on your freedom in the same way that this health care tax is?
> If he doesn't have a tankless heater, he's the one paying the gas bills for the heater.
> If he doesn't have a programmable thermostat, he's the one paying the utility bills.
The taxes on those items don't cover their societal cost. If you think they do then you are naive.
> Yes, you mentioned the ER. The fix to that isn't to impose insurance, it's to remove the requirement that the ER treat those who won't pay their bills.
Now you've crossed from naive to stupid. I would bet every dollar I have that your opinion on this changes as soon as you or a loved one is in the position of needing emergency health care.
Dude,
Why are you surprised?
the government already gives favorable tax treatment for homeowners and college grads.
Hell the 16th Amendment which allows the income tax is broadly written, and it's 16th so it amends the First Amendment, which means that a 110% income tax on Jews is almost certainly Constitutional.
Surely you recognize the difference between being taxed for being a live and being taxed because you bought something or are employed.
The 16th amendment does not amend the 1st amendment. It amends the Constitution.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Hopefully the turd tax isn't too much, either way it sounds like it's the way to go. Turds are gross.
Unless you can just get your employer to buy the turds, they you probably wouldn't even notice the rising turd cost. Andd it looks like you don't actually have to eat them, just buy them.
Either way it sounds like we're focusing way too much time on turds, aren't there more important things we could be moving onto?
of health insurance--do you have some better way? You don't believe in capitalism?
GP is implying that he pays rent instead, which most people do if they do not pay a mortgage. Often monthly rent payments are similar/higher than monthly mortgage payments, but without the tax breaks. So yes, indirectly you are taxed for not having a mortgage.
Hopefully the turd tax isn't too much, either way it sounds like it's the way to go. Turds are gross.
If you don't eat the turds, they'll raise the tax until you do. And when the tax is too high for you to pay, you go to jail for not paying.
Either way it sounds like we're focusing way too much time on turds, aren't there more important things we could be moving onto?
How about we establish a free society where innocent people don't get forced to do things like eat turds?
They're called elections--you may want to look into it.
The government already engages in all manner of taxation based on their accounting of societal cost. How do you think the raise funds for social security and the defense budget? And they already use the tax code to encourage behavior modification (mortgage interest deductions, etc.).
They certainly could pass a law requiring that you pay taxes sufficient to fund their "brocolli initiative", whereby they give every citizen 10lbs of brocolli. There is nothing in this ruling that says they can force you to eat it, and you are free to vote them out of office and change the law. That's how democracies work.
How about we establish a free society where innocent people don't get forced to do things like eat turds?
That sounds like a good idea for turds, but for healthcare, controlling pollution, or hiring people it doesn't quite work like that. The key thing your turd of an analogy is lacking is the personal benefit, the universal nature of healthcare and it's impact on the society as a whole. When you get sick you will get healthcare whether or not you paid for it, or can pay for it. This burden gets passed onto the society. What Obama care is trying to do is make this burden more transparent.
While this maybe a turd of a piece of legislation, it is clearly a start in the right direction.
you--including the conservative Chief Justice appointed by a Republican president.
Do you think you understand what is constitutional and unconstitutional better than the US Supreme Court? If so, then we are missing a very important voice on the bench.
Ok, so what if I'm a poor chap with no insurance that gets a illness with and need catastrophic treatment .... say chemo for my cancer. I go into debt to the order of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. I already can't pay that ... now I owe that AND a tax. Sorry tax payers your still screwed out of the healthcare cost and now your screwed out of the "tax" fee too.
Same s*!t, different day. If the poor couldn't afford (or want) healthcare yesterday, I don't see this changing their minds today.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Roberts says Congress can't do this under the commerce clause, because allowing Congress to assess a penalty/fee for not paying for an insurance policy that will cover health care you would otherwise receive for free (through emergency rooms, or simply not paying your bills after hospital treatment) would allow congress to assess a penalty/fee if you don't pay for something that you're NOT going to get for free if you don't pay for it.
Then he turns around and says Congress can force you to do whatever the hell they want as long as they do it through the tax code. So it's even WORSE than had it simply been upheld on commerce clause grounds.
paintball
There is the Roberts Court legacy to think of. Kidding aside, one analysis that I read does make a good case that this ground-breaking in a big way that a number of people have missed. As in saying that the mandate penalty falls under Congress's power to tax is a minnow next to the following whale.
This ruling also limits the Commerce Clause.
"This is the Roberts Court. And here, we’ve got a pro-business Court that interprets laws as constitutional when it can. Roberts found a way to keep this law in-bounds — without abandoning his conservative principles on the expansion of federal power. The conservatives “disappointed” with Roberts today are being silly and can’t see the long game here. The Commerce Clause has been limited AND the Court looks non-partisan. Beat that with a stick."
It's ALREADY cheaper for employers to drop insurance.
The mandate, by forcing more people into the insurance pool, will make it cheaper for employers to CONTINUE to offer insurance, as people with insurance will be subsidizing less of the healthcare of deadbeats who don't have insurance, receive care, and then don't pay for it.
paintball
How about we establish a free society where innocent people don't get forced to do things like eat turds?
That sounds like a good idea for [things I don't personally like], but for [things I do personally like] it doesn't quite work like that. ...
