Please don’t mistake me for a Republican, for starters.
Secondly, yes I am aware of that. I’m not a fan of government forcing me to purchase anything (with some obvious exceptions for car insurance if you want to drive a car, shots for your kids if you put them in a public school, etc).
ObamaCare does actually have some good things in it - I like introducing more markets and hammering down state legislative walls for insurance sales; more competition is always good for the consumer.
But the mandate is unconstitutional, as anyone without an agenda should be able to plainly see. Plus it is a very backhanded way to get it passed - 10 years of taxes measured against 6 years of benefits, so CBO will score it under $1t? Really? That’s what lefty good-government types think is a good idea? How about bribing senators for LA and KS to buy their votes? How about the fact most of the public was against it when it was passed? How about ‘Deem and Pass’ and other dirty tricks?
This is what the Democratic Party thinks is a good idea? This is your idea of good government? Forget about the gist of the bill - if Congress passed a bill for 3 more Aircraft Carriers, or to enter into a war against Yemen this way - honestly would you think this is responsible government, passing a law in this fashion?
No. Taxation as a percentage of GDP is as low as it has been in the last fifty years. There’s enough evidence that the US cannot afford to keep adding things to its tab. There’s virtually no evidence that we couldn’t afford to pay for this stuff outright.
Anyway, you’re missing the point. While generally government intrusion increases the cost of government, government intrusion into healthcare would not. Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare equate to about a fifth of US healthcare spending. The evidence - the experience of every other industrialized state - demonstrates that a single payer system would allow us to cover every American for that much.
For some odd reason, the number “trillion” freaks people out more than “900 billion”. It’s the same reason stores sell things for 99 cents. There’s not much logic to it, it’s just a marketing gimmick. I wish politics wasn’t full of bullshit like this, but such is life.
These sorts of deals happen every day in Washington amongst both parties. If you think otherwise, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. The only reason it got your attention was because it’s a high profile case, and you don’t like the law. Congressmen that don’t use their voting power to score pork for their constitutents are as rare as hens teeth. It doesn’t invalidate the legislation.
This is the difference between a Republic and a Direct Democracy. Our representatives are empowered to act in what they deem to be the best interest of the people. The average person has neither the time nor the inclination to study complicated policy issues in depth. Because there was such a highly effective campaign of disinformation and fear mongering, I’m going to take any poll numbers with a huge grain of salt. Did they actually oppose the law, or did they oppose the dystopian fantasy world idea about the law planted into their heads? There’s a difference between the two. Let’s see what people think in 2014 when they actually experience the law first hand.
Perfectly constitutional.
Donald Rumsfeld once said that you have to go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish to have. I’ll say the same thing about the health care law. If we waited until Congress was completely free from corruption to pass anything, nothing would ever get done.
How many people were for freeing the slaves, or passing the Civil Rights Act? Sometimes, fuck the public. This is one of those times. Just buy your god damn insurance
There’s no equivalence to anything else here. A basic level of health is a right. Owning cars, property, etc., is not. So do the rest of us a favor and buy your insurance
So in your mind, then, in whose hands is the sovereign power in this country vested?
Because this statement reads to me as if your answer will be, “In the hands of whoever agrees with my preferred policy on a given issue, and subject to change when we discuss the next issue.”
Power is shared, duh. Obama and Congress had the power to do this, and the voters have the power to vote him out if they don’t like it. Its a joke that some people think that just cause they don’t like it, its unconstitutional. But that’s typical of conservative thinking: don’t like it? It must be illegal? Hate Obama? He must not be a citizen?
There’s plenty of examples, like people have mentioned in this thread, where the government can force you to buy stuff. Health is also unique in that everybody deserves a basic level of it, and not buying health care passes the costs inevitably to everyone else.
My answer is rooted in fact. Its conservatives who like to change reality to fit their beliefs. So yeah, sometimes, fuck the public, they don’t know shit and only deserve scorn
I can’t wait to see what the true cost of Obamacare ends up being. Failing to make any attempt to fix the problems with our medical system prior to passing this was a huge mistake.
Well, I am a conservative, and I strongly dislike the health care law. i don’t agree it’s a “basic right.”
