I’ve been saying this for a while, here’s more evidence:
A federal district court judge in Florida ruled today that a key provision in the new health care law is unconstitutional, and that the entire law must be voided.
Roger Vinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, agreed with the 26 state-government plaintiffs that Congress exceeded its authority by passing a law penalizing individuals who do not have health insurance.
“I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate,” Vinson writes. “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.”
Reluctantly!
The Truth
Ahahahahhahaha.
Suck it, Obama!
Nick L
Also, too, on page 42 of the ruling Vinson cited the Boston Tea Party:
Such principled legal reasoning! This Vinson guy is a fucking class act!
Angry Black Lady
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47906586/Florida-Federal-Judge-Voids-Entire-Health-Care-Law
here’s the ruling in case anyone wants to read it.
a citation to the federalist papers and to marbury v. madison within the first few pages?
damn you to hell, constitutional commerce clause theory!
::shakes fist::
Angry Black Lady
@Nick L: yeah, looks like vinson really went for broke, knowing that the opinion would be scattered hither and thither across the internets.
Poopyman
“He then giggled uncontrollably and danced around the room”, the report did not say.
Yes, the Rethuglicanization of the judiciary over the past 30 years has been a major, surreptitious victory for the GOP. Not that it’s “judicial activism”, or anything of the sort.
4tehlulz
TEA = HEALTH CARE
TEA = HEALTH CARE
TEA = HEALTH CARE
joe from Lowell
Uh, champ? Congress passed An Act For the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen, a mandate for private citizens to purchase health insurance from private companies, in 1798. It was signed into law by…wait for it…President John Adams.
http://www.pissedonpolitics.com/?p=3758
So, no, you really don’t have any “intent of the framers” argument to make here. The framers passed a law doing precisely what you’re telling us they couldn’t do.
bushworstpresidentever
All of these district court opinions, to be followed by the circuit court of appeals cases that will come down the road, are nothing but sideshows to the day that Anthony Kennedy decides whether the law passes muster. As they did in Bush v. Gore, you can expect that Scalia and Thomas (followed by Roberts and Alito) will willfully ignore 80 years of precedent vis a vis the Commerce Clause (while saying that they aren’t doing so)to find the law unconstitutional. So it will all turn on Justice Kennedy, and what side of the bed he gets up from on that day…
(One further thought, Judge Vinson was practically hand picked by Bill McCollum to get this case when he filed in the ND Fla, Pensacola Division.)
The Truth
I can’t wait until this gets struck down by SCOTUS. You’ll be even crazier than after Bush v. Gore.
We always win in the end, liberals.
lol
When are we going to find out that the judge’s wife works for one of the plaintiffs or some other conflict of interest?
Napoleon
He was so reluctant that he ignored that in fact the law does not mandate that you buy insurance but you just get hit with a tax if you do not. The constitution clearly allows Congress to levy taxes. His opinion is BS.
gbear
Let’s just pack it up. This nation is officially ungovernable.
Elvis Elvisberg
@Angry Black Lady: Indeed. I mean, the entire Act must be declared unconstitutional? That violates every principle there is. I don’t just mean the usual criticism of conservatives, that they call every decision they like “principled” and ones that they don’t like “activist.” I mean, we have a lengthy and complicated law here, and this guy sees one aspect as unconstitutional, and says the whole thing has to be chucked?
If he knew his decision would actually ever be applied as law, rather than simply be useful talking points for the GOP, he would presumably have issued a more reasonable opinion.
Morbo
For the record: this is totally not judicial activism.
Napoleon
@bushworstpresidentever:
The “individual mandate” doesn’t need to rely on the commerce clause because it is a tax.
fourlegsgood
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I can’t wait until this gets struck down by SCOTUS. You’ll be even crazier than after Bush v. Gore.
We always win in the end, liberals.
I hope you are the very first to get dropped by your insurance company the first time you get ill.
JGabriel
Just skimmed the decision. It’s a classic “State’s Rights” decision. Vinson’s ruling indicates that it’s perfectly okay for the states to mandate health insurance, but not the federal government.
I’m not sure that’ll hold up too well at the Supreme Court.
Can’t rule it out either, but, Vinson also left them a classic “split the baby” decision. Since he declared it unseverable, that means the Supremes can either agree with him, or disagree in one of two ways: they can declare the individual mandate constitutional, or they can declare it severable and send it back to Vinson to do the severing.
I guess it depends on Kennedy. Does anyone know if there’s a way for the Administration to fast track this through SCOTUS?
.
nitpicker
So this makes it Obama 14, Republicans 2. No biggie.
Julie
So, here’s the thing I don’t understand — why is this mandate considered unconstitutional, but the almost universal requirement that people carry car insurance isn’t? Is it because car insurance requirements are made at the state level? There’s probably a distinct legal difference, I’m just not sure what it is…?
fourlegsgood
Seriously, I am a better lawyer than these GOP clowns. And guess what? I’m not even a lawyer.
Kryptik
Sweet Christ we are screwed. If it really does come down to our Supremes, then we really are just fucked.
So hurray, teahadists. Enjoy your victory when two-thirds of your asses are unemployed and can’t afford health care because you thought spiting them there poor folk was a political winner. Assholes.
RalfW
I recommend that the defendants move for specific enforcement immediately. That way 24 year olds can be thrown off their parents insurance immediately, the prescription donuts hole snaps back to full size, small business subsidies end today, or latest tomorrow, etc.
These assholes who voted for Republicans in the Governorships as well as the US House want this law repealed, I say repeal it post-haste, good, bad, ugly, all of it.
Screw us all.
Yeah, that’s governing, GOP style!
(And yes, I do mean defendants. Admit defeat, hand the whole flaming shitbag to the Galtian overloads, and walk away).
fourlegsgood
Well, I guess we’ll just have to chuck it all and go back to “Medicare for All”
Or else dust off and nuke the GOP from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
nitpicker
@Julie: The Republican argument there is that states can require car insurance, but the federal government can’t.
Alex S.
Insurance companies like the mandate which is why the Supreme Court Justices will not kill the law, well, maybe the Tenthers, i.e. Scalia, Alito and Thomas. But not Roberts and Kennedy.
Poopyman
@fourlegsgood: Please don’t feed the trolls, Centaur.
eemom
reposting my comment from last thread because it is relevant, to which I add,
I don’t think it is incorrect to say that any judge who finds ACA “unconstitutional” is likely to be a Republican. I do think it is wrong to assume that any judge appointed by a Republican is likely to do this, for the reasons stated below. IIRC the federal judges that reviewed the Schiavo matter were mostly republican appointees.
As a general rule, I believe that most—MOST —federal judges, regardless of who appointed them, do strive to fulfill their responsibilities honestly and with integrity and without regard to politics. A good example of that was in the Schiavo circus, in which every federal court involved did the right thing and threw out whatever that bullshit bill was that Bush flew back from Crawford to sign.
However, my understanding (not being an expert in this area of law) is that the arguments of the purported “unconstitutionality” of the ACA really are bullshit arguments. Many issues can be honestly debated in constitutional law; that doesn’t mean there are no arguments that are just plain bullshit which deserve to be treated as such. Therefore, IMO, a judge striking this law down is conclusively presumed to be either a tool of its opponents or a true believer in their lies.
dr. bloor
@bushworstpresidentever:
This. Let’s hope Kennedy has learned a little something over the past ten years about the character of his colleagues and that idiotic decisions have consequences.
JGabriel
bushworstpresidentever:
Gosh, I’m so glad Good King Anthony will decide the future of our health care. Such a relief to know that life and death decisions for most of the country aren’t left to the despotic whim of a single individual.
.
hildebrand
Bleh – this means we are going to have to endure another few weeks of the media crowing about how Obama’s signature achievement is actually a disaster. The right will celebrate, the far left will kvetch, the media will run 87 more stories about process – and all of them will agree that Obama is an emotionless, out of touch, hack politician who just ‘doesn’t get it’.
Swell.
Julie
@nitpicker: That just seems… stupid? But I thought it must be something like that. Thanks for clarifying.
eemom
also as noted below, this decision doesn’t mean shit. It’s going to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, as the other district court decisions will go to theirs.
JGabriel
dr. bloor:
Because Citizens United showed what a good heart Kennedy has.
.
Kevin
@Julie: You beat me to it. I was going to ask about car insurance too. I’m Canadian, and don’t know for certain that you HAVE to have insurance as we do here.
Dave
This is unsurprising. A Reagan-appointee judge in the Redneck Riviera part of Florida found this unconstitutional? Shocking!
Still…the other GOP judge said nothing about it being unseverable. So you have one “toss it all out”, one “toss the mandate out” and 14 “you people are idiots”. Should make for some interesting Appeals Court decisions…
The Dangerman
@Kryptik:
I wouldn’t sweat the details on HCR; the USSC will say this is constitutional (the Pandora’s Box that would be opened if they go the other way is staggering). It just has to get there.
Of more interest to me are some of these draconian anti-choice measures that will surely be challenged and possibly lead to Roe being undone. Of course, this will result in the Right losing elections for the foreseeable future, but they will have that Pyrrhic victory.
Dave
@Kevin: Car insurance is by state. This is a federal mandate so the two are different in scope.
Julie
@Kevin: The requirements for how much/the type of car insurance you have to have vary for state to state, but I’m pretty certain that you must have it in some form, no matter where you live in the U.S.
Bubblegum Tate
@Morbo:
Absolutely not. It’s judicial constitutionalityishism.
Poopyman
OT, but something good to read from The Guardian:
dr. bloor
@Dave:
After the initial GOOPer said it was severable, I assume the memo went out to remind the carefully selected friendlies that the insurance industry was not pleased, and that the whole act needed to be torched.
cathyx
You don’t have to have car insurance if you don’t drive. That’s what is different between the healthcare mandate and auto insurance.
JGabriel
Seriously, given the Citizens United decision, I think we have to conclude that Kennedy is likely to side with his obstructive anti-Obama winger brethren on this case.
It’s time for Obama to implement an old FDR plan, and expand the SC by two more seats — that he gets to pick.
.
Captain Haddock
@Julie: Ha, Julie, good question. I don’t think all states require car insurance, so it could be a state vs. fed thing.
So far the MA health-care law hasn’t been tossed out, which tends to support the fed/state difference. But what the hell do I know?
hueyplong
Roberts is a reliable corporate stooge, and possibly so over party concerns (though such a conflict probably hasn’t actually come up for him in real life up to now). It’s not entirely certain that corporations will hate the mandate when push comes to shove. Remember, in those halcyon days before The Age of Teabagging, when the corporations more clearly called the GOP tune, the mandate was a Republican idea.
Joseph Nobles
Oh, hell, no. The issue behind the Boston Tea Party was taxation without representation. The current usurpers of the Tea Party name, each and every one, were represented in Congress and they lost. Vinson is tossing red meat around like mad.