So forcing people to act against their own interest is good. And I'll always have more votes than the bad guys. And nothing can ever possibly go wrong. Because, if it could, it would have gone wrong in the past. And that's never happened bef --
If I'm paying for years and get run over by a bus, all the money is wasted. So why should I have had to pay all that time if my money gets pissed down the widening black hole just so my pack-a-day neighbor can get "free" healthcare?
For the same reason that if you pay property taxes and school levies for years, yet have no children, all that money is 'wasted.' If you need further explaining about how you receive indirect benefits even if you never claim a cent of a tax, well, you'll probably never understand it because your view of the 'world' must be so small that includes yourself, possibly your family, and that's it.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
How is health insurance against your own interest?
At least the ACA forces private health insurance companies to spend 85% of the premiums they receive on health care and limits overhead to 15%. A lot of people received rebates from their insurers this year because of that provision.
profit == 0.15*X, hmm, how do i increase X? i think the worst part of this bill is that everyone involved has the incentive to increase the amount of health care provided.
me fail english? thats unpossible
Do you hear that sound? It's the sound of millions of far right wingers hyperventilating at once.
Obama translates Thank You Comrade Obama and all done w/o google translate!
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
Next comes the tax penalty for those that don't purchase a Chevy Volt. SCOTUS just granted unlimited power to the Congress over your personal lives. Regardless of what you think about the inequality of health care in America, this ruling should frighten you.
SCOTUS is talking out of both sides of their mouth. One one hand they say that Congress can't force you to purchase anything yet on the other than say they have unlimited power to tax you and therefor punish you for not purchasing something. This boils down to: Buy it or we can kill you. (Don't pay taxes be threatened with jail, resist forced incarceration, use of deadly force is authorized)
Scary.
Surely you recognize the difference between being taxed for being a live and being taxed because you bought something or are employed.
The 16th amendment does not amend the 1st amendment. It amends the Constitution.
If the Amendments weren't part of the Constitution laws violating freedom of religion would be Antiamendmental, not Unconstitutional. Moreover parts of the 12th Amendment which set the Presidential Inauguration to March, are superseded by the 20th Amendment which sets a January inauguration date; despite the fact the 20th does not include the words "12th Amendment." It just says Inauguration day is in January, and *poof* all previous disagreeing Amendments don't count.
Which means the later Amendments Amend earlier Amendments, and the 16th must Amend the first. In other words Congress can't ban the Jewish religion, but it's power to set income taxes "from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration" can tax the Jewish religion into nonexistence.
I'm not saying I support this, or that if Congress tried this BS I wouldn't be right out there protesting it. Hell, if you could find a rationalization I'd sleep a lot better. But the simple fact is that Congress has this power.
This is what happens when you read the Constitution literally. To get around your literalism and run the damn country they have to Amend it, and since the Amendments amend the Bill of Rights as well as the enumerated powers you end up giving Congress powers willy-nilly.
It has been established since the 1800's that Congress has plenary power to tax whatever it wants, regardless of its ability to 'regulate'.
http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html#interstatecommerce
USSC, 1866: “It is true that the power of Congress to tax is a very extensive power. It is given in the Constitution with only one exception and only two qualifications. Congress cannot tax exports, and it must impose direct taxes by the rule of apportionment and indirect taxes by the rule of uniformity. Thus, limited, and thus only, it reaches every subject, and may be exercised at discretion.”
Quoting the website: The court agreed that Congress could not prohibit or regulate the activities that were being taxed.
For instance, there is a federal excise tax on gasoline and alcohol, and since 2010, a tax on indoor tanning services. (no kidding). Even if the gasoline came from oil which was drilled, pumped, refined and dispensed in Texas, it is still legal for Congress to tax Texans for it.
Regarding the health care "mandate". It is not a mandate, of course, it is a tax.
What Congress can NOT do is to make the failure to buy health insurance a crime and make offenders subject to prosecution. That's what it means to "compel" in the usual legal sense. If it had done so, then there would be legitimate Constitutional problems, but Congress didn't do so. Is there any compulsion to buy electric vehicles because of the tax credit? Obviously not.
The argument is pretty clear to me: 100% legal as a tax. And I can't believe that 4 supposed strict constitutionalists voted against it, but then again Scalia is pretty consistent: if it is good for people against powerful interests, he is always against it.
In the (d)evolution of each State's history, there is an act that is one too far, when an out-of-control rogue state becomes recognizable. Like Nazi Germany, perhaps for some in Germany it was some public killings of Jews in 1933 or the Fuhrer Oath, for some Europeans it was the Czech Republic in 1938, and 1939 in Poland for anyone with a pulse.
With literal fascism in America, this event does it for us. Been at it for decades with the foreign wars, taxes, medical and securities industries. My spouse has health requirements that are existential and not FDA approved, approvable in the US for corrupt, bs reasons, so course not coverable, although approved in Europe and Asia. The bogus US conventional medicine difference is $40,000+ per month for those in the US, and a dog's death anyway. Live with "Health Freedom" or die (miserable and broke) is the message we get before any "panels". Good luck fellow Americans, you'll need it, some can't even live there. Live free, or die, has new meaning in America.
When it costs extra to cover pregnancy and hysterectomy and drug abuse and any of the other conditions I'm not at risk for.
I for one look forward to our new DMV styled medical overlords. I hope I don't have to visit a medical center with an artery spouting blood....and get put at the back of the line because my paperwork wasn't filled out quite right.
Yes, I am sure that is what is going to happen. The Tea Party called, and they want their hysterical idiocy back.
