One other thought: remember that the health insurance companies are paying tax on that $400m/quarter profit. That tax can then be funneled back into the hands of those who are aren’t as well off to get healthcare - in fact it is already, through S-CHIP, grants to the states, etc.
For a guy who claims he is not a conservative, Mr Smashy sure likes to quote a lot of far-right sources. That’s ok though: he substantiates his arguments. Let me extend a belated welcome to the board to Smashy!
George Will doesn’t pen columns with an intent to inform his readers. I don’t have a problem with bias: I do have a problem with those who misinform their readers even when their error has been pointed out to them. Since you are citing a matter of opinion (constitutional interpretation) even reading GW is problematic. Incidentally, the linked example also demonstrates weak editing at the Washington Post.
Moving on to substance, we can cut through Will’s wishful thinking and move directly to his quoted expert:
Emphasis added. Now if Mr. Smashy is saying that the Supreme Court may uphold it, but the law is unconstitutional in his opinion anyway, that’s a separate matter. If that’s the case, then I’m dubious that he will be able to demonstrate a fundamental violation of human or civil rights.
In other news: Exec pay limits belong in another thread. Translation: I won’t address that here, but I don’t have a problem with Smashy bringing up the subject.
mswas: What DWMarch said, perhaps less dramatically. 18,000 - 45,000 die annually from lack of health insurance. Lowering that number by half or more is a noble endeavor, even it unprecedented Republican obstructionism doesn’t bring the figure closer to zero.
- I’m not a conservative but I think Will’s writing is excellent. He also illustrated the argument I was trying to make about the unconstitutionality of forced purchases mandated by Congress. If you disagree, feel free to address the issue of whether forced purchase of cars would be constitutional.
- The fact he would quote a guy he disagrees with, I would think would bolster his cred not damage it. And of course it’s opinion - even after the Supremes rule on it. He refutes Stuart’s arguments pretty effectively.
- I didn’t bring up exec pay limits, someone else did. I simply explained (proved, really) why it’s bad public policy to limit exec pay as some misguided strategy to lower health insurance premiums.
Edit to add: Thanks for the welcome!
Quoting somebody you disagree with tends to boost your credibility, an observation that rhetoricians are familiar with. (SDMB posters take note!) But it’s been documented that Will isn’t a reliable information source, a fact independent of his ideology.
The “Forced auto purchase” point is…odd. As Bork would say, it certainly fails the reasonable person test: forcing people to buy a consumer product wastes resources in a way that forcing people to buy insurance does not, assuming a universal desire for health, an aversion to death and friends and family who are affected by the loss of others.
Moreover, as far as I can tell, Will completely skips over the central argument for insurance mandates: private insurance markets will fall apart if you ban pre-existing conditions without it. I trust Will knows about what economists call adverse selection: he just decided not to mention it. So yeah, I would opine that regulating a market sufficiently so that interstate market won’t self-destruct does fall under the commerce clause.
Whatever his literary ability, George Will is not a man who is interested in informing his audience: he has a separate mission.
Exec pay limitations are beyond stupid, be it health, oil, or Pepsi. It is a very convenient way to rouse the audience, and incite emotion from the commoners towards the elites.
For me it comes down to moral character. I was a lifeguard growing up and I think we made about $8 an hour (paid for by taxes). It wouldn’t occur to me to see someone drowning and think profit. I made a lot of rescues, and when I look back there were cases that people would have agreed to ANYTHING to have me help them.
Think about that for a second. You’re drowning, and out comes a lifeguard. How much are you willing to pay to not die? How much can I ask for?
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.
How much are you willing to give up when death is eminent. For conservatives, do you see any upper limit to how much someone can ask for? Let free markets decide? The invisible hand?
I can tell you right now the invisible hand wasn’t about to pull that guy out of the surf. Was it the result of government intervention that there weren’t more lifeguards on the beach waiting to provide rescue for a slightly lower fee?
So I guess I’m not even sure where to begin, when I hear that a health insurance exec makes more than $8 an hour. How does he/she/it sleep at night knowing that his bed was paid for from a claim denial? His salary is the result of taking in more premiums than he pays out. There are people that are sick and dying because they can’t afford or don’t have access to his product.
A lot of conservatives on this board would then point to silly extremes like iPods and sneakers at one end, or houses at the other. But at the route of it we are talking about people’s health and well being. To me it is a modest contribution from those with means, so that those without won’t die unnecessarily.