Peter
Entirely offtopic, but it’s so incredible that I had to:
Lone Nepali Soldier Defends Potential Rape Victim Against 40 Men
I’m not sure I can properly define ‘hero’, but whatever it means, this guy is it.
Judas Escargot
Gee. Always wondered what it would be like to live in a shitty, neo-feudalist third-world country.
And thanks to the GOP (and their Chinese paymasters), I won’t even have to relocate!
gene108
@The Truth: How’s that separate but equal, segregation thingy working out for you? Or the push to keep women from voting thingy? Or the opposition to all environmental laws? Or the keeping of women out of the service academies thingy? Or the…hell…the list could go on and on…
Liberals have been kicking conservative ass for over 100 years. Those are the facts. Deal with it.
@JGabriel:
I trust the Roberts court to be non-partisan and unbiased, as much as I trust dumping my clothes in a bucket of water to be a good way to get them dry.
If this goes to the Supreme Court, look for a 5-4 decision striking the law down.
Why? Because it’s what the Republican half wants to do to please their political supporters.
General Stuck
vinson did not enjoin the law, so it remains in effect until all the next circuit court hears the certain appeal. Until one of these idiots has the nuts to actually enjoin and stop the implementation of the law, then there is no reason to fast track it to the SCOTUS, which is where it’s headed anyways. And if they strike it down, or part of it, then Pandora’s box will be opened for challenging 100 plus years of commerce clause leg.
Dave
And if anyone is curious, the 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals has five Dem appointed judges, six GOP (three by Bush Senior and one by Ford) and one vacancy.
Calouste
OT, but in good news today, the Egyptian army released a statement:
Dave
@dr. bloor: Apparently Vinson missed that Very Important Memo.
Violet
@Julie:
You don’t have to have car insurance. You just choose not to own and drive a car and then you don’t have to have car insurance.
The difference is, with the health care requirement, you would have to buy insurance no matter what. Everyone has to do it. It has nothing to do with any other decision you make, such as choice of transportation. I think that’s the key difference. You have to buy it just because you exist.
Kirbster
@Nick L: The Boston Tea Party reference is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. It wouldn’t pass muster in a junior high school debate on the healthcare law.
JGabriel
@cathyx:
Not according to Vinson’s decision, if I’ve read it correctly.
The difference, according to Vinson, is that: according to the Constitution, the state has the police power to tell you what to do, and the feds don’t — Vinson argues that such police power is reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment.
.
.
GregB
This country will get picked apart bit by bit as these libertarian anarchists enact their agenda one ruling at a time.
Joseph Nobles
And the other thing about the Boston Tea Party, it was about eliminating competition for the East India Company. This bill increases competition for the product in question. Vinson is an idiot.
RalfW
@cathyx:
So then it’s simple, you don’t have to have health insurance if you never get sick. Or if you are a Christian Scientist and pray your way back to health.
hueyplong
Pretty sure the government won’t be relying on “police power.”
Judas Escargot
@cathyx:
You don’t have to have car insurance if you don’t drive. That’s what is different between the healthcare mandate and auto insurance.
Not so simple, that: If you’re uninsured and end up in the ER because you were hit by a bus, it’s the taxpayer who’ll be footing your bill.
Unless we adopt the ‘let em bleed out on the street’ policy, health care will never be a retail good (like automobiles), and shouldn’t be treated like one.
The Truth
Anthony Kennedy is firmly on our side.
We hold all the cards, and this law is going down…
Poopyman
@Peter: Don’t fuck with Gurkhas. The British colonial forces owed their existence to those guys back in the bad old days.
Sentient Puddle
If the opinion comes down to federalism, it’s total bullshit. The law includes the ability for states to opt out of the mandate if they develop their own system that works as well as federal reform.
gene108
@Alex S.: Have the five Republican appointees ever not voted in lock-step, since Roberts has been Chief Justice?
I don’t follow SCOTUS stuff too closely, but it seems there are a bunch of 5-4 decisions lately, all down party lines.
I just can’t believe they will act independently as justices, since Republicans have turned into some kind of hive mind, where they all vote in lock-step with each other.
Redshift
@The Dangerman:
What, you don’t think they’ll pull a Bush v. Gore and just say “this does not set precedent; only applies to the current circumstances”?
JPL
If you live in a Republican district write your rep and ask if he would support a law to overturn that mandate.
Ask your representative whether they support that mandate. Get them on record in writing if possible because they are hypocritical.
Common Sense
@Napoleon:
But they didn’t call it a tax. It’s called a penalty.
This is the actual argument my teatard educated buddy used. Which caused me to wonder what the (T)axed (E)nough (A)lready party was so upset about. If it’s a penalty and not a tax, shouldn’t they be the Pea Party?
Violet
@RalfW:
Weren’t there some exceptions in the health care bill as to who had to buy it? Like Christian Scientists or perhaps the Amish or something? I know I remembered some discussion about that, but don’t know how it ended up in the end.
TR
Good piece on the state of the legal game by Andrew Cohen at Atlantic Monthly.
As he sees it, Scalia and Thomas are solidly against the mandate, but the other seven justices are still up for grabs. I think Alito might go with them, but possibly Roberts and definitely Kennedy will not.
JGabriel
@Dave:
Actually, yes, he did mention it. But he couldn’t bring himself to invalidate the whole thing — so, he at least had some scruples. Vinson, on the other hand, is completely without shame.
.
Judas Escargot
@JGabriel:
The difference, according to Vinson, is that: according to the Constitution, the state has the police power to tell you what to do, and the feds don’t — Vinson argues that such police power is reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment.
Um… okay. But doesn’t this line of reasoning invalidate decades of Federal laws in other areas? (Drug policy? Federal attempts to regulate abortion? Defense of Marriage Act? The Draft?).
Lawyers: Let’s assume the rightwingers get their wish, and get HCR ruled unconstitutional: Wouldn’t that open up a whole slew of potential lawsuits against all sorts of Federal overreach in other areas?
Why does health care get to be ‘special’, in any sense? Because to this non-lawyer, these folks are striking at one of the load-bearing walls of the Republic… all because of some irrational fear that somebody darker than they are might get a little health insurance.
cathyx
I don’t understand why so many are misunderstanding what I’m saying. Auto insurance is only mandatory if you drive a car. If you don’t, you don’t have to purchase auto insurance.
The healthcare mandate would have made it mandatory for everyone to purchase heathcare insurance, whether you are needing it or not.
jibeaux
@Julie:
Someone has not driven in Tennessee lately. If you ever do, God love ya, purchase everything you can on your rental/personal vehicle.
JPL
@Redshift: I agree because we are mandated to do several things. Hospitals are mandated not to turn away those that can not afford to pay their bills.
If you drive you are mandated to take driving tests. Auto insurance is mandated. Automobiles are a necessity in most of the county.
The Truth has health insurance and unfortunately our great exceptional nation is become one of keeping mine and hell with yours. We are exceptional that way.
gene108
@General Stuck:
The Commerce Clause is what allows all sorts of regulations by the Federal government (from what I understand), from labor laws to environmental laws.
I think there are conservatives having orgasms at just the thought that 100 years of how the commerce clause has been ruled by the courts will be overturned.
I wouldn’t put it past Republican judges to make the wet dreams of their corporate masters come true.
RalfW
@Violet:
No. You have to buy it for the same reason you have to buy auto insurance.
If you get sick and are uninsured, you will cost me, a taxpayer, money since my county hospital has to treat you and may well not get a dime back for their trouble.
I think people should have the right to opt out, but then they have to have “uninsured” tattooed somewhere prominent so that when they collapse of a heart attack, we can ignore them in their Galtian moment of transformation.
D.N. Nation
Wow, The Truth posts here now?
Shall we go through Troofy’s Greatest Hits from Sadly, No?
joe from Lowell
@cathyx:
Well, that, and the fact that it is perfectly legal, under the ACA, not to have health insurance.
You just pay more in taxes.
You can’t do that with car insurance.
jibeaux
@cathyx:
Right. Because as we all know, some people are impervious to illness and injury and it is
cue Wally Shawn
INCONCEIVABLE
that they would incur medical expenses they were unable to personally pay.
PeakVT
@JGabriel: How’s he going to do that when it’s Congress’s prerogative to decide the number?
jwb
@JGabriel: Won’t happen. New justices would need confirmation by the Senate. Any appointments would be filibustered to death on principle.
joes527
@fourlegsgood:
Dude.
The folks in orbit are going to hear your dogwhistle and respond with NUKES!
(think of the children)
jibeaux
@joe from Lowell:
That too.
Judas Escargot
@cathyx:
I understand, exactly, what you are saying: And the argument is wrong.
You can choose to never own a car. But you can’t (unfortunately) “choose” to never get sick or injured in an accident. You assumed ‘ownership’ of your body upon birth, whether you wanted to or not.
Apples, oranges.
Emerald
@Alex S.:
That’s what I think. I believe that in Roberts’ entire career he has upheld corporate interests 100% of the time. He never wavers.
The question will be whether the insurance corporations want the mandate (they do) more than they want the law overturned. By the time that decision happens, however, most if not all of the law will have been in effect for a long time. Even the Supremes watch public opinion. I really don’t think they’ll have the balls to throw sick people off their policies, strip under 26-year-olds from their parents’ policies, and make the elderly give back their checks.
Not to mention that if this law is unconstitutional, then so is Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment Insurance, with their mandated payments.
Won’t it be fun to watch them squirm out of that!
Chyron HR
@The Truth:
Bookmark this, libs. You will wonder how the Hell he was able to call it.
joe from Lowell
@gene108:
Teabaggers are not the Republicans SCOTUS’s political supporters. There are a whole lot of things in the ACA that the actual political supporters of the establishment Republicans (like health insurance companies) would like to see struck down. The individual mandate is not among them.
cathyx
@jibeaux: I’m not passing judgment on whether healthcare insurance should be mandatory. I’m just explaining the difference between auto insurance and the healthcare insurance mandate that just got struck down in the court.
harokin
@Judas Escargot: The conservatives in the judiciary WANT to invalidate decades of federal law, including child labor, worker safety, aid to the poor, etc. That is their goal. They interpret the constitution the way it was generally read before 1934. ACA and the mandate has been a gift to them, allowing them to impose their neanderthalic jurisprudence under the guise of striking down an unpopular law.
The Dangerman
@Redshift:
Bush v. Gore was, indeed, an appalling set of circumstances; I can almost (ALMOST) defend the USSC there. I can’t imagine the “one off” thought could be applied to HCR; they are going to have to take a stand and that will be to keep the bill.
Here’s a clue: Greta van Stupidbitch is on Fox ranting about the stupidity of not having a severance clause in the bill. That would be a feature, not a bug; the mandate is a key to the whole thing and the whole thing is important enough that the USSC won’t meddle.
eemom
The 10th amendment argument is bullshit.