This is why the right wing comes off like a pack of retarded children. They take the perfectly acceptable point of view that government should be minimalistic and non-intrusive, and warp it until they look like a pack of asylum escapees.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
And that makes this unconstitutional or something?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
So because you don't have a vayjayjay you think your healthcare should be cheaper.... but you still think it's a good thing to have?
I believe you're extremely confused about how insurance works. Yes we all pay for the pregnant drug abuser with lung cancer and heart disease, but insurance is still a good thing to have.
I don't plan on crashing my car, and it is annoying to write checks to cover my insurance (sponsoring other peoples bad driving), but it's good to know that IF i do get in an accident I won't go bankrupt.
Quite surprising to see Roberts cross the aisle on this decision.
Indeed a surprise, there's speculation that Roberts pulled the old switcheroo on Scalia at some point after the initial vote to protect the Supreme Court's legitimacy and 'prove' that it is not a political body after some of Scalia's recent stunts.
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Or some plans may decide to forgo additional profits that way and thus be able to sell their policies for less. That's a competitive advantage. They will increase their profits by selling more policies.
But I'm being specifically and intentionally overcharged to buy benefit coverage for conditions I am not at risk for. I could buy a much cheaper policy that completely covers me, but the government makes such policies illegal in order to transfer wealth from the people who earn it (me, especially) to favored voting blocs and health conditions with activists or lobbyists.
Lots of things are "a good thing to have" for people who get them for free. People who actually pay their own bills have to look at the price.
WTF am I paying an insurance company for?
Indeed, and one of the things that this pisses me off about is that they likely spent a couple hundred simply denying your claim.
To be honest, my ideal system is that everybody has a 'healthcare savings plan' combined with 'high deductible insurance'. Somebody else said that people used to have insurance like this - 'major medical'. Things like heart attacks, cancer, stroke, etc... Not a broken arm or leg. Ideally the HSP/HDI would be portable between jobs and even states.
I don't read AC A human right
What happens when the opposition created the model for the system the current administration created?
Oh.....
So mortgage payers pay less, meaning the gap has to be filled from somewhere - it certainly didn't force the government to get that much more efficient with its operating expenses. Effectively, it's a tax on not having a mortgage.
They found that requiring people to purchase insurance was unconstitutional. But they found that it does not require people to purchase insurance.
At that sort of wealth level, I actually have no problems with the rich dude's job essentially amounting to 'custodian of this pile of capital'. If he increases it through careful investment, that means that he's helped ensure that said capital was used productively. Ensured tools got into the hands of the workers, factories operated, etc...
Rich people are the ones providing money for startups, because they can actually afford the level of risk involved. They can afford to invest in 10 startups with a 50% chance to fail completely, but the prospect to make double or more if they succeed. A middle class investor would be risking their entire retirement savings on a coin flip in comparison. The rich guy has enough coin flips he's more like the house in a blackjack game.
Not playing the game would be somebody like Romney who has most of his assets in a blind trust doing the investing. Not a bad idea for a presidential candidate(he can honestly say that he's not favoring company X or Y because he owns stock), but not the best idea for somebody wanting multi-generational wealth.
I don't read AC A human right
It takes considerably less money to give money to the poor to spend on preventive care and ordinary medical care than it does to have them wait until they are really, DESPERATELY sick, quite likely beyond hope of avoiding or reducing the impact of an illness, and then use an emergency room, without warning and at the general public's expense, to attempt to fix their problems before they become abruptly fatal.
Yes, money is still being spent on the poor under the health care act, but considerably less money than is currently the case. So it is a net savings to the general public.
CNN must've though they were the Chicago Tribune.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Why cant individual Americans pay for THEIR own health care?
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Come one more fun kiwis, man.
obamacares, romneynocares, gopfucares
If you already have health care through your employer there is no fine for you to pay.
What if you' get run over by a bus but it doesn't kill you, just makes you quadriplegic and dependent on nursing care for the rest of you life. If you don't have any way to pay for the costs should we just take you out back in the pasture and shoot you instead?
Ratification, my dear anonymous coward, the States ratified the Constitution and gave the federal gov't CERTAIN powers, obviously the powers that the federal government stole from the people over the years are nowhere near being limited by the document.
You can't handle the truth.
"Obamacare" has a provision that forces insurance companies to spend at least 85% of their premiums on providing health care and limiting overhead to 15%. So even if the companies raise their premiums they're still stuck with spending it instead of just increasing profits.
So if you can only make 15% of the premiums on profits, how do you raise profits? Raise premiums! Order meaningless (or possibly damaging) tests like X-Rays, MRIs, or whatever-the-new-expensive-diagnostics test is especially when they're not needed. Even with the 15% cap, this bill will not go far enough in addresses rising healthcare costs since participating in a fee-for-service model is inherently fraught with risk of fraud.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Well, we have solved the problem of insurance companies not being able to make record profits quarter after quarter. Perhaps now we can move on to the issue of healthcare.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
As my former Special Night Squad grandpa used to tell me... "talk is cheap and so is a petrol bomb". The idea being that politicians should be reminded from time to time who is really in charge.
Not that I am advocating anything today (or hopefully for a long time if ever), but this nation has a pretty darn long history of getting violent when push comes to shove. There is a reason why personal weapons and ammo sales are through the roof right now and it isn't the coming zombie apocalypse.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
I am seriously disappointed by the vast majority of comments here. Slashdot generally presents some semblance of caring about facts and citations supporting any claims, but as soon as the ACA comes up, it seems like everyone abandons reason and logic. I want to provide a viewpoint applying those two methods to this topic. Hopefully others interested in the same will chime in.
