# GOP Obstructionism and the Constitution and SCOTUS **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 19, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202 "2013-09-19T03:27:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/61 "2013-09-22T02:27:50Z")
YOu haven’t proved anyone wrong. But you should be used to that by now as well. Go to any website that racks medical pricing and then compare it to your insurance statement. You’ll find that your insurance pays MUCH less than the state price, whereas cashpaying patients don’t get any breaks unless they negotiate. This practice of a hospital deducting 35-40% off the bill without even being asked must be a custom in your area. Also, your statement is absurd on its face. Insurance companies use the power of representing large pools to negotiate lower prices. That’s why people carry health insurance for routine care, rather than strictly catastrophic care. If you get charged MORE for having insurance, then there’s no point in carrying it for anything other than catastrophic care, so you’ve basically called the entire Democratic Party morons for wanting people to carry it. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/62 "2013-09-22T02:43:08Z")
Even with catastrophic care only insurance, you still get the benefit of your policy’s negotiated rates. For example, if you visit your primary care physician, and have a catastrophic policy through, say, Humana, they will still run your insurance, decline to pay, but demand that the doctor charge you the lower, negotiated rate instead of the cash rate. In my experience, the only reason that uninsureds may pay less is the same reason that any other debtor might pay less: the creditor (in this case the hospital) figures that something is better than nothing, and the patient might be judgment proof. Take 50% instead of paying attorney bills and not collecting anyways. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/63 "2013-09-22T03:02:00Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > There is no legal requirement to pay your rent or buy food. There is now a legal requirement to carry health insurance. Most US healthcare spending is governmental. So you are already required, through your taxes, to pay for most US health care. Since 1986, when President Reagan signed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, virtually all US hospitals have been forced to provide extensive care to the uninsured who then often don’t pay. The expenses are then pushed back on everyone else, though a combination of higher taxes and higher premiums. If you actually refuse to buy food, you probably will collapse on the street and go to the hospital where, if you do not have insurance, you will be housed and fed on my dime. So these situations are not as different as claimed. True financially responsible conservatives (do they still exist?) would support the Affordable Care Act, which is similar to GOP health reform idea of the pre-Obama era. In health reform, the GOP won on won on no-civilian-VA ([was a great idea](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.longman.html)), and won on no-single-payer, and won on allowing for-profit throughout health care. And yet they still aren’t happy. The GOP has become the sore winner party. Obamacare is coded by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office as saving the government money, in part, because it addresses the problem of health care freeloaders. Trying to de-fund it is just one more scheme to increase the deficit. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/64 "2013-09-22T03:11:51Z")
The CBO says it reduces the deficit, not that it saves money. It’s reduces the deficit simply because the cuts in Medicare spending and the new taxes bring in more money than is paid out. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/65 "2013-09-22T03:59:58Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The CBO says it reduces the deficit, not that it saves money. It’s reduces the deficit simply because the cuts in Medicare spending and the new taxes bring in more money than is paid out. Does it ever bother you that, statistically, every time you open your mouth, you are probably, again, absolutely wrong? Gotta ask: from whence that tidbit of questionable budgetary analysis arise? Was that somewhere in the CBO Report? Have you analyzed the Federal Budget so thoroughly as to deduce this on your own? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/66 "2013-09-22T04:02:03Z")
Saving money implies spending less. The health care law costs $1 trillion over 10 years. $500 billion comes from Medicare cuts, $500 billion from new taxes and fees. So, tell me where the savings is? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/67 "2013-09-22T04:28:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Saving money implies spending less. The health care law costs $1 trillion over 10 years. $500 billion comes from Medicare cuts, $500 billion from new taxes and fees. > > So, tell me where the savings is? Saying something as “saving money implies spending less” is just going for a simple answer and as H.L. Menken said, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” The savings can be seen by looking at the results so far and other expected effects when the act is implemented fully. And there is the item the incalculable benefits people and companies will get by offering them more freedoms. To the people that are in Job Lock situations and investors from overseas that will see now the USA as a place to set shop. In other words, more jobs are more likely to be created. [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/the-economics-of-the-affordable-care-act/#h[]](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/the-economics-of-the-affordable-care-act/#h%5B%5D) > [@](#): > > Interestingly, the most widely expected adverse effects of the Affordable Care Act have yet to materialize, despite the fact that it has been in place for nearly three years. As a recent chart released by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers shows, hours of work are up in the restaurant industry since March 2010. The same is true in the vast bulk of retail businesses where the option to move workers from full to part time is a real one. It may be that companies are waiting until the employer mandate kicks in – or it could be that the fears of significant adverse effects were overblown. > > Additional data from Massachusetts, where a state law was the precursor to the Affordable Care Act, suggests that it is the fears that are overblown. Two studies, one by Jonathan Kolstad and Amanda Kowalski and a second by Lisa Dubay, Sharon Long and Emily Lawton, found very little adverse effect from the employer and individual mandates on employment; workers valued the insurance greatly, so the mandate was actually a benefit for them. > > It is possible that the differences between the Massachusetts and federal laws will lead to a different result for the Affordable Care Act, but at this point the evidence overwhelmingly suggests no need for major worry. > > The Benefits of Cost Reduction > > In looking at the totality of the Affordable Care Act, what is most noticeable for the economy is the good news that it promises for American workers and businesses. The most important component of the act is what it will do to the costs of medical care. For the last 25 years (see Table 5, Page 24, of a study from the National Federation of Independent Business), small businesses have ranked the cost of health insurance as the most critical problem they face. It is no wonder why: rising health insurance costs are associated with increases in total compensation, reduced competitiveness vis-à-vis other companies and increased human-resource problems. > > The link between health costs and employment is increasingly clear. A study by Neeraj Sood, Arkadipta Ghosh and José Escarce shows that industries that provided health care to more of their workers in 1986 had significantly lower employment growth between 1987 and 2005. No similar relationship was observed in Canada, where businesses do not pay for health insurance, confirming the role of health care in the relationship. Another study from Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra looks at area-level cost increases in the United States and reaches a similar conclusion. > > A fundamental question about the Affordable Care Act is thus what it will do to employer spending on health insurance. The act has a number of provisions designed to reduce spending growth. These include the “Cadillac tax” on expensive health insurance plans and a transition of medical care payments away from fee-for-service payment into value-based payments. Economists are virtually united in asserting that a combination of these demand and supply-side levers are the way to get a handle on a wasteful system. > > Already, these payment transitions seem to be having an effect. Health care cost increases are at the lowest level in the last half-century, and employer premium growth has slowed markedly. My own work with Nikhil Sahni shows that the Affordable Care Act is one factor in this slowdown. > > In the testimony that Professor Mulligan mentioned and the analytic work behind it (done jointly with Professor Sood), I estimated that slowing cost growth along the lines made possible by the Affordable Care Act would lead to 250,000 to 400,000 jobs gained annually over the next decade. The effects would increase over time. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/68 "2013-09-22T05:23:39Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Medicare reimburses doctors at rates below what treating them actually costs in many cases How do you determine what “actual costs” are in a service profession? One dollar over tangible costs of loans on equipment, minimum malpractice coverage, facilities rental, etc.? Or is the so-called actual cost a convenient arbitrary figure used to make a point? > [@](#): > > The doctors aren’t getting that extra money, the insurance companies are. Funny, I got a rebate from my insurance company this year. All because of Obamacare! there are now regulations in place to avoid the very thing you’re referring to. I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips, but insurance companies can only spend something like 20 percent on non-care activities. Oh sure, there will be scandals as corporate junkets are written off as medical expenses, but exceptions aside what you’re referring to is basically a lie perpetuated by those who have a political interest in obfuscating the fundamentals of the Act. The GOP is doing whatever it can to fuck things up, including a full press misinformation campaign. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/69 "2013-09-22T05:34:58Z")
That would be more convincing if Democrats weren’t walking back their earlier promises. Pelosi just claimed she never said insurance would be cheaper for everyone. it’s a standard Democratic tactic: pass an entitlement, claim that Republican estimates of cost are dirty lies and fearmongering, then when it turns out to be true, say, “Does it really even matter? People are happy with their entitlements!” ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/70 "2013-09-22T06:05:27Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I cannot cite that other than to urge everyone to take a look at your bill if you don’t have insurance. You pay a heck of a lot more. As in, several times more. YOU are subsidizing others, they aren’t subsidizing you, if you are a cashpayer. Well, clearly you believe this - and there is a line to that effect in the [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninsured_in_the_United_States#Consequences). However, digging a little deeper into some real data leads me to conclude that the effect of high cost health care fees paid in cash by the uninsured is overshadowed by the uninsured who cannot or will not pay. Here are a few paragraphs from Page 13 of a 46 page Kaiser Family Foundation (PDF) [report](http://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/7451-08.pdf) that you might find interesting to study. About a third of uninsured health care services are actually paid for in cash - the remaining is paid for by taxes or increased insurance premiums. Nowhere in the report does it indicate that the cash payments by the uninsured are subsidizing any other health costs. Actually, if you crank through a bit of simple math - it becomes clear that the uninsured Americans _raise_ health care insurance costs for the rest of us. > [@Kaiser Family Foundation : The Uninsured: A Primer](#): > > **What Are the Financial Implications of Lack of Coverage?