No Scotus/Obamacare thread?

Oh, get the fuck outta here with that bullshit.

Pay Guido his protection money, or he'll break your arm. You still have a choice, right?

FTFY.

You're right. I misspoke. They are forcing you to do something. However they are not forcing you to get health insurance.

The fine you pay goes into a health care pool. They are forcing you to buy private health care, or gub'mint health care.

Not exactly. As I understand it, you pay the fine, but you're still uninsured. If you opt out, pay the fine, and then get sick, you're double-screwed because you have to pay for your medical care out of pocket. The only thing the fine gets you is that if you later decide you want healthcare, you can get it...during a set enrollment period...regardless of any pre-existing conditions.

Nooooooooooo, not hardly.

1) Your definition of forcing is far too limited. Force is beyond threatening to shoot me. The govt forces people to do things using punishments of they are not complied with. The punishment can be jail, fines, death penalty, confiscation of property etc. Anytime the the govt uses a aversive consequence if you do not follow their wishes that is force. It may not be maximum force, but force it is.

2) Fair enough. Change the Care to Insurance and everything else remains true. Mind you, an insurance plan can require you to obtain certain health care to keep their policy. Since if you don't and they drop you, you'd be in violation and fined, in essance what I've said is really true anyway as far as Health Care goes.

Well, you originally said you weren't given a choice. I'm just saying that's not true.

I've never had an insurance company do that to me.

If someone puts a gun to your head and says do this or I'll kill you, you have a choice. Few would argue that is not force however.

There are insurance plans that require annual physicals etc. I'm sure as the govt cuts profits and raises expenses to the companies they will require more and more preventative care in the hopes of not having to pay out huge dollars when you go to the doctor for the first time in 10 years and find out you haven advanced disease.

Well, sure. If we take it to an extreme that's obsurd enough, it does start to look like you don't have a choice.

Well if you're SURE, then I guess that changes things.

Oh, if only there had been some way for the insurance industry and healthcare professionals to take responsibility for the skyrocketing costs they created themselves -!

Wow, that is wrong on so many levels. First of all, Fed regulations preventing interstate sale of insurance has caused competition to be almost zero compared to what it could and should be with an open market. Add into that ever increasing regulations on what private companies must cover and pay for and you have the mess we currently have.

That is not to say the companies and medical profession do not also share some of the blame, but regulation by govt as usual is the primary cause of the expenses.

There are many positive reforms that would actually work and lower costs for all. Sadly Obamacare is the exact opposite of what is needed to accomplish this. That is why the current 10 year cost prediction from now is $1.76 trillion, almost double the lie Obama fed us.

FTFY

Another factor is an interesting, schizo aspect of Healthcare as compared with other industries.

In almost every other industry, especially manufacturing, technological innovations result in higher quality and more efficiency at a lower cost.

For example, a hand crafted car is more expensive than a factory produced car.

In the Health Care industry, technological innovations result in higher quality and more efficiency at a higher cost.

For example, a surgery that's hands on, with a bunch of people standing around the table with one dude saying, "scalpel", "sutures", "clamp" is less expensive than a robot controlled by one doctor doing the same procedure.

I'm not sure why that is.

And when your arm gets broken, the good people of Nebraska will be paying to fix it because you were too selfish to buy health insurance.

That's that the bottom line, which so horribly argued yesterday, is.

The mandate isn't a tax, and it's not a gun to your head. It's forcing those without health insurance to make some kind of contribution to the health care that they will need at some point in their lives. It's to prevent those twin conservative bugaboos of handouts and free stuff. Right wingers used to be against those.

I planned on starting a thread when the wailing and nashing of teeth from the parasites who are about to be heartbroken begins.

Soon, their hope shall runneth dry.

:sip:

Oh Mike, you make this soooooooo easy.

Even leaving aside your self-contradicting statement, show me where in the Constitution Congress is given authority to compel me to purchase a commercial product I might not want. Go ahead, I'll wait.

That's exactly what it is. Either have some kind of insurance (employer based, private, high-risk pool, etc) or pay a small fine.

And the fine isn't some crushing burden. $95 the first year, and never more than 2.5% of your income.

Far less than you'll be stealing from the people in your state when you go to the ER without insurance and get loads of free stuff...er, free care.

I don't equate paying taxes with a JBT sticking a gun to my head. Because, you know, I'm not delusional.

More on Verrilli's choke yesterday: http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/28/the-mystery-of-donald-verrillis-supreme-court-choke/

I heard some of this, it was brutal.

So which is it? A tax, or a penalty? It's important from a legal standpoint.

And if you don't believe the collection of taxes is backed with threat of force, you're a naive fool.

I'm not a constitutional lawyer, so you'll be waiting a while. Might want to make yourself some coffee.

My argument is my opinion on why I think the individual mandate is important, why freeloaders shouldn't be allowed to drive up my costs and trying to bust a few of the idiotic myths that have grown up around health care reform.

As for the constitutionality of the mandate, that's for SCOTUS to decide.

Your problem is your such a leftist drone you don't get it. It's not about freeloaders. It's about the fact that healthcare is a personal thing and one that people are responsible for on their own. You're so used to sucking off the govt teat that you take for granted its the govt's job to be responsible for healthcare. It's not. That ends the whole issue. The Consitution does not grant the Federal Govt rights to have anything to do with healthcare.

Oh, and keep up. Black Jesus himself has said its a fine, not a tax. Recently. Before it was a tax and not a fine according to him. All that's clear is that he's a clueless miserable failure.

My understanding is that SCOTUS decided on it being a penalty on the first day of arguments. If it were a tax, they couldn't have proceeded to the next day because, legally, you can't sue over a tax the government hasn't issued yet. So they'd have had to wait to 2014 to hear the case.

They're hearing the case, so it must not be a tax.

Healthcare is a "personal thing." Unless you have no insurance, then it's the "thing" of those who are paying for it instead of you. I had no idea you were so enamored of moochers and free stuff, Captain J.

And as Shoes said, it's been established that the mandate is a fine and not a tax. The gov't wasn't arguing that point on Monday. SCOTUS had to appoint a lawyer to argue the point, because neither side was advocating it.

So, yeah, keep up.

Under the Constitution, it is the state govt's that have the legal right to deal with healthcare and those who cannot afford it. The Fed gov't has no Constitutional right to be involved at all.

End of story.

And how, pray tell, did the doctors break it? By ordering test upon test that "weren't needed"? Except that 1)the patient heard about the test (same as they hear about medication) and felt they needed it and 2) without the tests the doctor couldn't do the treatment they wanted to do because the insurance company said no proof and 3) patients sue at the drop of the hat.
Perhaps if LAWYERS had looked over the many law suits they filed and told the patients "Look, no harm no foul. So your belly button isn't exactly in the middle of your tummy where it was - neither is the two tons of fat he removed for you" we wouldn't have such high insurance rates.

Obviously not.

Some Justices Suggest Preserving Part of Health Law

Just because the Constitition is being violated without consequence does not make it Constititional.