Healthcare Law Appealed To Supreme Court 1019
26 states and a small business group have filed separate appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to strike down Obama's 2010 healthcare law. In August, an appeals court in Atlanta ruled that the individual insurance requirement was unconstitutional, making it almost certain that the bill would go to the Supreme Court. From the article: "The Obama administration earlier this week said it decided against asking the full U.S. Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit to review the August ruling by a three-judge panel of the court that found the insurance requirement unconstitutional. That decision cleared the way for the administration to go to the Supreme Court. The administration has said it believes the law will be upheld in court while opponents say it represents an unconstitutional encroachment of federal power."
What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
What other products will they eventually mandate that we buy from corporations, purely by virtue of existing?
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Well, the RIAA and MPAA have infiltrated the government pretty well, and it seems to fit with their ideals....
Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
Clothes. Try walking around town naked and homeless.
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Not really. The government doesn't mandate that you buy clothes -- just that you wear them. Probably not a meaningful difference for most people, but it may be for the Amish.
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Re:What other products (Score:4, Interesting)
It's constitutional. I'm not sure where you got the idea that the health care overhaul legislation isn't constitutional. The Federal government has the right to regulate commerce. And, the reason why the costs have been spiraling out of control is that nobody truly opts out of health insurance. Eventually they do get sick at which point the doctors and hospitals turn the costs over to taxpayers or insurance companies.
At this point only a very small section of the law is even in question and it's unlikely that Kennedy is going to side with the folks claiming that it's unconstitutional.
Absolute worst case scenario is that it's thrown out in court and replaced with either Medicare for everybody or single payer, both of which are way beyond any challenge. The GOP just doesn't seem to understand that it's challenging the compromise that it was given and most of the other options are less palatable to them.
Beyond that, if this really is that obviously unconstitutional they shouldn't have been pushing for it in the past.
Re:What other products (Score:4, Informative)
Water. Try owning a house in any city without running water. You'll be fined/charged.
Electricity. Pretty much the same, unless you (like the Amish) can drum up some form of "religious objection." Good luck managing it unless you're Amish or Mennonite.
Clothing... check. Either you buy it, or someone buys it and gifts it to you.
Education. You pay, through your taxes, for it. One way or another.
Retirement. See also: Social Security. You can argue over the semantics all day long, you can argue you are "paying now for someone else and others will pay for you"... end of the day, you are contributing funds to a government program designed to ensure that the elderly are not left Completely Fucking Destitute.
The list goes on pretty considerably.
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The list goes on pretty considerably.
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The ability to seek out care is. Nobody can legitimately prevent you from seeking it, much like nobody can legitimately prevent you from speaking your mind. Nobody has to enable your use of rights for you, though.
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I think is it more a human responsibility....
Like most anything in this world, you as an individual are responsible to plan, save and pay for basic healthcare needs. We really should go back to where insurance was what was termed 'major medical'...it was insurance ONLY to be used in major, catastrophic emergencies (heart attack, get hit by a car, etc).
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Neither is healthcare. It's a human right.
- you cannot have a right that imposes an obligation on somebody, anybody.
There is no such thing as a right to a Ferrari, correct? So there is no such thing as a right to food or clothing or shelter or health insurance or health care or education, it's because this imposes an obligation for somebody to supply you with this stuff, so it cannot be a right.
Get your definitions straight. You may want to have those entitlements, but as long as somebody must pay for these with their time/money/work those are not
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I don't know what 'your' state is, but you are not talking about the federal US Constitution.
As to right to a fair trial - criminal code will put your life on the line, and since you actually have a RIGHT to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, then you are ENTITLED to a fair trial.
Whether this is done with jury or not is irrelevant. The system is violating your right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness if it puts you in a position, where you have to defend yourself against criminal accusations, so
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Actually those things are human rights in the EU.
- they are not rights because once the economy dies, nobody can provide you with those, so get your terminology straight, those are entitlements, not rights. Those impose obligations on people to provide you with something, they are not rights.
A right is not to have somebody provide you with stuff. A right is about relationship between an individual and the government (collective), in order to limit the government from depriving you of your sovereign (unalienable) rights.