First, to all the foreigners chiming in claiming to have this same law in their countries, I want to reply, no, you don't, and it doesn't matter if you did. No two laws anywhere are exactly the same, so what you have is not going to be the same as what we have. If you are going to make that claim, I am going to demand you provide a citation for the one or more laws that have the exact same text as ours, along with supporting evidence that it is interpreted legally in the same way. Now, you may fairly claim the intent of the law is the same as the intent of the law in your country, which shifts the discussion to how well the law actually implements the intent, and I'll address that in a moment.
Next, I'll give foreigners the benefit of the doubt and assume the law is identical to one in their country that "works". A problem ignored by foreigners is that basically every other law this country has is different from their laws. The United States is governed by a Constitution that is different than the underlying laws of every other country. So even if it works in your system, we can't just wholesale "borrow" your law and magically expect it to work here. We need a law that is carefully crafted to respect the restrictions in the Constitution (or else pass amendments to the Constitution to provide an exemption in this case) as well as maintain our economy.
For a third point, I'm sick of the partisan whining from the Democrats and Republicans. No, the Republicans are not uncaring bastards who don't care if people die. Neither are the Democrats trying to set up a nanny state where they have complete control of other people's lives. Both parties set up a false dichotomy in which there are only two options when there are actually many more. Republicans value personal freedom as the highest value, where Democrats value livelihood. Both of these are valid viewpoints, and having a different opinion does not turn another person into a monster. If you can't talk about the other party without vilifying them, chances are you are a brainwashed servant of your political party.
Fourth, how well does the law implement the intent? This is the point that disturbs me most, and why I am largely against the law. The law ballooned from one hundred pages to over two thousand in an extremely short time period (something like thirty to forty-five days, if I recall correctly). Basically none of the legislature read the law before passing it. No one bothered to look into how well it met the intent. No one tried to run simulations to estimate how well it would work. No one knows what it will cost (we hear one trillion dollars, but that is just as much a guess as the eight hundred billion "needed" to bail out the banks). Even worse, no one knows what sort of side effects there are. Essentially, the government is gambling that this massive law is going to magically make things better, but given the lack of data about it, there is a fifty percent chance it is going to negatively impact the country, as well as a fifty percent change it will positively impact that country - and then only by drastically simplifying things to the level of American "news" organizations. A law this massive can't even be judged by such simplistic terms. Realistically, some things will work great - I am a big fan of the clause guaranteeing health insurance in spite of pre-existing conditions. Other things will be big problems - the time to see a doctor is likely to increase, something foreigners conveniently forget to mention (or just flat don't realize) in comparison to the current American standard (and what's more, the rich of other nations know it, which is why they traveled to
Remember, you can't look dignified when your having fun! Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive
I believe we can still see insurance companies dictate the level of care per individual. I have to read more, though.
http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/costs/value-for-premium/index.html
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
I would have thought cheap high-deductible catastrophic coverage policies would proliferate with this (a good thing) but if they don't count, then all it's really doing is forcing people to take part in a system that is progressively becoming a savings account (with negative interest rate) for stupid people. That's my description for coverage of expected expenses and the people who think it's good to have a company skimming 15 percent (by law now) from that. Do catastrophic policies really not count?
We had a good friend, Ilona Daukiene, who died that way. She was a very gracious hostess, and the beloved wife of an amazing man. We enjoyed his "Freedom in English" camps in Lithuania.
The story is here.
Yes, global warming plays into the story. But a huge part is the destruction that planned economies create.
No, the tea-baggers aren't exaggerating. What they've been saying is real.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The government subsidizes the cost of your health care.
I have no problem with this viewpoint. However, when things do happen ( getting run over by a bus, for example) the people making this decision usually then change their mind and ask for assistance. This is the problem: there's no repercussions.
And yes, I have relatives who have done this ( not the bus part though, just the getting help)
There's a section in the dissent where Wickard v Filburn is discussed as precedent, but not even Thomas Scalito goes that far.
The striking case of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942), which held that the economic activity of growing wheat, even for one’s own consumption, affected commerce sufficiently that it could be regulated, always has been regarded as the ne plus ultra of expansive Commerce Clause jurisprudence. To go beyond that, and to say the failure to grow wheat (which is not an economic activity, or any activity at all) nonetheless affects commerce and therefore can be federally regulated, is to make mere breathing in and out the basis for federal prescription and to extend federal power to virtually all human activity.
Source: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Regards
The rest of the world and our dirty, socialist, much cheaper, single-payer medical care.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
They can tax my absence_of_healthcare but I'll never let them tax my tea.
A sentence from an article I read here in the local media (Australia) about this this morning:
"Few issues in America prove to be more complex or bafflingly partisan than healthcare. America is the only industrialised country in the world that doesn't have some form of universal healthcare so for those of us who have come from elsewhere sometimes the arguments can seem perplexing to say the least."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-29/brissenden-obamacare/4099580
That pretty much sums it up. The rest of the world can't understand this at all - how can anyone be against this stuff? Universal health care enjoys solid bipartisan support from left AND right wing governments and everything in between, in almost every country I can think of. And yes I understand that Obamacare isn't actually universal health care - it's mandated private insurance - but it's a step in the right direction, surely? (Recognising the fact that it's going to be difficult in the US to literally throw the whole health system out and start from scratch again ... need to take baby steps instead)
Not trolling here or necessarily saying it's bad that America is like this. But just to convey to our American friends know that really, the rest of us look in complete bewilderment at this issue. It's like you guys live in a parallel universe or something and we find it very hard to understand.
