Supreme Court addressing ObamaCare

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Republicans are questioning Obamacare because of the individual mandate that they must purchase health insurance. There are many problems with this challenge. Republicans have put into health insurance an individual mandate in the past. Also, many states require people to buy auto insurance; it's an individual mandate.

How can the SC question what the congress has passed? Does this mean that the SC is "superior" in power to congress, and that they can question any legislation passed by congress. Where do this get this power?

Most developed, democratic, countries require individual mandate for health insurance.

From Wiki.

Quote:

The Massachusetts health care insurance reform law, St. 2006, c.58,[1][2], enacted in 2006, mandates that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a state-government-regulated minimum level of healthcare insurance coverage and provides free health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level (FPL)[3] who are not eligible for Mass Health (Medicaid). The law also partially subsidizes health care insurance for those earning up to 300% of the FPL. These subsidies and FPL-related calculations affect very few of the over 6,000,000 people (see Massachusetts Department of Healthcare Finance and Policy quarterly Key Indicators report) that had healthcare insurance prior to the enactment of the law.

This is RomneyCare.

Republicans are arguing that once government requires consumers to buy something, they can require everybody to buy "carrots."

I guess everybody can now cancel their car insurance.

Here's a poll on universal health care in the US.

Quote:

Should the United States have universal health care?
Yes 11741 (78.1%)
No 3298 (21.9%)

I'm just wondering if any conservative voted "yes."

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@cicerone imposter,

This map shows all the countries in blue that have universal health care. The republicans don't want health care for Americans.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v97/imposter222/healthcareworldbig.jpg

I have only one question; what's wrong with conservatives in this country that they don't want health care for all? We already spend the most for health care, and almost 60 million Americans don't have health insurance.

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The only people I've ever heard being opposed to universal health care have health care.

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@JPB,

Many countries with universal health care have a good proportion already have health care under their employment. It's about providing subsidies to those who can't afford to buy insurance, and not allow insurance companies to deny insurance to those with preexisting health issues.

I have also written to President Obama that all Medicare recipients should be required to fill out a Living Will.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Also, many states require people to buy auto insurance; it's an individual mandate.

Your statement has no bearing to the mandate that all must buy health insurance. The fallacy is that nobody in this country is forced to buy auto insurance. You need it only if you wish to drive an automobile. If everyone was required to buy auto insurance whether they needed it or not, then your comparison would be accurate. But that is not the case and there are many people who do not have auto insurance living in large cities all over the country and taking local mass transit to work every day.

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@CoastalRat,

That's right; but those without health insurance can go to any hospital emergency room to get "health care services" that everybody else pays for.

Not driving a car is a personal choice; nobody says you have to own a car. However, there are "responsibilities" that the state imposes on everybody who chooses to have a car; it's called financial responsibility. Health care is the same; everybody needs health care whether they want to purchase insurance or not.

You also don't have to buy a home, but the finance company will insist you buy property insurance or no mortgage loan. That's also "financial responsibility."

No government law says you have to buy a car or a home. Insurance is mandated whether you like it or not.

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@cicerone imposter,

I agree with everything you are saying CI. Insurance is mandated IF you choose to buy a car. (Actually, insurance is not mandated to own a home. It is a requirement of the lending company if you wish to borrow money for a home. Once the home is actually yours, you are able to drop the insurance coverage if you wish.)

Where the analogy fails is that with the health care mandate, you are required to buy insurance just for being alive. There is no choice in the matter. And in that the government is overstepping its bounds. Using the same argument, the government could indeed force citizens to buy carrots (using your example, I believe.) Not that I would ever expect that to happen of course, lol, but the principle could be applied to anything the government wanted us to do.

Personally, I believe anyone who can, should have health insurance for catastrophic illnesses. But telling someone they must buy it or pay a fine to the government is not acceptable to me.

Quote:

That's right; but those without health insurance can go to any hospital emergency room to get "health care services" that everybody else pays for.

And that is the rub in the system as it is now. But demanding that everyone has to buy insurance with fines for those who don't is still not the answer. It would be comparable to saying that because some people drive cars and have accidents while not being insured, we will require all people upon attaining the age of 15 to buy car insurance whether they drive a car or not. Is that the direction you wish to go in?

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@CoastalRat,

True: On buying a home, it's mandated by the mortgage company; otherwise their asset is unprotected. Have you ever purchased a home with a mortgage? Also, who in their right mind would stop property insurance once they have title to their home?

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@cicerone imposter,

I think that is what I just wrote. The lending company mandates it to protect their asset until such time that the home is fully paid for, at which time insurance is no longer necessary. Auto insurance is slightly different in that the minimum coverage is mandated by the state to protect others from your wrecklessness. Coverage on the vehicle of course is the same as home insurance in that it protects the lending company until the vehicle is fully yours, at which time you can drop that portion of the coverage.

In either case, the mandated coverage is not comparable to the government mandating health insurance.

Code:Also, who in their right mind would stop property insurance once they have title to their home?

I agree it would be kinda dumb, but the point is that one may indeed drop the property coverage since it is no longer a part of the loan contract since the loan contract has been fulfilled.

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@CoastalRat,

All the countries with universal health care doesn't require their citizens to buy carrots - or anything else. Your imagination is running away from the topic about ObamaCare.

There are parts of ObamaCare that fails to control cost that I've challenged on many of these boards, but I'm an advocate for universal health care.

Our country already spends the greatest amount for health care, but we have some 60-million Americans without health insurance. We spend too much for defense and our military, to fight wars in countries half way around the world, and forget our taxes should also protect our citizens from financial ruin. That's also part and parcel of "security."