Look, I don’t like the republican appointees on the Supreme Court any better than y’all do, but let’s not throw around ignorant, “The Truth”-esque tripe about how they’re all gonna vote in lockstep. As a few have already noted, there would be enormous implications to overturning this law, and many of them would go directly AGAINST the same “interests” that motivate the ACA-attackers. I’ll give you Clarence Thomas, but the rest of them just are not that stupid.
jakethesnake
I have to admit that forcing me to give money to insurance companies is nasty enough to me that I wouldn’t mind if hcr dies on the vine. I get that the bill makes dems look like they give a shit, but they really don’t and the bill is bad enough, let’s start over. Maybe then obama will be motivated to make real change. As it stands it seems like he plans on coasting through a single term hoping “first black prez” and “got health care fixed” will be enough to keep him out of Bush league.
Punchy
You mean, like, if they just up and picked which guy they wanted to be President for the next 4 years? Nah, they’d never do that.
cathyx
@Judas Escargot: I’m not making any argument. See my #89.
Violet
@RalfW:
I’m not arguing as to the REASON why the law exists. I’m describing the structural differences. The fact is, if you don’t ever own or drive a car you can go your whole life without buying car insurance.
The health care law is different. Everyone is required to buy health insurance under the new law. They have to buy it just because they are Americans or permanent residents. They didn’t do something (like buy a car) that would trigger the requirement to buy it. They’re just Americans who live in their own country and therefore have to buy it.
The reasons why the law is written that way are good. I’ve got no problems with that. I’m not arguing against the reasons at all. I’m just stating how the two (car insurance and health insurance) mandates differ.
This would be great. Why isn’t this written into the law? Sure, you can opt out, but you won’t get treated unless you pay for it up front.
Elizabelle
I am wondering if Obamacare in peril might be even more of a motivator for Obama/Democratic voters than for the already incensed teahadists.
A LOT of Republicans will benefit from healthcare reform.
The crazies are the crazies.
Last, if it looks like we are truly not going to get any serious measure of healthcare reform — approaching universal coverage —
If I were a young, well-educated family: I would emigrate.
Wonder if you will see more of that.
catclub
@dr. bloor: Ya beat me to it.
Throw out mandate, keep rest == insurance companies collapse
Citizen Alan
As I mentioned months ago (but nobody wanted to hear it because “Shut up, you stupid Firebagger!”) severability is a serious issue in this case. Under existing SC precedent, if any part of a law is unconstitutional, the whole thing gets thrown out unless the law by its own terms makes it clear that the constitutional portions of the law can survive without anything found unconstitutional. Normally, this accomplished by what’s called a severability clause which is just made a part of the bill. But in an act of astoundingly negligent politics, the Democrats accidentally left out the severability clause from the Reconciliation bill. Or at least, I assume it was simply negligence and not 11-dimensional chess or some such nonsense.
I said after Citizens United that I expected the ACA to get shot down 5-4. And unless Kagan really does have the power to hypnotize Kennedy into supporting the law, I still think that today.
joe from Lowell
@cathyx: Nobody is misunderstanding you. You’re just wrong.
No, it does not. It’s perfectly legal not to buy health insurance. It just carries tax implications.
It’s “mandatory” to buy health insurance the same way it’s “mandatory” to pay mortgage interest: which is to say, not mandatory.
Judas Escargot
@harokin:
Fair enough: I do get that point.
But the rightwing also likes some things enabled by the commerce clause, like being able to use the DEA to enforce Federal drug laws in states that have legalized/decriminalized, or the hope of outlawing abortion via Federal law.
I assume they are either (1) not looking into the full implications of the strategy, or (2) have some secondary specious arguments ready to defend the Federal intrusions they like. If it’s (2), I was hoping to hear them beforehand.
Redshift
@cathyx: But I don’t think that is the argument they’re making. Car insurance isn’t mandated by the federal government (which is why I think it’s a bad analogy for those arguing in favor of the HCR mandate.)
cathyx
I do object to having to buy health insurance from a private company. I would prefer to buy it from the government in the form of opting into medicare. It would cost much less.
jwb
@The Dangerman: “the whole thing is important enough that the USSC won’t meddle.” Normally, I would agree. But we passed out of normal a long time ago, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a vote of 9-0 in favor of the law or 5-4 against.
cathyx
@joe from Lowell: I’m not talking about the way the law is today. I’m talking about what the new law would have done.
Redshift
@Chyron HR: Yep, it’s hard to dispute the astute political analysis of someone who believes that Supreme Court decisions dribble out over many hours, like election results. Hee.
askew
@Dave:
Well, that sucks. Any chance the Do Nothing Senate might actually confirm the judge before the appeal?
Obama and Reid’s biggest failure is letting these judicial vacancies just sit open.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Nobody could have predicted this! And so it was a great idea for the Democrats to pass an unpopular reform that would not take effect for four years. Sure, give Republicans four years to take shots at the ACA! What’s the worst that could happen? You passed a Republican plan to get their support, so obviously they’ll go along and play nice!
DA
Calm down. It was going to the Supreme Court before and it’s going to the Supreme Court now.
Emerald
@askew:
You don’t assign any blame to the Senate Republicans who have put secret holds on and/or filibustered against every single one of those nominees?
JGabriel
@Judas Escargot:
Because it was passed by Democrats.
SATSQ.
.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@cathyx: I’m working on an answer along the lines of “You don’t have to have health insurance if you don’t breath.”
burnspbesq
@dr. bloor:
What drugs are you on? You think the insurance industry doesn’t like legislation that hands it 30 million new customers and solves its adverse selection problem?
jl
@JGabriel:
Well, then there goes the requirement that emergencies rooms treat people with conditions that threaten death or great irreversible bodily harm, and pregnant women, at least in any state that does not have such a law.
By the judge’s reasoning, what right do the feds have in telling hospitals and clinics what to do? They have been complaining about it on just this basis for a long time. And they are corporations, who just as fully in every way, probably more so, real persons that the mere ‘lesser people’ (that means you and me).
Even established insurance companies themselves admit that the market failure in health care is serious, that they are willingly shedding healthier patients with their recent premium increases, and are in a death spiral. And most insurance companies are national in scope, so how, in this real world (as opposed to some fantasy alternative reality world that the GOP, and the GOP Supreme Court Justices have created in their heads), the problem involves interstate commerce.
I will read up on the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and see about applying someplace for political asylum. If this nonsense keeps up, I have to wonder whether decent health care will be available to most of us ‘lesser people’ in 20 or so years when we need it (or I need it, to be exact).
On the other hand, the population will make a fuss if affordable healthcare becomes unavailable to most people. I do not think the widespread voter suppression laws brewing in the state GOP legislatures will make a difference, since only the very rich will be spared the unavailability of healthcare.
I do not like violent extremist proposals that we need to make things worse until some utopia emerges from the resulting crisis (yeah, sure it will…).
But there is no Constitutional problem with taxing people to providing a government tax funded policy. So, if the law gets overturned, then after lots of needless death and suffering, it would lead to a U.S. Medicare for all (and the Commie Australian menace to our Freedom would emerge victorious). I can only hope shrimps on the barbi and great beaches for all come along with it.
Unless of course, the incompetents/frauds/nutcakes on the Supreme Court decide to take us back, via their inscrutable reasonings, to effective version of the Articles of Confederation.
Smurfhole
It’d be interesting to see the Commerce Clause interpretation of Wickard v. Fillburn overturned. That’d be the GOP’s big chance to have the Civil Rights Act’s applicability to private businesses invalidated, too.
Napoleon
@Common Sense:
It doesn’t matter. The court is not bound by what someone may want to call it. They are independant to make their own determination, and there is a long string of case law that says that any pecuniary imposition is a tax. Period. End of story.
Bulworth
An excellent argument in favor of the Articles of Confederation.
Dave
@askew: Well…Bush Senior and Ford weren’t crazy. Decent odds one of those guys would see this ruling for the idiocy it is.
JGabriel
@askew:
Gee, I don’t know. Let’s ask Mitch McConnell.
.
JPL
The Federal Government mandates that hospitals treat everyone whether or not they can pay.
The Federal Government mandates COBRA which companies cannot refuse. Companies are a people according to scotus
The Federal Government mandates Social Security
The Federal Government mandates Medicare..
help me out..talk about a pandora’s box
joe from Lowell
@cathyx:
Me, neither. I’m talking about the ACA.
Under the ACA, you are not required to buy health insurance. You can have absolutely no health insurance, and the consequence will be that your taxes go up.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@fourlegsgood:
We can’t do that because
A) Joe Lieberman wouldn’t like it
B) The big health care corporations wouldn’t like it
C) It wouldn’t be gradual and incremental enough for Obama
Napoleon
@Judas Escargot:
A huge, huge chunk of present law would instantly be unconstitutional, including a bunch of civil rights laws.
Stillwater
And the poor people deprived of an expansion of medicaid will reluctantly have to find Zimbabwean herbs and voodoo candles to treat their acute apendicitis.
Both sides do it!
jibeaux
@cathyx:
As others have pointed out, though, that’s not actually the difference. Two actual differences are that the “mandate” is actually a tax penalty, and it is a federal law whereas auto insurance is the domain of the states. In a philosophical-like way of thinking about it, you do own your body when you’re born. If you don’t have a car, you aren’t going to injure anyone with your invisible car, so there’s no need for car insurance, but you can’t opt out of the possibility of being hurt or sick.
Lots of folks would prefer to buy into Medicare than private insurance, no doubt. But it’s just not on the table right now. As I tried to say to a friend, if the end game is to kill the insurance companies, this law’s a big loser. But if the end game is to get people some semblance of health care without bankrupting them, it’s a step in the right direction.
jl
@DA: But, I read in TPM, that Scalia and Thomas have already signaled that they will be voting against it. So we need five of seven left. Who knows what Roberts and Alito will do.
Might come down to whether Kennedy decides to join the remaining sane and/or honest and/or competent members of the court.
flukebucket
You mean to tell me that a government that can pick you up off of the street, drop you behind barbed wire in Cuba, hold you indefinitely without charges and without access to legal counsel does not have the power to force you to purchase insurance?
Well I’ll be damned.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Citizen Alan:
Why do you want Sarah Palin to be president?
Just kidding.
JPL
The tea party will be after Kagan to recuse herself.
Tsulagi
@burnspbesq: Yeah, AHIP will not be pleased. They’re good with ACA, their main complaint is there are some mandate loopholes and not greater punitive action for enforcement. If Guido can’t rough you up if you don’t buy protection, then it’s just no fun.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Emerald:
Recess appointments.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jakethesnake: How often do we have to make these statements: Who wrote the bill? Which country is Obama the leader of? Egypt?
askew
@Emerald:
Not in this case. Obama could have recess appointed these vacancies earlier in 2009 or 2010 before Reid started making “gentleman’s agreements” and refusing to go into recess. Obama and Reid are allowing the Republicans to cripple our courts and insure that no liberals get appointed to the bench. There’s no excuse for neglecting to get this done.