Ok, rebate was the wrong word, I should have said tax credit.
You are being taxed for being a member of society. If you don't like that move to Somalia.
Surely you recognize the difference between being taxed for being a live and being taxed because you bought something or are employed.
The 16th amendment does not amend the 1st amendment. It amends the Constitution.
If the Amendments weren't part of the Constitution laws violating freedom of religion would be Antiamendmental, not Unconstitutional. Moreover parts of the 12th Amendment which set the Presidential Inauguration to March, are superseded by the 20th Amendment which sets a January inauguration date; despite the fact the 20th does not include the words "12th Amendment." It just says Inauguration day is in January, and *poof* all previous disagreeing Amendments don't count.
Which means the later Amendments Amend earlier Amendments, and the 16th must Amend the first. In other words Congress can't ban the Jewish religion, but it's power to set income taxes "from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration" can tax the Jewish religion into nonexistence.
I'm not saying I support this, or that if Congress tried this BS I wouldn't be right out there protesting it. Hell, if you could find a rationalization I'd sleep a lot better. But the simple fact is that Congress has this power.
This is what happens when you read the Constitution literally. To get around your literalism and run the damn country they have to Amend it, and since the Amendments amend the Bill of Rights as well as the enumerated powers you end up giving Congress powers willy-nilly.
What the fuck are you talking about? We're not talking about the 12th and 20th amendments. And no, the 16th amendment has absolutely no effect on the 1st amendment. The 16th amendment could have amended the 1st, but it didn't.
You have completely deflected from the point of the discussion.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
What the fuck are you talking about? We're not talking about the 12th and 20th amendments. And no, the 16th amendment has absolutely no effect on the 1st amendment. The 16th amendment could have amended the 1st, but it didn't.
You have completely deflected from the point of the discussion.
If the 20th Amends the 12th, then it follows that the 16th Amends the 1st.
And worse still, the people who rent are often those who don't have the money lying around for a down payment on a mortgage, and because they are having to pay rent (and higher taxes) while trying to save up for that down payment, may never have that kind of money.
Tax breaks on mortgages but not rent are the worst kind of regressive tax. I can see a tax break on a mortgage, at least a first mortgage, just trying to get yourself into your own home and out of someone else's... but if anything, there should be even bigger tax breaks on renting, since you are throwing money down a hole and ending up with no property at the end of that, just because you don't have enough money to get out of that situation.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
wrong, as written with no robust public option it will only increase the positive feedback loop of higher costs and less real coverage
on a not unrelated note, Obama is a lying sack of shit
Will Nancy Pelosi have to pay this new tax? Nope
Will Harry Reid have to pay this new tax? Nope
Will Obama have to pay this new tax? Nope
Pretty easy to vote a tax through on every man woman and child in america when you yourself will never have to pay it.
Got Code?
Obviously congress could do it. 220 years of history say so. Whether they ought to have done it is a different matter. I doubt it. The extension of coverage will gratify those (like me) who have none but cost everyone else, so logic suggests that what is right will as usual be unpopular. But not unconstitutional. The health issue is two part in my mind: what do we chose to do that seriously affects health one way or the other, and who gets to pay for illness. I am happy with everyone paying for my illness, and I am not happy with anyone telling me what to eat smoke or drink. But I do not think coverage extension alone is a worthwhile thing, not considering the bigger picture. States limit insurance to their own companies; it should be national. hospitals doctors nurses and other unions of medical folks get laws passed that pretty much gives them the right to decide who you can go to for medical care; wrong! The Law does nothing about monopolies, very little to provide more competition, and just bolts another set of folks to a system that does not work very well.
in so many ways I can't count.
Almost all of them have nothing to do with health care but simple plain money laundering or criminality and greed.
Lets start with the fact that a law that makes people pay, to a small select group of private insurance companies isn't a law, its a system and it is called
F A S C I S M.
Secondly, even if Health Care was free, and I am not advocating that by the way, there are not enough doctors to treat everyone. I have to wait 8 months right now for a physical if I want to see the doctor I like for example.
In order for health care to work, we have to have enough doctors and this health care act doesn't do anything to lift the economic barriers to completing a medical degree, or even practice with a degree once you are finished school.
Finally in case you haven't been watching the news, western society is collapsing. How is that you say? Well, it has to do with any system that is run by criminals, it stops working because there is no way to make anything work with everyone at the top stealing everything. Looted to the tune of 17 trillion dollars the US economy is done for.
Bank holidays are so rampant in EU right now, they have to invent I.T. problems to cover them up.
There is _NO_ money left to pay for this law. What you going to do? Send shock troops into people's home right now and kill their pets because you can't pay your premium to the insurance companies? They already send in secret police to get people over student loan defaults.
We already have banks taking peoples homes who already paid for them!
THERE IS NO MONEY LEFT FOR THIS LAW. THERE IS ONLY THE LAW OF MEN. THERE IS NO CONSTITUTION.
This law does nothing to improve health care for everyone.