You can call it whatever you like,
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I think the thousands of people sued for violating civil rights would disagree with your definition of rights.
- they are given entitlements, not rights. There are no 'civil rights'. It's a ruse. There are entitlements and obligations.
Rights are only about your relationship with the government.
"Civil rights" are about government imposing itself upon individuals and taking away their individual rights to liberty and property and pursuit of happiness in order to give entitlements to some other individuals. The reasons for government doing anything is to gain political power, that's all.
People suing OTHER PEOPLE over
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Does this mean you are against contracting government services and government outsourcing, just curious. I am.
- no, that's not the point.
I am saying that government shouldn't be in business even trying to provide any of the services that it provides today. In the system that it this deeply corrupt (and I am talking about government corruption, with it doing things it is not authorized to do), any outsourcing is likely to result in even worse consequences because it will be done for reasons of personal gain.
WHO is going to profit from outsourcing of that MONOPOLY service?
--
No no, the real fix is in getting governme
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Wrong again. A few laws passed in the UK have subsequently been ruled in violation of human rights and thus removed from the books
- I don't see how this applies to me or makes me wrong, but hey, UK is a back ass place. Every time I go to London I sort of enjoy it, but I enjoy much more when I leave.
You also cannot give away your human rights via contract.
- I didn't even say you can, YOU ARE THE ONE SAYING THAT YOU CAN.
At point in time that you are talking about government forcing you to give up whatever you make with your life, any amount of your work so that somebody else can have an entitlement, you have just allowed them to take away your right to property and pursuit of happiness, and
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No, there is no individual contract between you and me on what constitutes your or my rights. If I kill you, I am only liable because the criminal code says so, which basically a set of laws that define what criminal offenses are between private parties.
The concept of 'rights' has nothing to do with relationships between individuals.
Does your wife or husband (if you have one, or whatever you may have) have a right to impede on your 'free speech' for example? Well, even he/she/it doesn't have to provide you
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You only seem capable of thinking in extremes.
- in limited space and time this is the only way to demonstrate a point.
You can own property, just not if you retaining it would cause someone else to die of starvation.
- nonsense. "just not"? You can't be a touch pregnant and you can't believe in 'touch' of rights.
Either you have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness or you do not. You cannot have that right unless..... somebody can define a reason why you shouldn't have that right and bring up any argument.
Your individual rights are sovereign, which means the collective cannot abuse them (if that's the government that you set up, where
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What you stupidly fail to comprehend is that the rest of us WILL PAY for your healthcare if you can't be bothered, are too lazy, or too self-centered to contribute to some insurance plan. You will end up needing healthcare some day (AND YOU WILL, don't even waste your pixels denying that) and then THE REST OF US will be here to pick up your freeloading ass.
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Healthcare like many other products utterly fails when left up to the market and only a biased tool could believe otherwise. Simple reason why, selecting the lowest bidder in the free market, often results in selecting a ponzi scammer. Those that take in money without any intention of paying out and bleeding as much as possible into the own pockets before going under. Result is people are left without any insurance when they need it and under your lying privatised scheme die.
Now add rinse and repeat, as
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This. Why public healthcare can't be run by the states? Heck, Canada does just that, so it's a model that's proven to work.
(Canadian provinces do cooperate in a money redistribution scheme that also involves Feds, but it is voluntary, and provinces can drop out at will and run their own healthcare programs - or none at all.)
I believe that there is federal legislation (Canada Health Act perhaps?) that requires each province to enact health care legislation that meets certain minimal standards for each province to meet.
Hey, looks like I was correct in my memory of the name at least: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Health_Act [wikipedia.org]
But it looks like "shutdown" is correct in that the provinces do not in fact HAVE to follow the CHA, but when they step out of line, the feds can (and do) reduce the amount of money the federal government
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Re:What other products (Score:4, Informative)
All of which use separate insurance pools for each state.
Re:What other products (Score:4, Insightful)
"Government isn't mandating that you buy [a yacht] -- just that you have it."
So now Obama is trying to make me buy a yacht? Bloody hell, how far will this guy go before people wake up. I'm going to write up an email and send it to all my friends. Our president is clearly in the pocket of "Big-Yacht".