Tsulagi
Surprisingly, Commander EE is cautioning his troops against premature starbursts…
Probably.
joe from Lowell
@Citizen Alan:
I don’t think it was negligence. The structure of the ACA is such that every part is necessary, or the whole thing collapses. If there is no individual mandate, but the pre-existing conditions regulations and subsidies and the rest are protected, then we’ll have people paying nothing into the system until they get sick, then buying subsidized insurance as soon as they get a diagnosis, and being entitled to coverage. This was the reason that Hillary supported a mandate from the beginning, and Obama got on board as the bill was being crafted. Hillary kept making this point, with increasing frustration, all through the campaign.
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
Please present an example of a person who never once in their entire lives required medical care of any kind.
Violet
@joe from Lowell:
But that’s different from car insurance. You can choose not to own/drive a car, buy no car insurance, and your taxes stay the same. You pay no penalty for not driving a car and not having car insurance.
In the case of health insurance, you pay either way. You either buy the health insurance or pay the tax. The reasoning as to why its set up that way is sound (more people, larger poor, more young, healthy people, etc.) but the end result is that there is you pay.
Of course the proper argument is that if you don’t pay by buying health insurance you’ll pay in other ways (higher taxes to fund ERs, much higher medical bills, etc.), but that’s a little too challenging for most wingnuts. They’re looking at here and now. And with the health care law you will be required to shell out money just because you’re here.
joe from Lowell
@Tsulagi:
Actually, they spent millions of dollars to defeat it, and are spending millions more to try to repeal it.
But, really, since when has a business organization’s behavior with large amounts of their money been a good measure of their interests and belief?
timb
@Julie: Yes. Those mandates are state requirements. There’s a body of jurisprudence that basically says the Federal government has to have a reason to f**k with you, whereas your state can do anything it wants, as long as they don’t violate your state or federal rights in doing so.
jl
@joe from Lowell: I agree. If there was a separability clause and one of the essential elements is removed, the system would start falling apart, just as the current system is falling apart.
A major fixer upper bill would have to be introduced quickly, and not sure there is an obvious way to fix up lack of mandatory coverage in the current bill that would be simpler than just stating over.
Zifnab
@RalfW:
Closer to “you don’t have to have health insurance if you don’t have a body you are currently using.” All that said, the argument is about as absurd as claiming that you are required attend college or the state will tax you whatever the college tax credit is currently running at.
Had Congress wanted to keep things simple and sane, they’d have implemented an across-the-board income tax hike of 2.5% (which I believe is the penalty rate) and offered a tax credit equal to the same amount if you could show you had health insurance. We do this on everything from energy efficient windows to newborn children to state taxes. Not that it would keep the Republican AGs from throwing a collective lawsuit hissy fit anyway.
timb
@Kryptik: I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict the healthcare act passes muster by 6-3 or 7-2. Neither the representative of Right wing talk radio (Thomas) or the Catholic Holy warrior (Alito) will vote for it, but I think there’s a damn good chance that Scalia does
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: That’s not what I’m saying or implying. Read through the comment and perhaps you will understand what I mean.
Judas Escargot
@JGabriel:
Yes, a simple answer, but not a very satisfying one.
If HCR goes down on States Rights grounds, then so be it. But this Massachusetts liberal is pretty damned tired of being held back by the dead-end, dead-weight red states.
If we go back to the “These United States” model, I demand the whole package. Federal drug laws? Null and void. Stop going after my state’s gay marriage laws. Stop sending my national guard troops to Iraq, when we need them here to deal with emergencies. Stop running to the Federal courts to stop Cape Wind because windmills offend you. Get your god’s name off my money. And tax me less, so I can send more to Boston to deal with problems at a more local level.
I’ve suggested this before, but I do sometimes wonder if the left should start fighting fire with fire on the State’s Rights issue. It would at least put “them” on the defensive for once.
joe from Lowell
@Violet:
Indeed. That’s why I offered the statement you quoted in response to the question:
timb
@JGabriel: Citizens United showed what a prick Roberts is. kennedy just followed his instincts
Master of Karate and Friendship
@joe from Lowell:
But didn’t they promise Obama that if he deep-sixed the public option, they wouldn’t fight health care reform? Could that possibly have been a bad deal?
MattR
@jl: I think you made a good argument for why a severability clause would have been good politics. But I am also willing to bet that the severability clause had to be removed in order to get one or more “yes” votes in the Senate.
@Zifnab:
I have been wondering why they didn’t do it this way and the only reason I can think of was to avoid the label of “having raised taxes”.
fucen tarmal
recalcitrant has vitamins d and a!
jl
@joe from Lowell: Which is what makes the behavior of companies so vile. As I said above, they have admitted repeatedly the whole system is in a death spiral. Their explanations of their recent premium hikes explicitly mention the problem of instability and lack of a competitive equilibrium in insurance markets when there is asymmetric information, or legally mandated opportunities for free riding.
So, what is one to conclude. I can only conclude that they put short sighted profit maximization ahead of the very service they provide. It is like they are mining the ill health of the nation, and will let some one else deal with the mine tailings after they effectively close of up shop in most of the U.S. (or to be specific, for most of the U.S. population).
Little better than cigarette companies at this point. Yet, it is ‘mean’ and ‘uncivil’ to criticize them.
Edit: I meant short sighted from a social perspective. From an individual insurance company’s viewpoint, the rational thing may be to mine the system for all it is worth now, and look back with satisfaction that you maximized profits of finite vein of healthy people. The sick people you could not get our from under is like all the overburden rock you have to move around a mine to keep it operating, until the good stuff is gone.
The Dangerman
@jwb:
I don’t see a 9-0 vote; there will be dissenters. I also don’t see a 5-4 vote (though, if it is 5-4, it’s for repeal). As someone said above, it was always going to the USSC; nothing has changed. Let’s face it, if you can’t be penalized for not having health insurance, you surely can’t be penalized for not having mortgage interest to deduct; again, I just don’t see the USSC wanting to open up that can of wormy Pandora’s.
Violet
@joe from Lowell:
Health care investors see ACA as a growth and investment opportunity. From the J.P Morgan Health Care Conference in January (Politico link):
harokin
I read the opinion and I now appreciate that a government requirement you must buy veggies is exactly the same as requiring people to eat veggies. Also, there is absolutely no similarity whatsoever between a law threatening a penalty to induce you to buy veggies and a law that uses your payments to the government to artificially lower the price of veggies to induce you to purchase them. The world is much clearer now. Thank you conservative jurists!
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
You’re saying that you feel it’s legal to require car insurance because you don’t have to own a car. We’re all pointing out that getting sick or getting into an accident is not actually optional. You can’t just say, “Well, I never leave my house, so I don’t need health insurance,” because you could fall down the stairs and require medical care.
If we get to the point that human beings never need medical care during the span of their lives, then saying that only people who need medical care need to buy insurance would make sense.
Also, you do realize that your argument would preclude a government-run system, right? If the government can’t require you to buy health insurance, they can’t tax you to provide it to you, either. As other people have said, the SC deciding that the mandate is unconstitutional also means that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional since it’s the government mandating that you give them money for insurance. That insurance is run by the government, but it’s still insurance that everyone is mandated to contribute to and would be affected by that decision.
Spaghetti Lee
Should I be panicked? I don’t feel panicked. As others have said, this is one guy, on a low-level court, going against the opinions of 14 judges who said the law is unconstitutional. I’ve been hearing variations of this story since the bill was passed (“Wingnut judge says that everything is unconstushull and Obama is the Socialest!”), and nothing’s actually happened to it.
If the bill goes down, I actually would prefer the whole thing to go down, for the technical reasons that Joe from Lowell and JL have mentioned, but also because having the bill still “around”, but the problems that would arise from ripping out its funding rear their ugly heads would be a great boon for the Republicans.
The legal arguments against repealing the bill are legion, and many of them have already been pointed out. No responsible, sane judge should be repealing this but, well, you know.
Zifnab
@Violet:
A-buh?! What state do you live in? I don’t know of a state that doesn’t mandate some kind of car insurance. In Texas, driving without insurance is grounds for suspension of your license. And driving without a license is grounds for vehicle impoundment, arrest, and a sizable fine.
I’d say you pay a pretty fucking steep penalty for driving without car insurance, if you get caught.
@MattR:
That was my guess, too.
jl
@Violet: I think it is clear that at least some people (the actuaries) and some executives understand that the whole industry’s death spiral, which has been going for a number of years, is accelerating.
They see the ACA as a government regulation that will lengthen the life of the mine. They want to regs that will allow the system to fall apart at a slower rate, so they can mine more profits. But they certainly do not want any regulation that interferes with their ability to profit.
That is why i would guess that the main target of their lobbying will be the medical loss ratio regs.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: See my #89, and #103.
Violet
@Zifnab:
Did you read what I said?
You can choose NOT TO OWN OR DRIVE A CAR. Then you don’t have to buy car insurance. I’m not aware of a state where non-drivers are required to buy car insurance. Does that happen somewhere?
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
If making people buy health insurance from a private company is unconstitutional (which is what you seem to be arguing), then so is making people contribute to Medicare and Social Security and those programs would have to end.
You can’t thread the needle and try to claim that it’s unconstitutional to mandate insurance from a private company but it’s not unconstitutional to mandate insurance from the government. Insurance is insurance whether it’s public (from the government) or private (from a private company).
Either it’s legal or it isn’t and Medicare and Social Security will have to be disbanded if it’s illegal to make people pay into an insurance program. Have fun drowning the baby with the bathwater.
DA
@jl:
Oh, I agree, there is a non-trivial chance that Kennedy will ruin things. My point was that today’s ruling isn’t likely to have much of an effect on that – we knew before that the Supreme Court was going to end up deciding this and that’s still true now.
ruemara
@jakethesnake:
At some point, you should be too ashamed to be this stupid on the internets. Seriously.
Mnemosyne
For people who are confused:
Medicare and Social Security are insurance programs. They provide the exact same thing that a private insurance company or private pension company provides. Only the funding mechanism is different.
So if you decide that it’s illegal to force people to buy insurance, you kill Medicare and Social Security at the same time because it will be illegal to force people to participate in those insurance programs. You’re not going to be able to somehow make a distinction that mandatory public insurance is a-ok but mandatory private insurance is bad. The whole thing has to go.
(fixed misspelling)
jl
I don’t think there is anything that can prevent the government from taxing us and giving us a health benefit. Which is why I think, if the ACA is overturned, eventually popular demand will result in Australian style Medicare for All.