** > For many uninsured people, the costs of health insurance and medical care are weighed against equally essential needs. When people without health coverage do receive health care, they may be charged for the full cost of that care, which can strain family finances and lead to medical debt. Uninsured people are more likely to report problems with high medical bills than those with insurance. Low-income individuals, who comprise a large share of the uninsured population, were three times as likely as those with higher incomes to report having difficulty paying basic monthly expenses such as rent, food, and utilities. > > [ul] > [li]\*\*Most uninsured people do not receive health services for free or at reduced charge. \*\*[/li]Hospitals frequently charge uninsured patients two to four times what health insurers and public programs actually pay for hospital services. Slightly less than half of the uninsured population knows of a provider in their community who charges less to patients without insurance. More than half of uninsured adults paid full price for their usual source of care, with 82% of uninsured adults who used any medical services in the previous year paying some amount out-of-pocket for health care. > > [li] **Uninsured people often pay “up front” before services will be rendered.** [/li]When people without health coverage are unable to pay the full medical bill in cash at the time of service, they can sometimes negotiate a payment schedule with a provider, pay with credit cards (typically with high interest rates), or can be turned away. > > [li] **People without health coverage spend less than half of what those with coverage spend on health care, but pay for a larger portion of their care out-of-pocket.** [/li]In 2008, the average person who was uninsured for a full-year incurred $1,686 in total health care costs compared to $4,463 for the nonelderly with coverage. The uninsured pay for about a third of this care out-of-pocket, totaling $30 billion in 2008. This included the health care costs for those uninsured all year and the costs incurred during the months the part-year uninsured have no health coverage. > > [li]\*\*The remaining costs of their care, the uncompensated costs, amounted to about $57 billion in 2008. \*\*[/li]About 75% of this total ($42.9 billion) was paid by federal, state, and local funds appropriated for care of the uninsured population. Nearly half of all funds for uncompensated care come from the federal government, with the majority of federal dollars flowing through Medicare and Medicaid. While substantial, these government dollars amount to a small slice (2%) of total health care spending in the U.S. > [/ul] ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/71 "2013-09-22T06:15:21Z")
So the difference is $27 billion. However, the article also points out that the uninsured only spend less than half of what people with insurance spend. Which means that if you insure more people, you pay MORE money overall, not less. So there is no savings. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/72 "2013-09-22T06:28:29Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > So the difference is $27 billion. However, the article also points out that the uninsured only spend less than half of what people with insurance spend. Which means that if you insure more people, you pay MORE money overall, not less. So there is no savings. And you can say that only by ignoring what I posted, funny that. In another thread it was very clear that the difference in costs from the old system in several states and plans compared where the law is being implemented is a big one, clearly the costs in the current irrational system that we have are a big factor in preventing more people from working as the costs swallow many jobs. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/73 "2013-09-22T07:34:12Z")
From the point of view of someone living in a Parliamentary Democracy, I think that this is something that the Founding Fathers did not foresee- the speed of the political circus and the importance of government to the people in a 21st century world. In the eighteenth century with extended time lines and very limited government involvement in the lives of ordinary people, waiting two years to elect a new House might seem reasonable- it took months for information to spread throughout the area controlled by the US in 1789. Added to which, the regularity of elections make single issue elections difficult. If a parliamentary democracy were in this position, the PM (who with the royal preogative has very similar powers to the US President) would dissolve Parliament and go to the country on a matter of supply- that Parliament would not authorise the money needed for government. A single issue election would then be held to decide (see Australia in the ?70s). A modern state cannot go 2 years without supply. An eighteenth century one could wiothout serious harm. And additionally, one of the advantages of an unwritten constitution is that it can develop organically in a way that a rigid one cannot do easily (unless SCOTUS bends the rules as above.) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/74 "2013-09-22T07:40:57Z")