It was the result of compromise with the GOP, which calls it a suitable employment program - the only problem is the Yachts will be coming from China, not US factories, so it fails again.
The people don't understand the ObamaCare plan - not entirely sure I do either, as it's a bit of a Frankenstein plan, rather than best plan which we couldn't get, not because of "Socialism", but because the major Healthcare companies have the GOP (and some Dems) so buttoned up in their pockets that the best plan of all could never get passed (the plan which cuts them largely out of the loop.)
Imagine if you will, there was no Social Security in the United States and any administration trying to get that system through today, with the way big business interests have so many politicians on a gilt leash. It'd be horrible and the only people really benefiting (besides lawyers, who seem to find a way to prosper from anything) would be businesses, not the people it was meant to serve.
A basic national healthcare system is in the interests of the people, but they've been so baffled with BS they don't know what they're getting they've completely confused in the debate, often siding against their own best interests and subscribing to slogans like 'It's socialism and it's bad' - right, sure you got there by a car, on a highway, built with federal legislation and funding, but who's speaking up for tearing them all up and turning all the major highways back over to private hands and turnpikes, eh?
There's a good solution, but it takes a strong leader to make it happen.
I'm afraid people will finally wake up when healthcare is only affordable to the 1% and some plague is sweeping the country.
Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you often caught arguing without the facts?
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Yes! (Score:3)
Rhode Island does not require auto insurance. Others let you self insure.
By the way, what is a "Federal Road"? - and are they not goverened by state laws - not national ones?
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Well that's a dumb analogy, given the fact the person would be given eventually clothes at some point. As far as beging homeless, they would be given some shelter if they were arrested obviously.
You know, living in a society there are a few things you can actually get free (gasp socialism! everything should be paid for obviously) in a modern society complete glutted with products. I'm really sicked by people that make those arguments that the poor don't have it so bad since they have a TV. Oh it's so hard t
Re:What other products (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been in single payer nations, never saw such thing. Are you paid by the insurers or are you their lackey for free?
Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
People do not have to wait for life threatening care with single payer, just non-immediately needed procedures sometimes. Stop your ignorant talking points.
What we have now is wealthcare. The wealthy like the fact that they get quicker service for non life threatening care by removing millions of people from being able to access care at all. That's not equal opportunity for all.
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Re:Queues? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, considering how big a boost single payer or similar would be to economic mobility and entrepreneurship Free Market(tm) loving Republicans should be clambering for it. Trading a shitty "freedom" like picking which insurance company rapes you for a better one like dramatically improved job mobility is a no-brainer, and pretty much the exact kind of thing we have government in the first place.
Any Free Market worshipper who wouldn't support something like single payer is almost certainly a hopeless ideologue ("who cares that the end is closer to my proclaimed goal, the means to get there are technically counter to my idea of how things should work so screw the whole thing!"), a lying douchebag shill, or a complete dumbass. Maybe all three.
Want to help the "job creators" hire people? Enact a "socialist" health care law modeled on any of a couple dozen successful systems tomorrow and watch as 50,000 new businesses show up seemingly out of no-where, wages rise, health care costs drop, and offshoring slows.
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Not the original poster, but here are a couple pluses for (new) small businesses.
1. If your health insurance is tied to your current employer, can you afford to quit and start your own business? New businesses tend to be cash poor, depending on the owner's sweat equity to survive until they can become established. Do you go without insurance until then?
2. In a normal job market, if you are a small business trying to hire talented technical people, you have to compete with companies in a much larger insura
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In my area, even fairly basic health insurance plans start at about $550/mo for a famil
Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
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And both have been railed against for the exact same reason as this law. And you don't have to buy or use either. You only have to use them when on public roads (there are a LOT of farm vehicles that don't carry license plates or liability insurance).
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I wouldn't call those good examples. Seatbelts come with all modern vehicles and not everyone even owns a car. Although motorcycle helmets must be worn in many states for street riders, not everyone owns or rides street motorcycles. Your examples are similar, but not a "good example".