We can call it the ‘The Federal Land, River, Air, and Marine Hospital Program, Updating the Great Program Started by John Adams and Continued by Thomas Jefferson that Saved America from Disaster, Act’ in our new style of titles for bills in Congress.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: I never said that making us buy health insurance from a private company was unconstitutional. What I did say was I would prefer to buy it from the government because it would be cheaper. I WASN’T PASSING JUDGMENT ON THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF IT.
Tsulagi
@joe from Lowell:
Nope, sounds good for the meme health insurers are against ACA, but towards the end of the HCR saga AHIP was running commercials in support even lauding the fairness and new day dawning of an age of health insurance offered without pre-existing conditions exclusions. They could always offer that or covering children to 26 or anything else; it’s only a matter of pricing the risk.
In addition to no serious cost controls, this is what Karen Ignagni, president of AHIP, wanted…
They got that beefed up in reconciliation, but as with some, enough is never enough.
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
This is what you said at #42:
I’m pointing out that we already have mandated insurance: Medicare and Social Security. There is no difference between the new healthcare mandate and Medicare other than the funding mechanism. I understand complaints about the funding mechanism — it’s incredibly inefficient, for one thing — but arguing that it’s like forcing non-drivers to purchase auto insurance is ridiculous.
Mnemosyne
@Tsulagi:
And yet those same insurance companies poured millions of dollars into this year’s elections so Republicans could repeal the ACA.
So what’s your argument, that they have a split personality? They somehow changed their minds between the signing of the ACA and the midterm election? If they changed their minds as completely as you’re arguing, what was the impetus?
Kirbster
Geez, Medicare For All would have been so much simpler. Even the Tea Party likes Medicare, and that means that the principle of “socialized medicine” is, in fact, acceptable. The only obstacle was changing the age limit and the working out the premiums.
But no, we had to go with the for-profit private insurance casino gambling paradigm for health care….
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: I am not arguing that it isn’t so. I was simply explaining the difference to someone who was confusing the two types of insurances. Auto insurance is only mandatory if you drive. I was simply stating how they were different.
If you can not understand what my point is, I have to concede that you never will and I am done with it.
joe from Lowell
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Not to my knowledge.
@Violet:
Do you have any evidence of this? I think you might have pasted the wrong quote, because what you quoted has nothing to do with your claim.
The quote you provided supports the claim that AHIP doesn’t want the bill left in place with the mandate stripped, but everyone already knows that.
mclaren
The real action seems like to take place at the appellate level. Does ABL have any insight into what’s likely to happen then?
It seems extraordinarily unlikely that federal appellate judges will uphold these kinds of bizarre state court decisions… But of course I could well be wrong.
Zifnab
@Violet:
Sorry. I misread your statement.
That said, if you think you can get by in the US (outside of major urban centers) without a car, you are out of your freak’n mind. Might as well try to get by in the ocean without a boat.
Bus routes and cabs are non-existent in many major suburbs. Travel takes two or three times as long, even when you can access buses in cities like Austin. And performing chores like groceries become exponentially more difficult without a vehicle.
Sure, you can “get by” without a car. Just like you can “get by” without legs. It’s not something I’d recommend, however.
A Writer At Balloon-Juice
@The Truth:
I’m digging your work. We need someone around like you. Thanks.
Tsulagi
@Mnemosyne:
It’s probably simply a matter of offering their support to the highest bidder. Would expect nothing less, or more. And most large companies, trade groups, etc. contribute to both parties to cover their bases. They got a shitload with the Dems, but as I said, for some enough is never enough. They live in hope.
Emerald
@Zifnab:
New Hampshire doesn’t mandate car insurance–unless it’s changed since I lived there. In Massachusetts when you get into an accident, the first thing you do is scope out the license plate of the other car: if it’s a NH plate then you might be in trouble.
New Hampshire also doesn’t have a seat belt law except for children under 18. Over 18, drive without a seat belt, go through the windshield, that fine with New Hampshire.
Live Free or Die–sometimes literally.
eemom
There is an inordinate amount of gum-flapping by people who have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about on this thread.
agrippa
@The Truth:
psychotic
joe from Lowell
@Mnemosyne:
Well, there is another difference: some private-sector companies and investors make a profit from the private insurance market, which more people will join under the ACA.
I don’t think that’s ideal, either, but it seems like a pretty lousy reason to deny 32,000,000 people (45,000 of whom will die every year from lack of health care coverage) the chance to see the doctor.
vodkamuppet
I’m not trying to be a concern troll or anything but the HCR mandate really is a shitty law forcing you to buy shitty insurance from the same shitty fucked up system we’re supposed to be reforming. I like parts of the bill but scrapping the public option in favor of the mandate was a giant sellout to the insurance lobby. I’m not saying I want it repealed because sadly, this is as good as we can get for right now but I’m really not comfortable with the government having the power to force me to buy something even if It’s something I want and/or need. The teabaggers may be motivated by an irrational hatred for Obama but I don’t disagree with them when it comes to the mandate.
GregB
No motorcycle helmut law in NH either.
agrippa
@The Truth:
paranoia will destroy ya
mclaren
@Violet:
There are lots of exceptions. You do not in fact have to buy health insurance if you’re under a certain minimum income. Or, if you’re over that poverty-level income, you can pay a fine that gets assessed by the IRS annually. It’s around $750. Or you can get a job which includes health insurance, in which case you don’t have to buy anything.
The mandate is still a terrible idea because it creates a captive market for predatory corrupt collusive monopolies — the medical devicemakers & greedy bribe-taking doctors and greedy bribe-giving big pharma companies and corrupt collusive hospitals and greedy monopolistic health insurers.
joe from Lowell
@Tsulagi:
Towards the end? You mean, once it was clear they weren’t going to be able to kill it, they tried to tweak it in their favor?
That so totally does not prove that they supported the bill.
agrippa
This act will go to the Supreme Court. I imagine that Congress and the WH figured that it would when it was passed.
I do not know what those conservatives on the Court will rule.
joe from Lowell
@mclaren:
They’re federal district court decisions.
State Attorneys General* filed the lawsuits in federal court.
*It’s also “courts martial” and “Fillets-o-Fish.”
JPL
A couple of point I made earlier.
Kagan worked for the executive office. The tea party will try to have her recuse herself.
COBRA is mandated to companies. Companies are considered as people. Of course some can choose not to take cobra but companies have to offer it.
imo..automobiles are becoming a necessity because we don’t have mass transport but ..that is state law..
there are many federal laws that mandate things.
joe from Lowell
@eemom: On the internet?
Say it ain’t so!
joe from Lowell
@mclaren:
Hence, their regulation in an almost public-utilities-like manner. Especially the regulations about preexisting conditions and “medical loss ratio.”
Spaghetti Lee
@joe from Lowell:
Do you order two “Whoppers Jr.” when you go to BK?
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, but is also about more than just the mandate itself as related to SS and medicare forced purchase, that is the lynchpin of the wingnut argument, it is the fact that it is a national mandate, crossing state lines, affecting commerce outside of one particular state, or group of states.
I don’t see the SCOTUS ruling directly against the mandate, likely due to the direct nullification of politically popular and radioactive programs like SS and medicare. I think if they rule against the ACA, it will via a new SCOTUS limitation on use of the commerce clause where none has existed before, to nationalize health care reform.
That way, the wingnuts can pick and choose which progressive laws to challenge and unwind that will not likely destroy them politically. Especially a ton of environmental national laws and mandates like the EPA, the Clean Water and Air acts and a whole slew of other New Deal type laws and general regulation of industry in this country. I think that is what they are after, and I predict the SCOTUS will do just that, if they can keep Kennedy on board the mother of all acts of judicial activism. They can repeal judiciously that way, and wound the HCR in the process, to where it is useless.
I think the fix is in for the broader conservative delusion that liberalism will destroy this country and must now be stopped cold in it’s tracks. I think Citizens United was done as part of the loosely wink and nod plans of the right wing powers that be. They see the demographic writing on the wall, and will, by god, have their Christian corporatocracy come hell or high water. It’s now or never, the vibes I get from reading between the lines in the wingnut world.
And blowing a big hole in the use of the Commerce Clause will go a long way toward their goal. And these shit for brains either don’t care or are too self possessed right now to see they are playing with fire, and it all could just as easily go sideways into a dystopian nightmare. Or maybe that’s what they want, to start over to build the quasi fascist corporate theocracy of their wet dreams.
Tsulagi
@joe from Lowell:
Nope again, Joe. Totally. When they and PhRMA got what they wanted, they were good to go. But that doesn’t mean if Rs were to offer more they wouldn’t jump on board. Hard to see how Rs could, but would expect them to give it their best shot.
Uriel
@Chyron HR: Nicely done.
jl
@joe from Lowell: And one of the necessary regulations for a workable private insurance system in the world of modern medicine and public health and sanitation, is universal coverage. So, there is the rub.
joe from Lowell
@Spaghetti Lee: I order BK Veggies.
Wait, did I just say that out loud?
David Brooks (not that one)
Non-severability is a feature, not a bug. If it were severable, the pressure would be on to remove that one section, and end up with a financially unsustainable remainder. As it is, we have to go to the barricades to save the entire thing, or get nothing. It’s a political calculation as much as a fiscal imperative.
joe from Lowell
@Tsulagi:
If you don’t understand that PhRMA and AHIP were on different sides of this bill, then you need to stop holding forth on inside-baseball entirely.
Mnemosyne
@joe from Lowell:
True, but I would argue that it’s not the fundamental difference that some people argue it is. To me, the argument against for-profit health care is that it’s inefficient and expensive, not that it’s unconstitutional. It’s in parallel with the change in student loan funding: Congress decided it was foolish to have a middleman distribute government money for college loans, so they removed the middleman.
Frankly, given the restrictions of the ACA even as written, for-profit healthcare companies are going to start going by the wayside, because there just won’t be enough profit in it anymore. Which I think is the end goal and the reason why health insurance companies are still trying to get ACA repealed. Once all of the pieces roll out, it is not going to be the cash cow to for-profit companies that some people seem to think it will be. The few remaining nonprofits (like Kaiser Permanente) will probably survive.
Triassic Sands
@Julie:
The argument is simple.
Car insurance is mandated by states, not the federal government. According to the “originalists” the feds can only do those things that are explicitly named in the Constitution — if it isn’t a right given to the feds, then it is left to the states or people.
Since the Constitution doesn’t give the federal government the right to levy an individual mandate, they can’t do it. Nothing prevents the states from doing so.
Note: someone else may already have answered this; I don’t have time right now to read all the comments, I have to go out, so I’ll answer and if it’s superfluous, I apologize. (But not very much.)
jimmiraybob
This is an interesting Teapublican stump speech, but what did the judge have to say?
[edited to correct spelling from sump to stump. I’m not sure the change is necessarily warranted.]