I was recently asked what I am willing to give up. Should I be in a house with electricity when others have none. I don’t want or need to be a martyr, and I am not a saint. I also lack the $90billion required to solve this problem. I alone can’t make a difference. But I’m willing to chip in my fair share to be part of society, and my society includes the poor.
Now let me hit the Commerce argument directly.
So, if Congress can require everybody to purchase health insurance, that means their power is infinite? Even allowing for hyperbole, that doesn’t follow at all. If the government’s purpose includes providing for the common welfare, and the common welfare involves healthcare, mandating purchase of such healthcare insurance (with subsidies and with attention to undue hardship as well as 8th amendment issues) seems entirely reasonable.
Some states require all citizens to carry identification papers. They are usually provided only after paying a fee. Now I can think of a lot of problems with that, but the objection that big guv is requiring a purchase strikes me as a rather weak one.
Other posters have pointed out the oddity of opposing mandatory purchases but not taxes. I’ll note that not all taxes are tied to income: poll taxes for example are per-person charges. Again, I have lots of objections to such a tax, but Commerce Clause issues aren’t anywhere near the top of my list.
emacknight: A great deal of expensive effort in the US is devoted to making sure others pay for a patient’s health care bills. But that’s the case in both for-profit insurance companies and not-for-profit hospitals. The problem is with the incentives that we’ve set up.
Now there are a number of fixes for that, some but not all involving public insurance or medicare for everybody. But in this context, there’s no guarantee that caps on executive pay (for example) would automatically result in higher quality or even cheaper care. That’s an empirical matter.
I guess I should have mentioned that I’m Canadian. The idea of any profit margin based on the suffering of human beings is both alien and offensive to me.
If my rhetoric comes across as a little fiery it’s because I don’t think anyone should have to suffer the way US citizens do when it comes to health care. Yet it’s a choice you (the royal you I mean) keep making, over and over again. I could just say “Screw it, I’ve got mine, I don’t care what those silly Americans do with themselves” but I actually honestly hate to see people suffering for no reason. Or worse, suffering so someone else can get rich.
Well, I could say that heath care companies make a profit on ALLEVIATING human pain and suffering, at least to the best of their abilities. Even down here in the lands of evil those few Americans who can still get health care generally go there because it tends to alleviate their suffering and pain.
But I won’t go there. Instead, I’ll ask a question: Do the companies who produce your military hardware work on a non-profits base? Assuming they make one of those horrid ‘profit’ things, how do you feel about that? Does your government alienate and offend you by such a practice?
-XT
…and you would be partly right. And partly wrong. Lots of money is made on the basis of denying care to the sick, who had paid their premiums up to that point. The technical name for this insurance company practice is recission.
Lots of people are appalled at the resources devoted to military spending. And during WWII the public was highly suspicious of war profiteers. But today the word, “Free market”, tends to dispel consternation of all manner of morally dubious activities, at least among modern conservatives.
But my take is on these objections to market institutions is, “Never mind the absolutes, what’s the alternative? What are the policy options? And what are the empirical consequences?”
Nice link. Man, I wish that analyst drilled down further. I’d want him to add top executive compensation into the numerator and describe the denominator in greater detail.
Ok, cutting health care costs by 3.4% would be a wonderful thing. But it would hardly solve our long run problems. And using rough numbers it would boost GDP growth in a single year by about half of a percentage point. And that would be it. The key to long run cost control ultimately lies in the incentives faced by health care innovators and the management practices of health care providers and paper pushers.
Sure, and I agree, it sucks. I KNOW it sucks since I have personal experience with insurance companies doing this to a member of my family. They essentially decided that experimental medicine and treatments were too expensive and they would not cover them.
That said though, you do realize that the government will ALSO have to deny care to the sick at some point or another, and it will also be about money. Oh, sure, it won’t be about anything evil like maintaining profits or nasty stuff like that, but it will be about budgets and bottom lines…and it will happen.
The rather fucked up system we have traces it’s roots back for decades…decades of the government sticking it’s collective thumbs into the pot to ‘fix’ various ‘problems’, of special interest groups tieing strings to the key politicians and committees arms and manipulating them to make this concession or that special case, and of the health industry attempting to survive and prosper in this malleable environment…and, frankly, that same health care industry ALSO figuring out the best way to game the system, to play by the rules (both those intended and those unintended) but to use those rules in order to prosper.