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Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, we are forced to pay for Healthcare of others. It's already a socialized system. No one will be turned away from an emergency room. And our payments are bloated to cover the loss from uninsured patients and set-cost payments (medicare).
So if I'm already forced to subsidize everyone else, why shouldn't they be forced to either subsidize along with me (the socially responsible choice) or to pay a penalty, to atleast put some skin in the game.
It is unfortunate that we don't have much for non-profit or a government option. Because I'm getting pretty sick of paying 20 cents on the dollar to pay Cigna's CEO's pay check while getting raked for $20k+ a year in health care expenses.
-Rick
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No one will be turned away from an emergency room.
And that's the big problem. Only EMERGENCIES should be treated at an emergency room. If we would start turning away people that show up for non-emergencies, we wouldn't have so many ERs going under.
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Re:What other products (Score:4, Insightful)
ER's don't provide reasonable care for anything that can't be fixed immediately. They'll put your arm in a cast or stitch up a cut, but you're not going to get anything even CLOSE to adequate cancer treatment, diabetes amelioration, allergies, and so on.
It is simply disingenuous to hold up the ER as evidence that anyone can get reasonable medical care.
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You're not being realistic. You must realize that there will be plenty of people without the means to be reasonably expected to pay for their health insurance. Not the way things are now, and not magically the way things are going to be, either. You can't humanely or effectively charge somebody a penalty if they do not have the means to pay the penalty.
In the present system, the insured pay for the uninsured by being overcharged in order to pay for subsidizing the emergency room. In the pending system,
Re:What other products (Score:5, Informative)
No one will be turned away from an emergency room.
I beg to differ. Some years ago, one of my cousins was turned away from ER. He was uninsured of course, or he probably would have seen a doctor a lot sooner. He was suffering from terrible headaches, couldn't even sit down because that made the pounding worse. He died the next day, presumably from an aneurysm in his head. He was about 45 years old. ER might not have been able to save him, who knows? But it should never have escalated to that point. Could he have been saved if he'd had access to basic health care months before his problem reached the crisis point, when he himself probably didn't think it was anything serious?
Everyone seems aware of the problems with health insurance. But hardly anyone bashes the medical providers for their crazy billing practices. It's insane, and downright fraudulent the way doctors run the business. You see very few prices up front. They claim they can't give you any price until they know more. Maybe, but there are plenty of known prices they keep from you until well after the fact. If you ask about the price, they'll tell you not to worry (bad for your health, maybe?) insurance will cover it. Then they sometimes demand that you sign a blank check. They push you to sign a form that says you'll pay for something if insurance doesn't. And they won't tell you the price even when it's for something easy. They pulled that one on us for a wheelchair, and not a motorized one either, that turned out to be just over $800. Another stunt they pulled on us was having us keep a medical device for an extra week, unused, without informing us that it cost $1100 per week to rent!
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This is why I have no hope for anything anymore. Even little things like this are parsed into unreality and woven into the tapestry of myth, lies and nonsense that represents "truth" for most people. I can;t even talk politics to anyone anymore because it's constant triage figuring out which lies they believe to fix first, and you can't fix them anyway, because they "know what they know". This applies to ideologues from one end of the spectrum to the other.
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Except that's not true. You're forced to pay income tax if you make income, which Congress was given carte blanche to do via the 16th amendment. You pay *less* income tax if you buy health insurance. But if you didn't make enough to get taxed that much, then you're not paying for this anyway (you are, however, still getting it).
Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it is. Move to Canada or Europe if you're so in love with socialism programs.
Move to Somalia if you want to live in a libertarian fantasy land.
Or we could both acknowledge that a country's healthcare system is just one small aspect of where you want to live.
Somalia isn't libertarian by any stretch (Score:4, Insightful)
Libertarianism requires a framework of laws to protect the rights of all parties, and provide for legal recourse should the rights of one party be infringed by another.
Even at its worst, Somalia operated under a combination of religious law (Sharia), feudalism and anarchy.
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Libertarianism requires a framework of laws to protect the rights of all parties, and provide for legal recourse should the rights of one party be infringed by another.
And how is that framework achievable, without taxes and police and stuff?
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Taxes are admitted to be required to maintain the basic level of services necessary to secure the rights of the people.