Tsulagi
@joe from Lowell:
Riiiiiight. No “so totally” added to that one?
Gregory
Why aren’t the Democrats circulating Kristol’s 1994 memo that points out health care reform will be a nail in the Republicans’ coffin?
Why aren’t the Democrats saying the Republicans oppose health insurance reform for nothing but political reasons?
Why are these jackasses allowed by the so-called “liberla media” to pretend they act in good faith?
Why, indeed?
jeff
I disagree with Vinson’s reasoning and I also think he’s willfully inserting partisan politics into his ruling. Indeed, this seems to fit the definition of activism from the bench. That said, I know that he has no conflicts of interest (unless rightwing judicial philosophy is a conflict, and it’s not.) I hope people will just accept that we have to appeal this to the Supremes; trying to impeach the judge via blogging is ugly and pointless.
joe from Lowell
@Mnemosyne:
Ah, but now we come to the crux to the matter: what is “fundamental?”
The effect of the bill on whether people can get health care? Or the effect of the bill on whether insurance companies make profits?
To me, the effect of health care reform on insurance companies, in either direction, is a secondary concern. To others, though, punching for-profit health care companies in the balls was the point of health care reform.
Inshallah, it will be done. Here’s hoping.
Cris
@A Writer At Balloon-Juice: DougJ is one of The Truth’s sock puppets!
General Stuck
@David Brooks (not that one):
Yes, I think so too. It would be much easier for a Scotus, or even a district federal court to rule just against one crucial element AND enjoin that element, that would have the same effect as gutting the law for the long term. But most of these judges are going to be leery and have so far of shutting it all down with their unconstitutional rulings, letting the bill be implemented. And every day that goes by with certain regs that will be popular like mobility and keeping kids on their parents health care law, will make it harder for the SCOTUS to justify a nullification, though they may anyway. And I doubt even Circuit Courts will enjoin it without a severability clause for the same reasons. Therefore, it will be likely years before the Scotus gets the case, and that is a good thing for Obama and dems. Feature? I agree fully, and a slick one at that. imo.
joe from Lowell
@Tsulagi:
NOT!
lol. Sorry about that, you’re right. It was unnecessary.
Citizen Alan
@joe from Lowell:
When it first made the news about a month after the bill was signed that it had no severability clause, the story out of the Democrats was that it was merely an oversight resulting from the rush to get the bill through in reconciliation.
Intercalation
@cathyx: Jesus, just admit that you don’t know what in the fuck you are talking about. Fer fuck’s sake, it’s blindingly obvious.
Right. I haven’t been in a car accident, so I don’t need car insurance. What, I still have to buy it? WHAT??!!
Intercalation
@Citizen Alan: Link please. A severability clause would have been a terrible idea in the case of this bill.
Stefan
The requirements for how much/the type of car insurance you have to have vary for state to state, but I’m pretty certain that you must have it in some form, no matter where you live in the U.S.
Not really. I myself don’t have car insurance.
Then again, I live in NY and don’t own a car.
sistermoon
@fourlegsgood:
Like many of the teatards who oppose Socialist, Marxist Obamacare, The Truth is probably a Medicare recipient.
JPL
OMG…Car Insurance…
There are many federal mandates without car insurance.
Social Security
Cobra..mandated to companies…
Medicare
Hospitals. have to take patients…
yadda..yadda..yadda
cathyx
@Intercalation: Your are the one with the problem. If I don’t own a car, I do not need to buy car insurance. In fact, I can actually buy a car but never drive it, and still not have to purchase car insurance. I only need to purchase insurance if I drive the car.
Observer
@Intercalation:
I no longer think Democrats can complain when people like Sarah Palin imply that Repubs are the “real America” and it’s liberals who live in some weird propeller head existence.
In normal day to day life, it’s blindingly obvious the difference between forcing auto insurance on people who choose to drive and forcing health insurance on people for merely being alive. In fact, for most people this is precisely and exacly why they hate the individual mandate in the first place.
If you want to play semantic games and beat up on cathyx then go ahead.
Normal people understand the difference.
JPL
@cathyx: Car Insurance is a state law… There are dozens of federal mandates…get over the car insurance..
In Kennesaw Ga…the law says you have to own a gun…it’s a town ordinance..
didn’t mean my comment just for u..but it is silly to argue about semantics.. btw..i know people in kennesaw and they don’t own guns.
cathyx
@JPL: So you’re saying that you must purchase car insurance if you don’t own a car?
Intercalation
@cathyx: I find it just delightful that you blame others for pointing out just how shit-stupid your analogy is and how deficient it is as a criticism. Try imagining that the people who are criticizing it understand it. Then try imagining that they understand it better than you do, and that is why they find it lacking.
JPL
@cathyx: nope..just a gun in Kennesaw Ga…
Car insurance has nothing to do with federal mandates since cars are regulated by states.
If you don’t drive often think about renting a car.
Intercalation
@Observer: There’s nothing semantic about it. A car that isn’t driven isn’t going to cause an accident that results in millions of dollars worth of damages that the owner may not be able to pay. On the other hand, any living person can come down with an illness that costs millions of dollars to treat, and they are entitled to walk into an emergency room and seek treatment whether they can afford it or not.
Mnemosyne
@Observer:
Yes, why can’t we just let people who can’t afford health care die under bridges like God intended?
If being forced to pay for healthcare coverage is anathema to you, you should start working to have Medicare ended, because that’s exactly what it does.
Intercalation
@cathyx: You know what would be great is if you’d recognize that you aren’t using your car insurance if you’re just driving around. You only use it if you get into an accident. And yet you’re still required to have insurance!1!! OMG!!
kansi
@JPL: Maybe she can ask Scalia for advice on that.
Keith G
@cathyx: My sincere admiration for you as you gracefully deal with others who just don’t get the simple notion (a simple answer to Julie at 19) you first communicated.
Observer
@Intercalation: “There’s nothing semantic about it” ….as you write a semantic response.
Out in real America, people aren’t being forced by the government to buy car insurance from a private company just because they’re alive. Same for SS and Medicare. You have to get a job to pay into those. All of a sudden Obamacare says the guvmint will come and fine you if you don’t pony up to these insurance companies whom you hate. So you can’t just live and be left along anyone, not working, off the grid. Now the guvmint will come and hunt you down and fine you for not buying something.
In the real world, quite a few people hate this because it’s different. In the real world regarding the mandate, we witnessed a roiling debate in the Dem primaries and a protracted national argument between one or two presidential hopefuls and a Nobel prize winner in Economics.
So this was and is different.
But now you propeller head types say no it’s not. And then you proceed to harangue anyone who dares to point out the obvious.
I’ll take real America on this one.
Mike Lamb
@Keith G:
It’s been pointed out repeatedly and convincingly why her argument is inapt.
JPL
@Observer: tis why i think as a nation we are screwed. The only people that are going to be able to afford health insurance in the future are those that are able to afford health care… That just doesn’t make sense to me.
Mnemosyne
@Observer:
So all you have to do is stay unemployed all your life and you won’t have the evil government forcing Social Security and Medicare on you? Brilliant!
Of course, that’s ignoring the disabled people who are supported by Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, but we can go ahead and cut those leeches off since they shouldn’t be allowed to participate if they don’t pay in, right?
You certainly have some elaborate paranoid fantasies. I’m pretty sure that jack-booted thugs aren’t going to track you down to your Unabomber shack in the woods and force you to get your annual checkup.
If you want to live off the grid and die of blood poisoning in your cabin in the woods, be my guest, but the instant you show up at an emergency room expecting healthcare, I’m the one who has to foot the bill with my tax dollars and, yes, I want you to pay your fair share. If you want the benefits of civilization, you have to pay in, too, and not pretend you’re a rugged individualist who totally doesn’t need the government, except when they build an internet for you to bitch about the government on.
Mike Lamb
@Observer: Do they people that work “off the grid” not get sick? Does the science behind pathologies or the physics behind a trip and fall not apply to those that work “off the grid”?
So yes, you are right, this is different. The difference is that people cannot opt out of sickness or accidents. And it’s a burden on the country if those “off the grid” folks don’t pay for their care.
If this puts me in the “propeller head” minority, I guess I’ll have to live with it.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
You’re aware that it doesn’t make sense to you because you don’t understand how the ACA works and not because of what’s in the actual law, right?
Omnes Omnibus
Mandates for auto insurance have exactly fuck-all to do with the ACA. Mandates for auto insurance come from states. The ACA is federal law. The whole question is whether the federal government can force you to buy health insurance. The answer is that it does really matter because the ACA does not force anyone to buy anything. if you don’t have health insurance and you do not fall within an exception, you will be access a fee. Strong arguments can be made that this fee is a tax. Congress certainly has the power to use taxes to encourage or discourage certain types of behavior. I don’t really see the legal concern here.
Wile E. Quixote
@The Truth:
You always win in the end? Yeah, let’s see, the thousand year reich that guys like you were so fond of lasted twelve years. Soviet communism, which has a lot in common with modern American conservatism, and which was going to bury us all, was declared dead in 1991. The permanent Republican majority that Karl Rove was talking about? Well you guys lost the House and Senate in 2006 and lost the presidency by 10 million votes in 2008, and the 2010 elections. Well we’ll see how the teabaggers do once their in D.C. Personally I think that they’re going to get their asses handed to them and a bunch of them are going to be unemployed in two years.
Do Republicans like you actually have any ideas for how to fix our fucked up health care system, or anything else in this country. Or are you just the party of “let’s piss off liberals because it makes our pathetic lives less empty.” Judging from the trolls I’ve seen on Balloon Juice I have to believe that the latter is true and not the former.
Mnemosyne
@Mike Lamb:
Maybe people who live “off the grid” are immune to cancer, like sharks. It makes about as much sense as anything else Observer seems to believe.
cathyx
@Keith G: Thanks Keith G. I think that some here have a bias against some posters here, myself included, that no matter what we say, they will argue because they are determined to not like us based on some past discussion.
Cacti
Well, my legal eagle view of both of the unfavorable opinions is that both Repub-appointed judges made fairly tepid decisions.
One found severability where there was none, and the other refused to enjoin enforcement when deciding it was unconstitutional in toto.
Unsure of themselves? You betcha!
Splitting Image
Because Kristol is well-known to be wrong about everything. Better to say nothing in this case.
Observer
@Mike Lamb: sometimes it seems like you peeps are really dumb. The argument doesn’t rest on someone being ‘off the grid’. it was just a meaningless turn of phrase that fit the literary style I employed.
I totally understand why Greenwald has to have so many paragraphs in his writing.
Regardless, the point being that you can’t be just left alone to do whatever and buy whatever. Guvmint now says you have to buy something health care insurance-wise … “or else”.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
My favorite part was the comment that people who live off the grid and don’t have a job will be forced to buy insurance.