But I have consistently said I believed the measure was constitutional, at least in the sense that fifty years ago, Wickard v. Filburn decided that the US governemnt could use their power to regulate interstate commerce to penalize farmer Filburn for growing and using wheat on his own land that never once touched commerce of any kind, intra- or interstate.
Nor do I agree that these kinds of attacks are typical of conservatives. Indeed, I believe I can find many more examples of liberals seeking to use constitutional decisions to impose favored public policy than I can of conservatives doing the same thing.
In fact, you say that health care is a basic right. Is it a constituional right? If the Republicans manage to repeal the health care law, could someone sue the government for not providing basic health care services, since it’s a right?
Finally, of course it’s true that the vast majority of Birthers were conservative, but that’s not the same as the claim that the Birther movement was typical of conservative thinking.
Very dictatorial mindset. This type of thinking is widespread on the left so I’m not surprised to see some expressing this opinion. There are obviously “betters” in our society that know how we should all live our lives whether we like it or not. :rolleyes:
Like Bricker? Plenty of neutral or opposition parties believe it is constitutional.
This is no different than how many, many bills are scored. The CBO scores what Congress tells them to. For very good reason - just look at the deficit projections circa 1998.
It was NE, not KS. And both “bribes” were removed from the final bill.
This is not true. At best the public was divided. It depended largely on how you asked the question.
“Deem and Pass” was never used in passing PPACA. The only legislative “trick” used was budget reconciliation, bypassing the filibuster the second time through the Senate.
That seems very different from this mandate. Correct me if I am wrong, but Filburn was operating a business, and that is what triggered the government “forcing” him to buy wheat. Couldn’t he have altered his business, or sold his land and become a barber, or an attorney and escaped being forced to purchase the wheat. So, in the end, I view Filburn as choosing to buy wheat. Surely not everyone in 1938 was forced to buy wheat. The mandate we’re talking about now seems very different: if you’re breathing, the government is forcing you to buy something. What am I missing?
You are not forced to buy it. You are merely fined if you don’t. The point of Wickard is that refusal to participate in a market (in that case the wheat market, in this case the health-care market) still has an effect on market prices, and therefore falls under Commerce Clause regulations (including fines, bans, etc.).
I’ve been kicking around an “opt-out” provision whereby an individual could self-insure by setting aside enough money in escrow (basically enough for life-saving ER treatment, the sort of thing that hospitals cannot refuse to provide). Then if he needs medical service all money comes out of that account. As long as there is enough in the account the fine is waved.
Well, wheat is kind of a staple food. Filburn was a farmer, true, but the key element of the ruling was that the Agricultural Adjustment Act capped the area that he could use for wheat production to 11 acres and 220 bushels. He farmed 23 acres and got 239 extra bushels, carefully keeping the excess for his own use.
When the authorities sought to punish Filburn, he complained that Congress had no power to regulate his wheat growing in the extra 12 acres, and no power to punish him for his extra 239 bushels, since Congress could only regulate interstate commerce, and his extra wheat was for personal use.
The Court’s rationale in affirming Filburn’s punishment was that since Filburn was using his excess wheat for personal use, he would not be buying wheat that HAD moved in interstate commerce… and therefore Congress could legitimately regulate his personal wheat.
It’s true that he wasn’t forced to literally purchase wheat. But the case showed that Congress had the power to regulate personal wheat production on the theory that by growing personal wheat, a person affects interstate commerce by NOT buying someone else’s wheat.
Yes, but wasn’t that because that he already had wheat he was growing earmarked for business use? The analogy doesn’t seem apt. As I mentioned before, he could have escaped having to buy wheat by selling his farm and going into another business. No?
There are certain things that may trigger a mandatory purchase (auto insurance, for instance, albeit on a state level), but there seems to be zero examples of something the government can force you to buy simply by being alive.
Well, it’s not really my opinion that matters. It seems to me that accepting a fine or buying insurance is a financial decision, not a matter of force, but YMOV.
The fact remains that SCOTUS has said that regulating interstate commerce can extend to non-actors and non-activity. I’m of the opinion that as long as hospitals are required to care for people that show up to their ER regardless of their ability to pay, the federal government can require people to be insured or pay a fine to cover the effect their lack of insurance will have on the market price of insurance.
SCOTUS will eventually decide, and all of our debate back in forth will come down to what Justice Kennedy had for breakfast.