In that case I think it's the people who say "taxes are theft" who don't understand libertarianism.
It is a bit over the top rhetoric (Score:3)
Technically, anything forced from you under threat is theft or, more correctly, robbery. Taxing (at least income taxes) is forcing you to give the government money under threat of being put in jail. Businesses are forced to collect sales tax under threat of being fined and put out of business.
However, if you consider your relationship with the government to be consensual, and individual taxes as being consented to, then there is no theft. But in our current system the individual taxes really don't have much
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Yes it is. Move to Canada or Europe if you're so in love with socialism programs.
Examples of Socialism in the United States:
- Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and National Guard - notice how these are funded by the collective wealth of the nation?
- Interstate Highways - There was a time when privately held roads criss-crossed America, they were called Turnpikes, you paid for passage on them. Such a system today would utterly squeeze the life out of interstate commerce, let alone throttle your travel plans.
- Police and Fire - well, where you don't have a handy group of vigila
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God and such a terrible burden it is. Of course I guess the alternative in a wonderful libertarian utopia would be deny to medical treatment to anyone not wearing a seat belt during a crash, after all that's that would be the logical thing for an insurance company to do. Yeah let's do that rather than mandating the minor inconvenience in order to save lives and reduce overall health care costs for everyone. I guess you're against speed limits as well? If I want to drive 100 mph in a school zone I have every right!
Speed limits are set by the states because there is nothing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the power to regulate traffic laws. According to the 10th Amendment, any power not given to the federal government by the Constitution, and that is not prohibited by the Constitution, are reserved for the states, or people. Health care is like speed limits. Since there is no Constitutionally granted power for the feds to regulate it, the power falls to the states. This is why the Massachuset
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Interstate highways, interstate commerce. You figure it out.
General Welfare. It's in the Constitution. Twice. And if you're going to go the teabagger route and claim that Article I, Section 8 is a strict list of enum
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My god if that doesn't sound like something straight out of the Colbert Report. "I'm not denying you medical care, I'm just not giving it to you."
Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
welfare |welfe()r| (noun)
the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group
To that end, it seems pretty obvious that the founders of the United States cared enough about the health of it's citizens.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Re:What other products (Score:4, Informative)
The distinction here is that health care ,,,
We are talking about health insurance, not health care.
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Good point, you could go to an undertaker instead.
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The distinction here is that health care is pretty vital to "promote the general Welfare" (US Constition - Preamble)
welfare |welfe()r| (noun)
the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group
To that end, it seems pretty obvious that the founders of the United States cared enough about the health of it's citizens.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
LOL. The Preamble does not give any power to the government. It explains WHY the Constitution was written, nothing more. It is certainly not an enumerated power and does not give the federal government unlimited power to "promoting the general Welfare" or "insure domestic Tranquility".
Re:What other products (Score:5, Informative)
The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Article 1, Section 8
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But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.
The Federalist No. 41
James Madison
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Are you saying that you are the sole judge of what general Welfare means? Or are you going to leave that up to the people who actually have that responsibility, which is the Supreme Court?
The meaning of the Constitution is not up to the Supreme Court. That would be ridiculous, since the Court's power is itself derived from the Constitution. At most the Court has the (self-appointed) power to restrict the other branches of government from taking actions which, in its view, are not authorized by that document. In other words, to declare (or decline to declare) any action of the government unconstitutional. It is not within their purview to declare anything constitutional, any more than a norma
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As others have pointed out, the Preamble does not bestow any powers, it is merely an introduction.
Now, inside the Constitution in the actual details, that phrase also exists in the Taxing and Spending clause (Article 1 Section 8 Clause 1), but is always taken out of context.
The text of the clause is:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Notice what follows the general Welfare -- of the United States (and this means the collection of States, not a federal republic).
Our nation was founded as a union of independent sovereign States. At the time o
Re:What other products (Score:4, Interesting)
You know what is pretty obvious? What James Madison(the guy credited w/ writing the Constitution) had to say about that particular clause. "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions." So no, he didn't think that general welfare should be used to let Congress do what ever it wanted.