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@CoastalRat,

You wrote,

Quote:

Auto insurance is slightly different in that the minimum coverage is mandated by the state to protect others from your wrecklessness.

Health issues impacts everybody, not just the patient who may come down with a communicable disease. No different than car insurance.

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@cicerone imposter,

First off, I of course never said the government would make us buy carrots. I was, I believe, using an example that I think you mentioned in an earlier post. Maybe it wasn't you, I didn't go back and look to be sure.

Next, I am only arguing against the mandate in this thread. I agree that the government wastes way to much of our tax dollars on things they have absolutely no business wasting it on. We might disagree on exactly what those things are, but I think you and I would agree that there is much waste.

Your 60 million figure may be right or it may not be. I don't know. But if I were a betting man, I would be that a pretty good portion of that figure includes young adult and healthy people who have CHOSEN not to buy health insurance. And yes, I agree that there are many who claim they cannot afford health insurance, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. But please point out to me, anywhere in the Constitution, where government has the responsibility to provide health care to anybody. It is not there. Can you give me a good reason that government should get into the health insurance business?

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Health issues impacts everybody, not just the patient who may come down with a communicable disease. No different than car insurance.

No, a health issue only impacts the person who has the issue. Now granted, it will affect the family also, as far as caring for the person and the emotional side of dealing with the illness, but requiring health insurance will not take care of that side of things in any case. My wife has a couple of health issues. They do not affect you in any way. She could come to your house, sit down, chat with you and walk away and you would in no way be affected by her health issue. But if she drove her car into yours, then you would indeed be affected by her wreckless driving.

You really do not advance your argument by continually trying to force the analogy that car insurance is comparable to the health mandate. There is no comparison to the two of them.

Bottom line, I think everyone should have health insurance and think people should buy it if it were available to them. But mandating it just because I am alive is not a Constitutionally defensible position.

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@CoastalRat,

The carrot example was used on one of Maddow's show in how ridiculous the idea of government overstepping on people's choice to buy something with a government mandate.

The idea of any insurance mandate is to spread the risk, so the overall cost for everybody decreases. That was one of the weakness of the Mass universal health insurance law; people purchased insurance to get expensive surgery, then stopped buying insurance once they completed their surgery.

That's not the only issue; the majority of Americans want universal health care.

Quote:

In an extensive ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll, Americans by a 2-1 margin, 62-32 percent, prefer a universal health insurance program over the current employer-based system. That support, however, is conditional: It falls to fewer than four in 10 if it means a limited choice of doctors, or waiting lists for non-emergency treatments.

You say government mandated health insurance is not Constitutionally defensable, but most democracies have universal health care, and they live longer and healthier lives.

That seems like the best "security" money can buy.

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@cicerone imposter,

I think we can move past the carrot example. I pretty much admitted in the post that I mentioned it in that it was over the top.

And you are correct in that most Americans want universal health care. I have no problem at all with universal health care. Of course, you skip over the fact that most want it ONLY if it comes with no waiting lists and no limited choice of doctors. And in both England and Canada, the two countries most often pointed to in our debate, there are waiting lists for non-emergency procedures. There have been many, many people coming forward to tell of long waits for service. One I heard a person talk about the other day was a 2 year wait for a colonoscopy. Now of course, maybe this was a total lie. But it sure seems like a lot of people in those two countries are lying about long waits. What makes you think the US will be any different?

Based upon all we know of the Canadian and English issue with waiting lists, I tend to believe it would be the same here and thus most people do not want that, per your own post.

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@CoastalRat,

You wrote,

Quote:

if it comes with no waiting lists and no limited choice of doctors.

In comparison to or opposed to what? Those sound like subjective requirements without much definitions. Having "everybody" covered still provides better health for everybody.

Also, the so-called "mandate" will not affect everybody.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74493.html

What are people afraid of? Good health?

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

WASHINGTON – With the fate of President Obama’s health care law hanging in the balance at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, a lawyer for the administration faced a barrage of skeptical questions from four of the court’s more conservative justices.

“Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked the lawyer, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., only minutes into the argument.

Justice Antonin Scalia soon joined in. “May failure to purchase something subject me to regulation?” he asked.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked if the government could compel the purchase of cellphones. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked about forcing people to buy burial insurance.

The conventional view is that the administration will need one of those four votes to win the case, and it was not clear on Tuesday that it had captured one.

The court’s four more liberal members – Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – indicated that they supported the law, as expected. Justice Clarence Thomas, who asked no questions, is thought likely to vote to strike down the law.

I have a question for those conservative judges. Does all the other universal health care plans now in existence require what they are suggesting?

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I have been bitching about congress ******* the U.S. populace. What we need is a way to get rid of a republican big business purchased supreme court. We need a way to remove those who are against the 99% rather than let a bunch of idiots serve untill they are even more senile then when they were installed.

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Very telling graphic on TV last night, something like "U.S. Health Care #1 in cost. #37 in quality of care." Per capita, US health care costs about twice as much as ANY single payer system (and there are something on the order of 37 single-payer systems now, so those numbers aren't a fluke). Health care runs about 17.6% of GDP, much higher than in any other developed country. The government pays about half of that. which means, if we had a rational system of health care, the government would already be paying the whole thing. But NO, says the party of no.

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@cicerone imposter,

Republicans are arguing the point that individual mandates to have health insurance is not legal. They also argue that shifting of wealth from the rich to the poor is contrary to their beliefs.

So, anybody who chooses not to have health insurance, and they are involved in an accident, and are taken to the hospital, they will be treated, and everybody else will pick up the tab.

Is there a difference? Since I want "free" health insurance, I don't have to pay, because everybody else will pay for my care.

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Supreme Court addressing ObamaCare

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