It simply makes it very profitable for the top 1% for you to be very very sick.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
This is true. But the point is WHEN you become sick or injured (not IF), I and other tax payers CANNOT choose to allow you to go untreated.
Our society has already decided that it is not ethical or human or acceptable NOT to treat a sick or injured person (or even just one claiming to be so) even if that person cannot pay for the treatments. ERs would be and are sued if they turn away patients. Therefore since I'm FORCED to pay for your health care, the gov't needs to force you to contribute some money to that pot to defray the costs of WHEN you need health care.
If this country allowed hospitals to turn away patients without coverage, then, great, nobody should be forced to have coverage. But they are not...
So I can tax you for NOT buying insurance?
Could I tax you for not buying a car? Could I tax you for not wearing a red sweater?
Contingent taxes typically apply to an affirmative choice. that is doing something. They don't apply to not doing something.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Those apply to doing something. Not the lack of doing something. If the government can tax you for not doing something then they have absolute power.
Five of those justices shouldn't be on the bench.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Before this law some insurance companies spent 20-30% of their gross receipts from premiums on overhead. The law doesn't force the companies to take that 15%. Presumably if their overhead is less they can sell their policies for less thereby gaining a competitive advantage.
Parts of the law like the individual mandate don't go into effect until 2014 but that part is already in effect. In 2012 insurance companies are providing about $1 billion in rebates.
Federal government mandated health insurance is flat-out, no bullshit unconstitutional. This logic was as tortured as Scalia's in Gonzalez v. Raich. Seriously, no rational person who has read the Constitution and other founding documents can come to any other conclusion unless they have ulterior motives.
That's not to say that some type of universal healthcare isn't a good idea. It is. And to do that, the free-rider problem must be solved. The personal mandate is the only rational solution to that problem, so it must be implemented.
So if it's a good idea, how can I say it's unconstitutional? Because it is. Something isn't constitutional or unconstitutional based on whether it's a good idea. It is based on whether it's constitutional. This is a point most liberals miss. The legislature decides whether it's a good idea, the courts decide whether that good idea is constitutional. If it's not constitutional, you can amend the constitution to allow it. But no, that's too difficult, we prefer to just ignore that piece of shit scrap paper.
With this they yet again blew the federal government's powers way beyond any thought of limitation that was designed into this system. Despite a system set up with a federal government with specific powers granted to it, we now have one that has no limits to its power. Romney, as a state governor, with his legislature was well within his powers to enact universal healthcare with a personal mandate. That's because he was in a state which has such powers.
The only federal tax is the tax on income. (and money to make on a job, or money given to you, you get taxed). And that took a constitutional amendment. Every other Federal tax is optional, like gas and to get onto a federal park. With this ruling, it gives the power to government to tax everyone for something they do, or for not doing anything. They could now tax people for playing video games on the basis that its harmful to you.
In one stroke, John Roberts will be remembered as the Justice that took freedom away from the people and gave it to the government. It guarantees a Romney victory and maybe a repeal next year, but the damage is done with the ruling. The democrats can now put a tax on anything.
Not to mention the trillions of dollars this Obamacare is going to cost the country. 2 trillion in the next 8 years.
You obviously don't know what a perverse incentive is.
With a normal company--that is, one without a perverse incentive, the more someone needs your service the more money you make and the more incentive you have to be a good company and provide them good service. In the insurance industry, the opposite is true. The more someone needs your service, the less money you make--very possibly to the point of costing you money, thus the faster you try to ditch them as a customer by any means necessary--screw them over has hard as you can.
This is a classic case in which government should step in--a case in which the free market does not work as intended, especially since it is an area that is essential for people's health and lives. That is why I assert and maintain that when it comes to health care, the only answer is a single-payer system that we all support.
Contrary to popular belief, this doesn't mean that there is no room in health care for the free market to operate. The way it should work is that we have a national health care system that pays medical costs of all U.S. citizens, and taxes are raised to cover the costs. A national health care board sets standard market rates for various procedures based on current market rates by geographical area, and periodically reassess them to see if any adjustments need to be made. Health care providers can charge that rate and be guaranteed the income from patients using the national health care system. Or optionally, they can charge more if they want, with the extra costs being incurred by the patient.
This would provide for a competitive environment within the health care industry. If the standard rate for open heart surgery is $x, but you're a distinguished cardiologist with a sterling reputation, you can charge $(2 * x) if people are willing to pony up the extra $x to have you as their surgeon. Or if the standard rate for a root canal is $y, you can offer optional "while you sleep" service for $(y + 300). There wouldn't be any restrictions on what doctors you can or can't see, or what patients a doctor must or must not accept, at least none that aren't in place already.
Does that mean that some healthy people who are paying less for health care now would end up paying more? Yes. This isn't a bad thing. When you have someone making $30,000 per year needing a $500,000 transplant and medication that costs $500 per month, either 1) we just let them die (not an option to most civilized societies), or 2) someone has to pay for the health care. Right now, that "someone" is already the taxpayer, so really, not much would change except the quality and availability of less serious health care--which, incidentally, thanks to more availability of preventative health care means that maybe that person doesn't end up needing a $500,000 transplant and $500 per month medication--to millions of people.
In an ideal world, people simply wouldn't get sick and ideals like not having to pay for other people's health care wouldn't be an issue. In the practical one that we live in, sometimes you have to compromise your principles to live in a better society.
