# If the courts strike down health-care reform **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 20, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295 "2011-01-20T04:25:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/21 "2011-01-20T16:27:57Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Because that’s not what Congress did in this legislation. They **could** have approved a tax, spent the proceeds on the General Welfare (for health care), and even exempted or given a deduction to people who already had insurance. “Medicare for All” would clearly be within the Section Eight taxing and spending power. how does the individual mandate work? can i get some evidence to support your claims too? it’s not a gotcha or anything - i’m genuinely curious because i thought they worked the mandate as a “you don’t get the tax break” kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/22 "2011-01-20T16:37:40Z")
nm on the evidence - I am reading the actual court filings in the case now. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/23 "2011-01-20T18:45:06Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The general concept is that the federal government is one of limited, enumerated powers, supreme law but limited to those specific grants of power the Constitution gives it. Congress starts out with zero power, in other words, and gains only those powers the Constitution gives it. I know that this is a whole other topic, but it seems to me that the federal government keeps expanding its power the Tenth Amendment has been ignored for a long, long time. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/24 "2011-01-20T19:39:53Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I am wondering what the unintended consequences of overturning the mandate will be. Suppose SCOTUS declares the mandate unconstitutional, but the ban on pre-existing conditions stays. Congress can’t repeal the bill, because Republicans don’t control the Senate or the White House. That will bankrupt the insurance companies, because only the sick people will get insurance, and they can’t be turned down. Will that mean the end of private health insurance, and the inevitability of federal socialized health insurance? I suspect that one solution would be for the insurance exchanges to avoid ‘adverse selection’ (buying insurance after you get sick or injured) would be to set rates and enrollment periods to encourage people to buy insurance early. Medicare already does this - if you don’t sign up at 65, you pay a higher rate - forever. Also, you can only sign up during an open enrollment period of a few months each year. Get sick the day after - wait until next year for coverage. I suspect that both of those would be allowed under the existing bill but congress could also tweak the bill (after heavy lobbying from the insurance industry) to allow time-limited exclusion of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Not as good as a mandate (from the insurance industry point of view), but they might be able to limp along with it and stay in business for another generation or two. It will be interesting to watch - the insurance lobby and the tea partiers have opposing positions on the mandate. What is a member of congress to do? ---
**Author:** ![MemoryLeak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@MemoryLeak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MemoryLeak)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/25 "2011-01-24T19:23:39Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > How about flood inusrance. The feds mandate people in flood zones buy that, don’t they? > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > One difference, as far as the courts are concerned is that a person chooses to live in a flood zone. If you don’t want to pay the flood insurance, move out of the flood zone. But somebody can’t take any action to avoid the health insurance mandate; everyone has to buy health insurance. I believe if you want a federally-backed mortgage (or, in practice, any mortgage) and the property is in a flood zone, you need to purchase and maintain the insurance. Same with home (fire) insurance. Your mortgage likely requires you maintain it, not the gubermint. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/26 "2011-01-24T20:48:23Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > Where did I say forced? The standard comparison to the health-insurance mandate is auto insurance. To not have to pay anything, just give up the car. For health-insurance, you either pay or get fined. To not have to pay anything you have to be dead. True as far as it goes. For the analogy to be better we’d have to pretend that owning a car was a fact of life. If you are a human being, you have a car. The fact of being alive means you are susceptible to getting injured. It makes no difference how carefully you live your life, everyone is capable of being injured/getting sick. Most, indeed practically all, people will avail themselves of health care at some point in their life and there is no way to guess ahead of time whether they will need $500 of health service in their life or $500,000. If that person opts out of the health insurance then you and I are left paying the bill and that person gets a free ride. The only other alternative is to card everyone seeking healthcare and if they cannot prove they are insured (or can otherwise pay) they are turned away at the door and left to die on the street (or more interestingly you can pay (say) $5,000 out-of-pocket and when that is up the hospital wheels you to the street and dumps you on the curb regardless of what state you are in). ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/27 "2011-01-25T01:13:30Z")
Well, like I said, if they actually did a tax I would have no objections. A tax is transparent to most people. Except for small groups of people like the self-employed you don’t really do anything to have the tax taken out of your paycheck or unemployment check or what-have-you. But with a forced mandate you have another bill to pay. On top of all of the other ones. And they you have to worry about being able to afford it. Oh yeah, the government will subsidize people who are too poor, but frequently, what the government considers too poor, and what actually is too poor are two different things. Then you have lots of people in the middle trying to decide if they pay their insurance bill, or electric, or buy some groceries because despite what the government says, they can’t afford, or can barely afford to buy their own insurance. True, from what I’ve heard businesses will have to start paying insurance for part time workers, so for a lot of people their jobs will take care of most of it, but the if you get fired, laid off, or switch jobs and have time in-between then it becomes mandatory for you to pay, and that’s hundreds of dollars, even if this plan will lower prices over-all. And will all businesses be required to supply insurance for their employees, or just businesses with a certain amount of employees? For these reasons and others, I feel that this is too intrusive and in-your-face and will cause financial hardship for the people who fall in the middle of those who can afford it and those who get subsidized. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/28 "2011-01-25T02:46:20Z")
Let me see if I’ve got this straight: you’re opposed because paying a bill is more onerous than paying taxes? ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295/29 "2011-01-25T04:53:50Z")
That’s not the only reason, but it’s one of them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-courts-strike-down-health-care-reform/568295.md?page=1)