Judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional, endangering coverage for 20 million

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upant said:
remember john roberts made up the tax scheme to make it constitutional.

obama and company said the penalty wasn’t a tax.
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The Obama administration (I forget who argued the case for the Solicitor General’s office) made an argument before the Court. The Court rejected that argument, and found the ACA constitutional on other grounds.

Roberts didn’t “make up” anything. He wrote an opinion (joined in part by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan) for the majority of the Court, finding that the individual mandate was a tax.

It was a complex issue, and I’m not any kind of lawyer, let alone a Constitutional lawyer, but to say that the Supreme Court, if it rejects one legal theory but arrives at the same result based on another legal theory, is “making up” things, is to trivialize what the Court does.

That’s all.

The case was National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519. The full opinion is here, if you’d like to read it.
 
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Since states can require one to buy insurance, why can’t the federal government?
 
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sallybutler said:
Since states can require one to buy insurance, why can’t the federal government?
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AFAIK, states require auto liability insurance. Not everyone has to have it, though. If you don’t drive, you don’t have to have it. If you only drive on your own property, you don’t have to have it.
If you don’t have it, you can’t drive on public roads.
I dont think anyone is suggesting that if you don’t have health insurance, you should be denied care.
 
JonNC said:
I dont think anyone is suggesting that if you don’t have health insurance, you should be denied care.
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Well, you shouldn’t be, of course.

But you will be, unless you have incredibly deep pockets, or you’re fortunate enough to come to the attention of some charitable organization somewhere. Yes, emergency rooms are required to treat and stablize patients without regard to ability to pay, but the patient will still get a crippling bill.

And say some middle-aged, ex-smoker like me has a heart attack. Without insurance. He’ll get stablized at an emergency room, sure. Then he’ll be sent home. He won’t get the follow-up care to ensure that he doesn’t have another heart attack. And he will have a heart attack, when he sees the bill and realizes that personal bankruptcy is the only way out.

And non-emergency care? You need a hip replacement? Too bad, that’s not an emergency. Take some Advil. And psychiatric care? You’re really up the creek.

Pre-natal care for expectant mothers? Maybe not.

Hey, do you know what it costs to have a baby? I do, 'cause we’ve had two. Well over twenty grand each. Without insurance, I couldn’t afford that. Now, some might say, if you can’t afford to have babies, then don’t, but hey, we’re Catholics, we can’t say that.

There’s always Medicaid, some will say. But the income cut-offs are pretty severe for Medicaid. Even ridiculous, where I live. If you make under the cut-off, you can’t afford to eat, let alone get medical care. So you’ll have Medicaid, but you’ll be hungry.

I get that this is America. We’re different. I guess that’s true, in that we can’t or won’t get our act together enough to manage what every other developed nation in the world manages to do as a matter of course.

But health care isn’t an enumerated power, so there we are.

At least I can have all the guns I want.
 
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JonNC said:
You can choose to not talk about abortion, but if you’re talking about ACA, abortifacients have to be discussed.
If you support ACA, you support government dictation. It is that by definition.
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No thank you. I will decline your definitions. It is the same old story I used to get told that if I voted third party I was supporting abortion. Definitions are precise, not syllogisms which may, or may not be accurate.
 
pnewton said:
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JonNC:
You can choose to not talk about abortion, but if you’re talking about ACA, abortifacients have to be discussed.
If you support ACA, you support government dictation. It is that by definition.
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No thank you. I will decline your definitions. It is the same old story I used to get told that if I voted third party I was supporting abortion. Definitions are precise, not syllogisms which may, or may not be accurate.
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Thanks for the dialogue.
 
JonNC said:
Thanks for the dialogue.
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The old saw is, “you are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts”, if one rejects facts, then, that is up to that debater. The point remains.
 
Victoria33 said:
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JonNC:
Thanks for the dialogue.
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The old saw is, “you are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts”, if one rejects facts, then, that is up to that debater. The point remains.
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Agreed. So, when government dictates something, it is factual to call it “government dictated”.
 
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petra22 said:
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JonNC:
Is that the standard for government healthcare? Better than nothing?
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I’m guessing that’s all the government (we) can afford…
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And that’s why government run healthcare always queues, always rations. “Medicare For All” (which means everyone gets what I and millions of seniors paid 40 years or more to get) will cost minimum $32 trillion over ten years. Income taxes will have to rise dramatically on everyone!
They will ration. The will queue. They will deny care based in the projected productivity of the patient.
 
Private insurance companies also ration. They ration what they will pay for and who they will insure. Of course, that is ok because it market driven.
 
Yes. There are surgeries, diagnostics and treatments today that were not available in 1922. Never said they were.
 
sallybutler said:
Private insurance companies also ration. They ration what they will pay for and who they will insure.
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But I can move to another private insurance company. When the general government is the insurance, what’s my option?
Of course, that is ok because it market driven.
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Why not allow people to form large associations across state lines. Let those associations negotiate. Oh, I forgot. That sounds too much like freedom.
 
The thing that amazes me most is how many people here want Donald Trump in charge of their health care. If “Medicare For All” passed tomorrow, Trump is in charge of your healthcare.
I don’t want him in charge of my healthcare. I certainly don’t want a progressive in charge of my healthcare.
 
You also forgot that insurance companies are regulated by states. If Kansas wanted to allow companies not registered in their state to offer insurance, they could to it with the stroke of a pen. But they don’t.

And most insurance companies use the same metrics for deciding who will be a profitable customer on individual policies.
 
sallybutler said:
You also forgot that insurance companies are regulated by states. If Kansas wanted to allow companies not registered in their state to offer insurance, they could to it with the stroke of a pen. But they don’t.
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Darn right. States should free up the market place too. I am all in favor of that.
And most insurance companies use the same metrics for deciding who will be a profitable customer on individual policies.
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The great thing about the market is, if groups can negotiate price with large numbers of people, they can influence price structures.
 
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