Seems to me that we’re doing just fine with nothing getting done. Our economic growth has been superior to Europe’s. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/75 "2013-09-22T13:43:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > So, tell me where the savings is? Here is the sentence you seem to object to: > [@](#): > > Obamacare is coded by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office as saving the government money, in part, because it addresses the problem of health care freeloaders. Here’s my new wording: “Obamacare is coded by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office as reducing the deficit, in part, because it addresses the problem of health care freeloaders.” Now do you agree with the whole post? Didn’t think so. Why is it fair that someone who could have afforded heath insurance, doesn’t take it out, gets in a motorcycle accident, incurs $800,000 in medical bills, then gets to walk away from the bills by going bankrupt or just not paying? And then I have to pay for his care through higher taxes and premiums. One answer of the rabid right is that the hospital shouldn’t have to provide care once it sees it won’t get paid. But, aside from the inconceivable immorality of kicking people out of intensive care onto the street, this has been illegal since at least 1986, and there is no serious possibility for going back on that. Conservatives should like the Affordable Care Act for addressing the freeloader problem. Liberals should, and do, like it for addressing the human costs of families being bankrupted by emergency care while facing lack of non-emergency health care availability. Once in place, universal health care\* is not controversial among liberals or conservatives (check out the politics of health care in not-so radically liberal countries like Germany and Switzerland). In three months, after millions of Americans get Affordable Health Care, smart Repubicans know it will be, as this linked headline correctly states, [too late](http://townhall.com/columnists/marcorubio/2013/09/17/defund-obamacare-before-its-too-late-n1701860) to go back. This is because people want to have health insurance they can afford at their income level – just what Obamacare provides. The GOP has good reason to be scared of Obamacare, but mostly because they made the mistake of not supporting a plan similar to that championed by Republican wonks – until the Democrats were for it. * * * - The Affordable Care Act is not 100 percent there with universal coverage, especially in states like mine with an obstructionist GOP governor. But it goes far towards universal care. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/76 "2013-09-22T22:34:19Z")
Republicans did support an individual mandate, but it wasn’t for comprehensive insurance. Catastrophic insurance is sufficient and is the source of unpaid medical bills, not doctors’ visits or broken legs. Obamacare not only requires comprehensive insurance, but requires people to pay for services they don’t want or need, because some other group might want those services and that group i politically important to the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/77 "2013-09-22T22:48:46Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Obamacare not only requires comprehensive insurance, but requires people to pay for services they don’t want or need, because some other group might want those services and that group i politically important to the Democrats. Nice dance you did there. But we can still see the words you mentally crossed out and replaced with that convoluted phrase. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/78 "2013-09-22T22:52:47Z")
Arguing with someone who can’t write more than one off-the-wall sentences by actually, you know, researching things and quoting expert sources is wonderful exercise - in the event you find anyone who is legitimately looking for answers. And now, we have him revising the original GOP position. Some folks are simply wrong and are quite happy to ignore reality and continuing stating WRONG nonsense. I haven’t seen anyone so consistently and determinedly wrong since the late, unlamented **Handy**. The problem with the ignore function is, that without critical posts, the thread seems to jerk from topic to sub-topic, back to original, then another tangent, without cohesive reason. Unfortunately, it is the posts of WRONG people which cause those jerking subject changes, so we need to see them. At least it isn’t like the poor Judge which has to read 100 pages of FMoTL/Sovereign Citizen crap in case there is a hint of a relevant word or two within. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/79 "2013-09-22T23:00:40Z")
Actually, you’re wrong, and you only make yourself more wrong by harping on other posters while being so, er, wrong. The primary way that ACA is funded is through taxes and spending cuts. The money saved on solving the freeloader problem, which BTW doesn’t even come close to being solved due to the nature of the mandate and what the courts will allow, is tiny compared to the overall bill. ACA does not save money. It costs money. There’s no way around that. The fact that there are bits and pieces of savings here and there(like the student loan reform that was a part of the bill) is nice, but it’s such a small part of the bill that it’s barely worth mentioning. It’s disingenous to sell health care reform as “saving money” because 3% of it or whatever is paid for by in theory solving the freeloader problem. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202/80 "2013-09-22T23:01:50Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Republicans did support an individual mandate, but it wasn’t for comprehensive insurance. Catastrophic insurance is sufficient and is the source of unpaid medical bills, not doctors’ visits or broken legs. As one who has lived with catastrophic insurance for three years, I can tell you that it only works for those with the financial foundation to be able to pay the high deductibles and take advantage of the pre-tax HSA accounts that often are a part of catastrophic coverage. With my policy, I am out $8500 before they pay half of the next $3000. What has your experience been with catastrophic coverage? How well does it work for your friends of limited means? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-obstructionism-and-the-constitution-and-scotus/669202.md?page=5)