Ummm…if you have no identifiable source of income, you’re exempt from the mandate…
And even qualify for a subsidy to help you purchase some. In which case, I’d figure the mountain men and subsistence farmers that populate Observer’s imagination would think it’s a great idea.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: Yes. I’m the one who thinks that Kagan will have to recuse because of her work the President and the law will be struck down and open the door to all kinds of things..
Sorry for my negative thinking.
JPL
@cathyx: I didn’t know that we were suppose to be bff but whatever. Regulations and laws are necessary in order to maintain a strong democracy.
Mike Lamb
@Observer: Jeebus eff, Observer. The point being made, repeatedly, is that you CANNOT maintain the current systemn (pre-ACA) without a free-rider problem. You cannot just “do whatever” and avoid accident or illness. EVeryone is a medical liability, financially speaking. That is the entire point behind the mandate.
Keith G
@Mike Lamb:
As I see it, she adequately and without judgement summed up an argument used by some who feel that requiring the purchase of a health care package (it actually is not traditional insurance) is quite different than the various mandates to buy auto drivers insurance. I might have added an additional sentence had I been her, as some confusion and fault might be found in her brevity.
How people get from that to questioning her intelligence is beyond me, but this is the internet.
Observer
@Mnemosyne:
Mnemosyne, your stock in trade is to wait until someone writes something that makes sense in the real world that disturbs your liberal head in the sand and then endlessly pick it to death on technicalities.
@cathyx is more right here than you’ll ever be. There’s a whole entire cottage industry build upon the sentiments she writes about. Pretty soon there’ll be 4 (maybe 5) Supremes that agree with that sentiment.
While you’re arguing dumbo technicalities, any hope for any additional incremental “ACA” improvement bills have been stopped dead for at least 20 years because of the sentiments that @cathyx has expressed.
Like I said, I’ll take Real America on this one.
Cacti
@JPL:
Justices don’t “have to recuse” at all.
Each individual Justice is the final arbiter of their own recusal.
JPL
@Cacti: Continuing with my negativity I can see MSM now screaming about her impartiality. It doesn’t matter that Thomas ruled on Citizens United or any number of things. Didn’t she testify that she would not rule on items that she worked on with the President?
LABiker
Good-bye Affordable Care Act, hello Medicare for all! Thanks, wing nuts!
Observer
@Mike Lamb:
I don’t know how many different ways to express this to you. There’s technicalities and there’s sentiments.
The sentiment expressed “gee forcing me to buy private healthcare just for being alive” is widespread and is the underlying voter fuel behind the Repub court challenges.
You may be correct in a very very narrow technical sense but life isn’t only about abstract technical merit.
Because of the preponderance of people like you in the employ of Obama’s adminstration, there is not an elected Dem alive who will push for any improvements in health care insurance legislation in the next 20 years. That’s because the individual mandate pissed a lot of people off just like @cathyx was trying to tell you.
Arguing with someone expressing a sentiment is pointless. People feel this is wrong, you should just agree with them and fix the problem rather than pulling out propeller head solutions.
Cacti
@LABiker:
Since SCOTUS can afford to have a long view with their lifetime appointments, I can’t help but think that some of the right wing have already contemplated “if we vote down ACA, we green light national health insurance”.
That’s why I think it will end up either 5-4 or 6-3 in favor.
The Other Chuck
It’s the latter and it’s not just BJ.
They will sincerely burn it all down for nothing more than spite.
Wile E. Quixote
@Observer:
Jesus Christ you’re fucking stupid. Do you have children? If not then please don’t breed. We don’t need stupid fucks like you polluting the gene pool. Here’s the difference between health insurance and car insurance, something that you’re too fucking stupid and too fucking ignorant to understand. If you crash your car into a ditch and have it towed to a mechanics they’re under no obligation to repair it unless you have the money to pay for the repairs, either through insurance or out of pocket. The mechanics aren’t required to fix your car and return it to a drivable state, and then, if you can’t pay the repair bill, forced to raise their rates for other customers.
But if you crash your car into a ditch and you are taken to a hospital emergency room they are required to treat you regardless of your insurance status (There are certain exceptions to EMTALA, but if the hospital is accepting federal payments they are required to treat you). This is a good law because it means that if you are mugged, your wallet is stolen and your assailants beat you into a coma that the local hospital emergency room can’t say “Fuck this guy, he doesn’t have an insurance card, let him die.”
So the ACA mandate can be thought of as the emergency room tax. You can either get off of your ass and buy insurance, so that if you need to go to the emergency room you’re covered, or you can pay a penalty to the IRS. Now, you can sit there all day long and bloviate about how unfair it is that you have to give money to a private company to buy insurance, and I’ll agree with you on that, but it seems like you and most of the other people who are bitching about the mandate are instead complaining about being required to pay anything at all for their health care, wanting instead some sort of wonderful system where they get all the health care they want and someone else picks up the tab, you know, like the teabaggers and Medicare.
Mnemosyne
@Observer:
Yes, I know you’re upset because I’m not validating your feelings, but some of us prefer to deal with facts.
You’re probably right that the paranoid set that’s convinced Obamacare agents are going to break down their doors and force them to get checkups is going to win. These are the same people who brought back measles and whooping cough because they felt like vaccinations could be dangerous to their precious little snowflakes.
The marching morons usually win in this country. That doesn’t mean I should ignore the facts and get in step with them.
General Stuck
@Cacti:
This could well end up right. Kennedy has been bouncing back and forth with the clear attacks on precedent the other wingers have been about on the Roberts court of late. But not 6 – 3, I would be surprised at that. Though I predict Kennedy will go along with the other nihilist winger judges and roll the dice to roll back the clock. This really is the Waterloo of Wingnuttery to the conservative cause, seems to me.
But I could be suffering from too many wifi signals in my living room and have come down with Cole Syndrome.
Observer
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know how dumber you can get; I’m not agreeing with them, I’m just saying their sentiments are valid. You seem to have a hard time with things like that.
It’s possible to understand where someone’s coming from without agreeing with them.
Here are three facts:
1) politics is about people
2) calling voters “morons” while trying to win their vote has historically failed
3) the “paranoid set” drive and control more political issues then liberals of your type do
Real America doesn’t like people like you because you can’t hide how much of a condescending jerk you are when you get face to face with them.
If you can’t even stop for a second and begin to try and see where people are coming from on an issue you say is hugely important, on an anonymous blog yet, then you really have nothing of value to offer to the voters to convince them to vote for your preferred policies.
If you want your policies to prevail, you can come down off your high horse and you might try and stop ignoring those three facts above.
You being in the fact-based world, as you say.
General Stuck
@Observer:
Maybe we should call them a thousand points of dim bulb light. Or maybe just “special”. Them being morons, it just might work.
Cacti
@General Stuck:
I think Roberts could be the 6th vote.
He is first and last a handmaiden of big business.
Mnemosyne
@Observer:
I’m reading Nixonland so, yes, I’m quite aware that fear and paranoia wins out over facts and reason. I’m well aware that I live in a country where people are so convinced that sharia law is about to be established that a majority of people in Oklahoma voted to ban it.
If you have a way to convince people that (for example) the president is not a Muslim and is not about to institute sharia law, I’m all ears. While you’re at it, I’d also like to be able to convince them that evolution really happened and gay people are not trying to recruit their children, but that’s probably dreaming the impossible dream in this country.
General Stuck
@Cacti:
If you agree that the justices fear voting down the ACA will green light National Health Care. I think that is far fetched, given it took a hundred years to get any HCR. And there is more at stake than just business and one industry, even one as big as HC. I think they fear most of all, a grateful public permanently turning to liberals and the dem party when the law is fully implemented, and that is already happening to a small degree with polling. Even above business, I think Roberts and the rest, and all conservatives hate the ACA for existential electoral threats posed by it that would lead to losing what they covet most of all, power in governing this country, and all that that includes. Add on to that demographic fears of increasing minority voting power, and you have something like panic that causes all sorts of risk taking and deluded rationalizations.
Observer
@Mnemosyne: It’s not about any of that stuff and you should know that.
Liberals need to be able to talk to people without being an asshole about it. Cathyx was just expressing what lots of people in the country feel.
Here’s Obama expressing the same thing: pay attention to what he says about about the 34 second mark. That’s sentiment right there. He gets it exactly.
Nobody during those debates used the propeller head argument about SS and Medicare you folks are excoriating cathyx about now. Because it’s a bad argument that misses the entire point. But now you are and you folks are just beating someone up mercilessly who is saying the same thing your own president argued a scant 36 months ago.
You had three options to address cathyx and people who say what she explained:
1) I understand the sentiment, you know President Obama had expressed the same thing when he was a candidate, but the legislation was a major compromise and this was one of them
2) I hear your sentiment, I don’t think it 100% valid but let’s see if there’s a way to address them in the near future
3) DUMBO DUMBO DUMBO!!! don’t you know nothing’s changed and this is the same as SS and Medicare. Boy are you a DUMBO. And STUPID. Don’t forget you’re stupid.
The vast majority of you folks went for option #3.
That’s just how you folks roll on pretty well every issue around here.
Don’t complain when the Real America ignores you.
Cacti
@General Stuck:
Not national healthcare, national health insurance, i.e., expansion of the medicare act vs. forming a UK-style NHS.
As for the rest, time will tell.
Observer
@General Stuck: I think former President Bush the elder in the form of Dana Carney beat you to that thousand points of light. you can assume the unspoken word “dim”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: This is a blog that tends to attract people with certain views. That tends to result in people feeling comfortable about venting frustrations about your “Real Americans.” This does not mean that these people will walk up to a “Real American” and call him/her stupid.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
I would be remiss if I did not point out that 695,650 of the 992,954 voters who cast their vote supported the Sharia ban. As of the Nov. election there 2.06 million registered voters in Oklahoma.
Not quite “a majority of people in Oklahoma”.
It’s a silly semantic technicality. Sauce for the goose and all.
Keith G
@Observer:
What the fuck is Real America?
General Stuck
@Cacti:
Opps, national health insurance was what I meant. I don’t see this country ever adopting national health care like GB.
Cacti
@Keith G:
The America that thinks people who speak in complete sentences are “propeller heads”.
Cacti
@General Stuck:
No prob.
I do think if the ACA is voted down, the next iteration of HCR will be a medicare expansion.
The downside is, it will probably be another 15-20 years before it gets touched again, and many people will die from lack of coverage/preventable illness before it comes up.
Quarks
@flukebucket:
Hee. Comment of the thread.
Edit to note that I have no idea how to do a correct blockquote here. The “Well, I’ll be damned” are of course Flukebucket’s words not mine.
Mnemosyne
@Observer:
No, (s)he was expressing what a lot of people in this country think: as in, they think that what (s)he said is factually accurate. They think that the lies the Republicans told them are the truth. They think that death panels are coming to get grandma unless they vote Republican.