In the end, however, despite insurance companies gaming the system with things like the ‘recission’ from your cite, they are still mainly in the business of alleviating peoples pain and suffering. As with many things in the US, the majority get their pain and suffering alleviated while the minority get shafted, unless they are VERY sick…in which case we pick up the bill.
Where as the word ‘profit’ seems to set modern liberals off into a near feeding frenzy. 
-XT
Well, insofar as experimental treatments are considered, I suspect you are correct. And one way or another $10 million treatments will be passed over, due to their lack of cost-effectiveness. (My favored approach: private supplemental insurance, appropriately regulated.)
But rescission is something else. Rescission occurs when somebody has a pre-existing condition that wasn’t disclosed. The most notorious case was when a woman didn’t disclose that she was treated for acne and years later was denied breast cancer treatment. The 2 maladies had nothing to do with one another, but the insurance company didn’t care. (And frankly, given pressures from both competitors and capital markets, I’m neither surprised nor especially bent out of shape. What is required is reform.)
Oh c’mon. Market fundamentalism had a lot to do with the US government’s reluctance to make the sort of reforms launched years ago by other advanced nations. As I said earlier, where there is broad consensus, the special interests can be defeated. As an example, I’d point to the tough fiscal policy conducted in the 1990s, ultimately transforming record peacetime budget deficits into budget surpluses.
PROFIT!!! ARRRR My Ears!!! 
I don’t see military equipment manufacturers the same way. It’s only in the world of 24 where a military contractor says “Hey let’s start a war so we can make more money!” In reality, they’re just working people. They don’t decide how the equipment gets used or who suffers on account of it. They obviously make more money when a war is on and less when we’re at peace. So I don’t mind them making some money right now because they’re not going to make any from the next Liberal government up here. The manufacture of military equipment is essentially seasonal employment.
Insurance companies on the other hand… they have people who have a specific job of finding reasons to deny your coverage. The “death panels” Sarah Palin was so worried about already exist and are accountable to no one.
There is no legitimate reason why anyone in the United States should have to give up the American dream because they get sick. There is no legitimate reason why someone should have to stay in a job they hate simply because they are afraid of losing their health care coverage. And there is no legitimate reason why a company should be rewarded for saying no to people who honestly need help with issues they have no power over.
LOL…I cant understand this concept. Its like a cable company cutting you off because you watch too much TV, even though you paid the bill in full. Arent there rules against this behavior in the US? Don`t you have some sort of Consumer Protection system in place where if you purchase a good or service, you actually can get that good or service, so long as you pay your bills? :smack:
I’ve heard the general welfare tripe trotted out time and again whenever someone wants to justify a congressional action that is clearly not among the enumerated powers. I don’t buy it, sorry. I understand that there isn’t a settled version as to what that was supposed mean… in the Constitutional Convention, for example, Charles McHenry of Maryland suggested the inclusion of a power to enable the legislature to erect piers for the protection of shipping and as an aid to navigation. Gouverneur Morris advised McHenry that this could be done under the General Welfare clause. The clause was eventually used to justify the establishment of a National Bank (over the objections of Jefferson, by the way).
And while *infinite *may be a slight exaggeration, I’m sure you recognize the difference between taxes and forced purchases, vis a vis contitutionality. Such a slippery slope!
As for states requiring all citizens to have to purchase ID… can you provide more details? That doesn’t ring true. And even if it did, I personally have much less problem with states doing that than the feds, a la the 10th.
PS: Poll taxes? What’s next, your campaign against dropsy or the vapors? 
Heck, no. Your cable company might not cut off your TV if you watch too much of it, but they’ll cut off your Internet or hit you with incremental charges if you’re a heavy user (even if you’re on an “all you can eat” plan).
As for health insurance companies, its easier for them to invest in finding ways to deny claims than it is to invest in innovation - reducing their costs and boosting their margins by introducing some efficiency into the claims approval process.
Im sorry, but Ive never heard of a cable company cutting off internet access to those who have paid for unlimited access. Is it possible to back up this statement please?
I have become convinced that no political evolution is possible in this country. Any change from one year to the next, or one President to the next, occurs over only a narrow band of the political spectrum, well to the right of center. Every so often a more pronounced left-wing or (usually) right-wing position gains traction, but inevitably gets pulled back to the narrow band by reaction on the other side. Obama and the Dems winning in 2008 wasn’t a signal for real change, but just a natural reaction to the Bush years. People in this country vote for change, but then protest it’s being shoved down their throats when their leaders try to actually bring it about.