Hello Thank you for checking in. I'm always curious to see how it's going in the bizarro world of Forever Now. Good to know nothing has changed since last time, nor the time before that, or before that, or before that, or before that. In the world of Forever Now, "insurance" is a scam and everyone knows it because nothing bad ever happens because nothing ever changes. Fire extinguishers? Non existent! Why should they? No one will ever use them. Waste of money!
Seriously, are you that short-sighted or just that stupid? Ever sick person was once "young and healthy".
As crazy as this sounds, you could actually live in the US without paying taxes. Of course you would not be able to purchase anything, drive a car, have a job, or own property ... but ya, you could live here without paying taxes.
BUT NOT NOW ... you will be taxed for being alive!
Political dissent should be welcomed in our nation. I applaud those that go against the conventional wisdom, and respect folks that are interested enough in public policy to be politically active. If you're dis-satisfied with something in the country, you have a right to pursue ways of changing it.
I wouldn't use the "If you don't like it, then leave" argument. However, I keep hearing this refrain about how awesome things are in Canada and Europe. Although I wouldn't suggest that someone depart the U.S. if they are dissatisfied, I will suggest that if they believe things are so great to the North or on the other side of the Atlantic, please depart forthwith.
Suppose I could point to a country in Europe with the sort of government I want (government spending 10% of GDP and something equivalent to the Bill of Rights for starters) and I argued incessantly about how great it was and that it should be a model for the U.S. I wouldn't mind a polite suggestion that I relocate there.
Unfortunately, the disease of statism seems to have infected the entire Western world. I guess we'll just need to wait until these socialist bureaucracies collapse so that we can rebuild a society based on liberty and individual responsibility.
Want a horror story?
Since the federal and state governments embarked on their massive intervention in the medical system, they have DICTATED prices to medical service providers. You get $X for performing procedure 'A', no arguments.
They also passed a law called EMTALA which DICTATES that hospitals provide treatment to anyone that shows up in the ER, regardless of their willingness or ability to pay.
Guess what the result is? A hard working middle class person who needs medical services has to pay as much as 10X or 20X (no exaggeration. for medications it can be 1000X) the price that Medicare/Medicaid pays for the SAME service!
I therefore got stuck with $30,000+ worth of bills when I needed a life saving medical procedure in 1997. What would the free market price have been? Maybe $5000? At least something manageable that I could pay in 2 years (vs. TEN)
Working people pay the taxes for government programs so that deadbeats can get free services and then get shafted covering the losses those programs force on the providers? Thank you federal government. You're doing so well, that I want to give you MORE control over the system.
I'm from Canada and I can attest to that there are lines. They can be frustrating. Sometimes you get lucky (my last visit a few years ago, 20min in and out, was awesome, was for an xray I think). However that is not the norm. My typical visit would be in the 3-5 hour range I would suspect, most of that just siting in a waiting room.
However it is called Triage. You are served according to need, not anything else. So yes if you came in with an artery spouting blood, you would be quickly at the front of the line.
The only problem (at least from my perspective, and it isn't really a problem, its just frustrating) is that by its very nature Triage is about helping those who's illness is most serious risk to them. I got the same problem with my private airline a few years back with a canceled flight.
I'm a single male, in early 30's, with no conditions, pretty healthy, no kids, etc... So in other words, not only last, but falling fast. So not only is my number not a good one, it would get bumped by just about everyone for anything (unless I'm actually dying, which hasn't happened yet). Usually I am in there for sporting injury, and while some are very painful (particularly while sitting in a waiting room) not really life threatening. However an older person with a cold could die from it, as could a baby, etc...
The other frustrating part is because of demographics, and increased life expectancy, we have a lot of old people. Now I love old people particularly my relatives, however from a clinical view, they get sick a lot, and when they do get sick, they use up a lot of hospital time. That's just life. The other frustrating part are paranoid parents. If their kid/baby even gets a sniffle, they are in the hospital. Perhaps a LOT more so if they actually had to pay for it. Perhaps if I had kids I might feel the same way but I don't, and to be honest, when I was a kid it wasn't that way. When I went to the hospital It was because I needed A) stitches for a wound, or B) a cast for a broken appendage. I recall (sort of) having a temperature above 100 and not going to the hospital, and having ice baths at home. Now I'm sitting in a waiting room with a concussion or a broken foot, next to another guy like me with a nail through his hand, while a parade of worried mothers take their young kids with the common cold to emergency... that and a steady stream of older folks with various aliments.
Anyway the bottom line is I ain't gonna die from a broken foot, and the buddy next to me isn't gonna bleed out from a nail through the hand, so we sit patiently and wait, that's how it works. Why else do you think they are called patients? :)
Neither does the majority of people in the US or any other first world country. Majority rules, that what government means.
Seriously, go live in Somalia--they have exactly your same value system, you should be really happy there.
is neglected long enough. Go to your local ER and count the number of people without insurance who waited until their kid's ear infection became really serious before they brought it in--because the only place they can get treatment is the ER.
And you know it. If you ask those same people whether insurance companies should be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions then 90% of them say no, then ask them about each and every one of the other provisions of the bill and you'll see very high support.
But ask them whether Obama is a Muslim from Kenya...
Wait until the next Congress pass an 'inactivity' tax for
1. not joining the Army
2. not seeing your proctologists for your annual checkup
3. not owning a gun
4. not buying an *exploding* electric car
5. not buying a thingamajig.
