Um, no. Nobody here said “the government should be able to do anything it wants.” Most of us simply want some form of UHC. Certainly you can see the difference.
So you can’t come up with anything. Not surprising.
But it’s not an enumerated power in the federal constitution. Hence the states should do it. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
If you want federal UHC, amend the federal constitution. You shouldn’t distort the meaning of the general welfare clause. If you’re free to distort the meaning of anything in the constitution, then why even have a constitution?
Neither can you. You’re simply draping yourself in the flag and acting as if your interpretation of cherry picked quotes is perfect and everyone else’s is flawed. It’s not a real argument. It’s showmanship.
Bentley Little, is that you?!?!
If the British had been yellowcoats, we would have been screwed.
Ah, I see. So Mr. Madison didn’t say, “With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” And Mr. Madison didn’t say, “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one.” And if he *did *say it, those words don’t have any meaning. Got it. :rolleyes:
For the record, this is “Originalism”, a belief that the wording of the Constritution should be construed more or less as their writers intended them to mean. You’re in good company; Justices Scalia and Thomas are in general Originalists,
You say we’re distorting the meaning. I say we’re properly interpreting the words.
Two points.
First, Hamilton’s Federalist 31 may as well be directly responding to you in this thread, Crafter_Man:
In other words, the proper checks on federal usurpation through taxing and spending are not so much in explicit limits on taxing or spending power, but on the structure of democratic government itself. And, of course, he’s 100% right. Obama has the clear constitutional power to set the federal tax rate at 90%. The reason he could never do it, in reality, is the structure of our government’s democratic checks and balances.
Second, the health care industry is too large and the issues are too interconnected and complex for any one state to solve these problems within their borders. That is the exact reason for the interstate commerce clause, and indeed for a federal government at all.
Oh snap indeed. I go off, read a few other threads, have a sandwhich, think about going to bed then come back to a whole page of discussion.
The point I was making is that the founding fathers are not perfect.
I strongly agree with liberty, but founding fathers, nor as jsgoddess points out, their times, were perfect. There’s a lot of ugliness in American history that gets glossed over. It’s best not to paint over it, but to understand it, and understand how we’ve grown and grow. It’s better to understand that America is a work in progress. Today we have a free-er society then the ones the Founding Fathers put together, because we’ve went beyond their original limits. Liberty isn’t defined in musty 200 year old documents. It’s in the hearts and minds of those who fight for it. It’s expanded, defined, and protected by each generation.
The only real questions are: does the Constitution forbid federal UHC, and do the governed give their consent for it?
Eh, I’m sick of that pissant. I don’t care if she ever answers.
I was thinking about this a couple of days ago, when **Crafter_Man **was posting about his views. I’m not pondering the constitutionality of UHC, I’m thinking about our obligations to each other and changes in the way people look at health care.
It occurs to me that the ‘every man for himself’ way of doing healthcare is just not feasible anymore.
Years ago sickness and death were a common denominator - everyone was susceptible to diseases which could easily cripple and kill. Nobody had access to much heathcare. People weren’t expected to live long lives; many children weren’t expected to make it past their fifth birthday.
Now we have all this good medical knowledge and skill. People want to live long, healthy lives. People see affordable health care as something that everyone should have, just like access to clean water. People want their friends and neighbors to stay healthy. Business owners want their workforce to stay healthy. Like it or not, that is a change which has occured in social thinking over the last few decades, and the notion of UHC is a logical outgrowth of that thinking.
There may be better ways to set UHC up other than this plan currently under consideration. But I think it is inevitable. It will come about one day.
Also, I’m dubious that individual states could do it. I don’t think that they posess the bargaining power that the Feds do, or the initial funding outlays - especially the poorer states. I think that it will take the 500-lb gorilla of the federal government to make UHC work.
Scalia’s philosophy is a bit different from your description. He believes the text should be read as it was understood at the time of its ratification. Sometimes this corresponds to what the writers of the text intended, other times it does not. The key difference is that while the writers intentions carry no special democratic legitimacy, the understandings of the people who adopted the text do carry special democratic legitimacy.