They actually believe all of this stuff is true. And we’re not supposed to point out that it’s a pack of lies because it’s going to hurt their feelings?
South Carolina and Wyoming are now both proposing laws to ban sharia law. But I’m sure that all we have to do is listen sympathetically to their feeling that Muslims are taking over the country and their wives and daughters will be forced to wear burkhas. Once we validate their feelings, I’m sure they’ll drop the whole sharia law banning idea and we’ll all be able to join hands and sing “Kumbaya.”
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus:
If, at some point, you want to let the world know what those views actually are, that would be great as (unlike Repubs) there are no apparent bedrock principles that can’t be compromised away for leglislative glory. This is a real request, not snark. If you actually thing there are some views “widely held” by Liberals and the like, please go ahead and list them. Not necessary here in this thread but at some point. Seriously. I don’t think any of the voters know what they are except for the principle of expediency. Blue dogs in the White House and all that.
And out in “flyover country” the peeps knows that you have a very dim view of them, no need to rub it in directly and call them stupid to their face, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
Observer
@Mnemosyne:
well, regarding mandates, one of you folks could have mentioned that techie finesse argument about SS and Medicare being the same as an individual mandate to Candidate Obama in real time. But you didn’t.
Just sayin’.
I guess it never occurs to you that the rich Repubs have the same view of them “dumbos” as you do but about the only difference is their approach isn’t to condescend to them because, you know, they are trying to win their vote.
In any case, they’ve got 4, maybe 5, Supremes in their back pocket. My money is on them prevailing on this one.
Like they usually do. Time will tell.
NorthernMNer
Ok tax experts (or taxperts?) here’s one for you:
I always thought that the tax in the ACA was a tax (penalty, whatever) on an event–the event being that every year you went without health coverage, you incurred a tax. It wasn’t conceived of a tax on “existence” or other such nonsense.
joe from Lowell
It’s difficult for me to imagine a more effective way of making oneself utterly unworthy of the slightest respect than to continually invoke, David Brooks-style, mythical “Real Americans” in “flyover country” that one has never met in support of one’s political preferences.
joe from Lowell
Hey, Observer, you gonna come to our Ban the Ground Zero Mosque rally?
love,
Real Americans You’ve Never Met
RareSanity
@Observer:
You. Are. An. Idiot.
Guess what? Just like in your analogy for Social Security and Medicare, if you don’t have any income, you don’t have to worry about a penalty for not having insurance. The penalty is assessed by the IRS, no income, no tax return, no penalty, simple.
There is no mandate that you have an income. Therefore no mandate that you pay for health insurance. You can sleep soundly tonight. Although, I think you better start saving whatever money you are making now because you’re gonna need it in 2013, and beyond, when you stop having an income.
EDIT: grammar
Kryptik
Seriously, I’m terrified that with this ruling, they’re basically giving the Supremes the carte blanche to be as wingnutty as they want to be. And fuck all, if they do end up wiping the slate totally fucking clean, then what? I can’t see anything worth anything passing through Congress now, and we’ll still have a totally fucking untenable health system that basically says ‘if you’re not rich, you’re not worth care’.
God, fucking hell, I’m just about ready to give up on this whole fucking country since it seems institutionally fucked to the gills and never about to get any fucking better because the Wingnuts really do seem to always fucking win.
El Cid
@NorthernMNer:
Apparently a “mandate” to buy health insurance otherwise one may face a “fee” or “fine” (a tax) is very different from giving everyone who has the insurance a standard tax credit and not giving that tax credit to people who don’t.
I guess it’s a “mandate” on me to not get a tax deduction for homeowners’ insurance since I don’t own a house, so I have to pay an additional “fine” to the government in taxes on my rent.
Cacti
@El Cid:
Or if you don’t have dependent children, you pay a “penalty” on your taxes for not having them.
If you’re an unmarried single or childless couple, you pay more taxes for your “inaction” of not producing offspring.
Or the student loan interest deduction.
If you’re just a high school graduate, you pay more taxes for the “inaction” of not debt-financing a higher education.
Observer
@RareSanity: Wow, one word sentences. You. Really. Got. Me. On. This. One.
Just one more question though, before I’m done with this thread…
…do you expect to make SS and Medicare contributions to the IRS when your tenant pays you rent or other property income, or when you get stock dividends, realize capital gains, cash in your stock options, warrants, or when you make network marketing/MLM money and other business income, inheritance and estate income, receive royalty payments and other non-salaried taxable income?
Just askin’ because it sounds like you think the only way to create taxable income is to have a job.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: There is the self employment tax that covers SS and Medicare on income generated by a small business or self employment. Basically these taxes are on earned rather than unearned income. And if you want to have a conversation about taxing unearned income for SS and Medicare, I am on board.
sparky
after skimming this thread, it appears that no one has actually discussed the rationale for the decision.
this is, ultimately, an exercise in line drawing. the commerce clause is not and can not be stretched beyond a certain point. Vinson thinks this legislation passed that point, largely, it seems, because defendants asserted such a vague approach that, as he points out, there is no regulation that could not fit under the rubric of economic activity. people who think this law is a good idea would, i assume, draw the line further out, so to speak. but it is still a line, and for a variety of reasons all of you calling this decision stupid or bad might want to think about what would happen if Congress had limitless power.
so yes, it’s reasonable to assume that “conservative” judges would be more likely to take a dim view of expanding Congressional power under the commerce clause. but that doesn’t mean they are wrong. unless or until someone charged with defending this legislation comes up with some better arguments, or a foothold on the infamous slippery slope argument, the legislation’s future looks a bit dim.
shorter me: the issue here is whether Congress had the power to enact the scheme. because this scheme tests the outer reaches of commerce clause power, reasonable people can disagree.
Xenos
@LABiker:
Exactly. Medicare for all is quite popular. Of course, that would only work if the ruling by the USSC does not shitcan Medicare in the process of overturning ACA. I don’t think that the GOP wants to go to the 2012 or 2014 elections as the party that overturned Medicare, though.
More 11 dimensional chess. However this plays out, Obama expects political victory to drop into his lap. I hope he is right.
RareSanity
@Observer:
Read my comment again, idiot. I said income, not wages.
So, I repeat, if you have no income, you don’t file a tax return, therefore, cannot be assessed a penalty on those taxes.
Since more than 90% of the American public earn money from wages, even if they also have unearned income, your point is even more ridiculous
General Stuck
@sparky:
I’m sorry. But this law did not stretch the limits of the Commerce Clause. There is no doubt that the uninsured at some point get sick and by law must be treated. Which has a profound effect on interstate commerce. It is well within the accepted uses of the commerce clause, due to the moral hazard from not treating these uninsured folks. And no, reasonable people cannot disagree. Only those who don’t like the law can pull bullshit out of their asses to use to defeat it. Kind of what you are doing sparky. And have been doing for over a year now. If the courts undo this law, it will open the door to undoing a bunch of progressive laws, the least of which is not SS and medicare.
Cacti
@sparky:
Thanks for educating us professor, I’m sure that hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind.
The problem is, this isn’t a first year law school exercise in socratic wankery. The real world implications of Republican politicians and judges carrying the day on this one is that people will die.
Judge Vinson is willing to let people die, not just a few, but thousands of them every year, so that a doctrinaire philosophical point can prevail. Realizing this, he made an obligatory reference to issuing his mass death sentence “reluctantly”.
Vinson and those of his philosophical stripe would have us return to an Articles of Confederation interpretation of the Constitution, where the national government lacks authority to address national problems. Decreeing that thousands of people die preventable deaths may sound reasonable to someone who has been sheltered for decades in a lifetime appointment to the priesthood of the federal bench. Outside of that cloistered world, it sounds barbaric if not monstrous.
So, yes, I’d say they’re quite wrong in their formulations.
Xenos
@sparky: And keep in mind that the Commerce Clause is inherently elastic. The more interconnected interstate commerce is, the broader the jurisdiction of Congress to regulate it. As insurance is mostly regulated by the states, there is an argument that there is little interstate commerce to invoke congressional power.
Yet, remember the prominant GOP argument once they decided to disown their ‘mandates’ idea? Interstate sales of insurance. So if ACA goes down, and the GOP gets Obama and the Senate to approve interstate insurance sales, the power of Congress to regulate insurance in the finest detail will be indisputable. A new version of ACA will easily pass muster under any imaginable constitutional theory, and the public should support Democrats trying to fix the latest mess when the elections come around again.
In the meantime lots of people suffer and die, but hey, you got to work with the constitutional system you have, not the one you want, right?
Caz
You liberals are so ignorant it’s staggering. Most of you have no idea what the commerce clause actually is, what the framers intended with the commerce clause, what the last 150 years of precedential rulings say, what judicial activism is, or that the penalty portion of the personal madante section is not a tax but a penalty (check out the title of that subsection in the law).
Fortunately, the Supreme Court justices know these things, and there is absolutely no way they will let this unconstitutional law stand.
Bottom line: Don’t you all realize that if this law stands, it basically means the federal government will have no limits to what it can do or what areas of our society they can regulate and interfere with?
It’s a sad state of affairs when all of you purportedly educated folks are so ignorant about our Constitution, the littanly of commerce clause decisions throughout the years, and the substance of Obamacare itself.
Your comments would be entertaining if so much weren’t at stake with this law. Wow.
Xenos
@Caz:
Then educate me. Try answering a couple good-faith questions:
1-Now that the national economy is more interconnected than any of the state economies at the time of ratification, why should the federal government not have comparable police powers to that of the states, at least as far as clearly commercial issues are concerned? Does not the commerce clause, as written, allow for such an expansion of Congress’ power?
2-Are you for or against interstate sales of health insurance? If you are for them, how does that square with the principles of federalism?
Yutsano
@Caz: To quote one of the best anime characters ever:
But this right here is the most idiotic part of your statement:
Umm…no. You’re trying to conflate a loss of freedom that you never had in the first place with a large legal change that affects everyone but will result in even more freedom than ever. Tethering someone to a miserable job just to keep their health insurance, paying more and more for a health insurer to cover less and less, and being captive to a inefficient health delivery system is the true oppression here. You’re just so blinded by ideology and American exceptionalism to realize how fucked up our health system truly is. Ask anyone with poor health insurance. Or none.
Jebediah
@Peter:
.
Also “major fucking bad-ass.”
bob h
Vinson undoubtedly expects to be rewarded for this if a Republican administration should come to pass soon.
Cacti
Judicial review in this area is influenced above all by the fact that
. This power is “complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the constitution.” Moreover, this Court has made clear that the commerce power extends… to activities affecting commerce…. Thus, when Congress has determined that an activity affects interstate commerce, the courts need inquire only whether the finding is rational.
-Noted liberal, William H. Rehnquist