This bill certainly has some good provisions, but it seems like it will come with a sizeable chunk of risks and inefficiencies. From what I've read, it seems like the mandate as it stands is too weak to counter/pay for the pre-existing condition provision(which should increase premiums, right?).
/.
I found a list of gripes from super conservative Jim DeMint which includes references/citations to the bill itself(the bill is available on that page to reference).
It is straight from the opposition, so take it with a grain of salt, but I did find it to be somewhat informative. Also, first post on
Single payer is what nearly every other advanced nation has and the reason why their health care costs are less expensive, cover more people and have better outcomes. Sorry, it's just true.
You have only to study the following graphs for a moment to get at the truth: our healthcare system is a kind of social welfare programme for multinationals who leverage the hell out of our refusal to regulate their cost structures.
You're the CEO or sit on the board of say, United . Do you want your customers collectively spending 10% of their nation's GDP (like everyone else) or do you want them spending 16% of GDP? Because your companies income and thus your salary is directly tied to how big that number is.
In the charts on the linked page, the US is conveniently colored orange, or just look for the outlier that is 16-50% away again in which ever direction represents WORSE from the rest of the countries, who all pretty much cluster together together for virtually any given statistic .
The for profit health care system we have is a kind of structural violence where the perpetrators are not easily personally identified and whose everyday-ness ( I regret to inform you that your (life saving) bone marrow transplant has been turned down ... ) makes it seem as though literally lethal violence, is not being committed by those in the corporate hierarchy against people who are unable to compete with the campaign contributions those corporate giants can muster. .
This is not a hypothetical. Here's exactly how that violence works:
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/bill-moyers-journal-cigna-chief-admit
Which part of "too many people for too few jobs" don't you get?
There simply aren't enough jobs for everyone, because the so-called "job creators" are sitting on their lazy fat asses and shoveling in the profits while laying off more and more people.
Help the people on the bottom of society get to a point where they have actual purchasing power and the hugely increased demand will force an increase in supply, creating jobs and increasing the standard of living for everyone.
Trickle-down economics, "bootstraps" and associated arguments have never, do not and will never work.
Eat the rich.
Look, I could argue every single point you make ... and ignore the insults, but most of my arguments would be better made by Friederich Hayak in "The Road to Serfdom".
What I say isn't ignorant. I expect that I've thought through most of the lines of argument you could come up with, and listened to what others have to say about it, as well.
But the arguments you make cause me to believe that you *haven't* read "The Road to Serfdom". So I'd much rather you read that first, and then presented your arguments. That would eliminate a lot of pointless back-and-forth.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
No, he's trying to make it so that people can continue to burden society without even a thought of trying to lower their own healthcare costs. After all, why try to clean yourself up and lead a healthy lifestyle when you know the government has your back and you can never be turned down for pre-existing conditions?
Sorry, I don't agree. This legislation just makes it way harder to change the existing shitty way of doing things. And it makes it way easier for people to skirt on their responsibility to lower their own healthcare expenses. It encourages reckless behavior and responsibility shucking. In fact, it is strangely reminiscent of the banking bailout. And that is not the direction I'd like to see this country go.
Our permissive reading of these powers is explained inpart by a general reticence to invalidate the acts of theNationâ(TM)s elected leaders. âoeProper respect for a co-ordinate branch of the governmentâ requires that we strike downan Act of Congress only if âoethe lack of constitutionalauthority to pass [the] act in question is clearly demonstrated.â United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 635 (1883).Members of this Court are vested with the authority tointerpret the law; we possess neither the expertise northe prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nationâ(TM)s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.
I interpret this as meaning that to an extent the Supreme Court, and Justice Roberts in particular has refused to rule that Obamacare is unconstitutional. That burden is the voters' choice. Do they respect the legal infrastructure that has lead to such a successful nation or uphold Obamacame, in the process pulling another block out and bringing things closer to the end of the US?
As to the people who bleat here about "free riders" and such in ERs. It's worth remembering that you wanted to create free or cheap healthcare which can be exploited by free riders. The resulting emergence of said free riders is a natural outcome. Your impulse to then control the rest of us so that no free riders can exist is merely an odious impulse which must be resisted. I simply cannot subordinate my freedom to your incompetent and naive whim, here, just because someone receives less healthcare than you think they should receive.
I predict that the insurance companies that now negotiate x% discounts with hospitals and doctors will now demand x% secret kickbacks instead and will quickly make their 85%.
This comment is covered by the Popeye standard disclaimer.
Is that the federal government got to impose a mandate on people by it being defined as a tax. If I go out to the wilderness and have no car, no job, no property- I don't owe anyone anything. Now the IRS can come find me and fine me.
But back to the scary part- what is the next thing that is going to be "taxed?" Requiring solar panels on houses, all electric cars, biodiesel generators in our backyard, not being fat, not able to run a 6-minute mile, not having a vegetable garden, having too many children, natal genetic testing (ever see Gattaca?)
I like everything else- the no previous conditions, no denying care because it "costs too much," the ability to shop around. I'm just worried where this could lead down the road. Call me tin-foil hatboy, but when has the gov not kept trying to expand its powers?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
And that is something AFAIK this law does not address. Care providers have a natural extortion racket going. Only they don't have to threaten you, nature does it for them. Then they get to charge exorbitant amounts to save you. There are a number of ways to address cost issues, but I haven't seen any of them in this new law. In fact, making everyone participate may inadvertently make it worse.