This difference is most obvious in Scalia’s view of legislative history. If writer’s intentions were key, he would privilege the documents showing various Senators intentions for the bill. Instead, he actually totally rejects such legislative history as irrelevant.
Thomas is a bit more a mixed bag, thought he might be more properly thought of in the way you describe.
Ah, I see. So someone in this thread did say “I want the government to have unlimited powers, and I want a pony.” And if they didn’t say it, those words were strongly implied. Got it. :rolleyes:
Strangely enough, Washington’s stepdaughter, Patsy Custis was an epileptic. She died during a seizure at the age of 17:
Interesting, Guin. I’m glad you haven’t been subjected to those ‘treatments’.
I’m currently living with a national UHC (in South Korea) and am thrilled with it because I work for a government entity and they do follow the law.
Implementation nationwide is a bit iffy since far too many employers blow off the law and either don’t enroll their employees into the system or cheat the employees by taking the full amount of the employee’s payment into the system and either pocket it all or just report the employee’s salary has half what it is and turn over the employee’s contribution declaring it to be both the employer’s and employee’s contributions.
Well, there is this, and this. Or how about this or this? All you had to do is Google it.
That bolded bit is the whole difference since that is not expecting someone else to take care of you.
You are also relying on the investments that the insurance companies make - if they only had the premiums to pay the bills, they’d be out of business in no time.
Yeah, but at least they are paying premiums. And the insurance companies do try to weed some of them out.
For a) they seem to have two basic plans, the first being they are going to cover everyone and make everyone pay a premium based on income. Which means I would end up paying more to cover the fact that there are so many that say they can’t pay much at all.
Or they are just going to essentially create a group plan with subsized lower premiums for those who currently cannot afford insurance, paid for by taxes. How are they going to decide who can or cannot afford insurance? Just because they say they can’t? The government simply cannot follow up on each one.
Then don’t have babies! Why is it ok with you that there are so many people having babies who cannot afford them at all? Who are having them while uninsured, unemployed, as anchor babies. Why can’t they at least have insurance, some savings and no debt before they create another bundle of expenses?
Which has nothing to do with what I said. Just because you didn’t have an expensive car doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I’d like to know how often.
Professional full time jobs? You mean like had to go to college to qualify to get such a job? Well over minimum wage jobs? What the hell are they spending their money on then?
Uh, you have a cite for that? If nothing else, that would be illegal…
And you have resources to deal with that sort of thing! Do you think the government is going to give a rip if that sort of thing happens while you are covered by a UHC?
That is exactly what I am talking about. You want to encourage even more women to have babies they cannot afford by paying their maternity costs. If a woman cannot afford prenatal visits, what the hell is she doing having a baby in the first place?
You don’t have to have a UHC to fix that.
Can you prove it? Can you prove that the only significant debt they had was medical? No one seems to be able to do that.
And what makes you think a UHC would change that? The ability of the taxpayer to support all of these things is extremely finite. It could easily be that there will be a cap on what will be covered, just as there is with private insurance companies. Or the UHC may flat out not cover things like keeping a newborn alive that has no hope of survival off the machines, or will be a hopeless vegetable. There may be a cap on how long they will pay to keep a coma patient on the machines. You want the taxpayer to cover all of these extremely expensive things that do drive actual responsible people into bankruptcy, as if there is no limit on how much we can afford to spend on it.
I have given examples, and the plan working its way through Congress right now is just the latest attempt. Which according to a news blip I heard on the radio, is facing a majority against it so it probably won’t go thru.
You are either extremely stupid or trolling.
If that is what you want to believe.
Why in the world would you think that?
Since you all seem to have all kinds of time for this sort of thing - instead of working? - I will be slow to catch up. First bitching that a thread suddenly got busy because I posted, and then bitching because I am not answering fast enough for you is ridiculous for even this place.