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Actually it doesn't. If you were actually literate and had actually read the Constitution you would realize a couple of things about the infamous 'general welfare' and 'necessary and proper' clauses progressives always misuse. They are syntactic sugar.
Look where they appear. The Preamble is just that, a short introductory block telling you what the document's intentions are. It isn't intended to be read as black letter law. They could have just ended the damned thing there and replaced the rest of the
Re:What other products (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it does - how else do you expect to promote the general welfare without the government paying for services, which requires taxation.
Headed, again, by General Welfare, making it's second appearance in the Constitution. And if you're going the "it's a strict list of enumerated powers" route, keep in mind that means that huge parts of the military, intelligence and law enforcement branches are unconstitutional, as Congress "only" has the authority to fund an Army and a Navy.
FTFY, unless you can point out in the Constitution where it specifies that the Federalist Papers define what the Constitution actually means.
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Guns, tanks, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers. I don't use any of those, and yet I am required to pay for them.
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Not since WWII, they haven't. Not even indirectly. The most you can say for them is they would form a deterrent if we were at risk of invasion -- however, we aren't, and we have not been, for well over sixty years.
Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't that we're mandated to buy it. The problem is that it's a mandatory service that *SHOULD BE PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT*.
I'm ok with being denied service based on my wages for a lot of things but when it comes to life saving medicine I don't see that as a "would be nice" feature.
This goes back to the "Do you let them die?" question. Should a hospital let someone bleeding to death die in their Emergency Room if they have no insurance? I think except for at republican debates the answer is "no".
So we've accepted that getting medical treatment is guaranteed.
I'm going to probably shock people with this but you're already required to buy all manner of things. Do you want airbags? Too bad, buy a car and you get them. Do you want a life raft space for you on all cruise trips? Too bad, you have to buy one.
Now yes you can choose to not drive a car or ride a boat but you can't choose to not be born. And once born our medical system is your life's liferaft.
Re:What other products (Score:5, Insightful)
Paul said no, but the screaming nuts in the audience certainly said yes.
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HAHAHAHAHA. So the answer is "No, don't let them die; let them pray that someone takes pity on them. And I based this on the anecdotal evidence offered by a man who thinks the US government may be trying to fence us in." What if no one takes pity on them. "Well, then they die."
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Suppose you got in two car accidents in two weeks? Is your savings account big enough? If your kid gets sick the following week and has to go to the hospital, now you're a burden on society.
The thing is, we already have universal health care, as many people have pointed out, because if you took your kid to the hospital, the kid would get treated, irrespective of your ability to pay. So we already have a universal health insurance system; it's just the least efficient it can possibly be, because it's complet
Applied First Glance (Score:2)
Nothing good comes of this either way (Score:2)
Strike down ObamaCare, and you've got years of unraveling to do (especially in IT, which has been starting work in anticipation of several key dates coming up), as well as a apoplectic progressive left. Uphold ObamaCare, and you've got a drum upon which every libertarian and conservative will beat any time there's the slightest increase in health insurance costs, and who knows what kind of crazy social conservative will be the one to carry the mantle of the White House (even though most people just want fi
Re:Nothing good comes of this either way (Score:4, Interesting)
Ridiculous argument (Score:5, Interesting)
It's clearly established that the US government can force you to pay a tax for services you never use. The health care law is less restrictive than that. It still forces you to pay, but you can choose the entity you pay. If the government can force you to buy something from a single source, then it certainly should be able to force you to buy something from one of many sources.
However, I have no reason to believe that the Supreme Court will come to the obvious and logical conclusion here. That's not their job. Their job is to provide legal cover for the corporate agenda.
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Perfectly reasonable. (Score:5, Informative)
Except the Constitution explicitly gives congress the power to collect taxes. It is not at all clear that it has the power to "mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die".
All laws where similar things are done (such as requiring car insurance, requiring contractors to be licensed and bonded,etc), differ in significant ways. Some are enforced by the state, not the federal government, who have different powers granted to them. Some only apply when participating in an arguably optional activity not to everyone alive. Some are only required to engage in business, and thus more clearly fall under the interstate commerce act. This is an open legal question, one that was bound to challenged when the law was passed. The faster it gets resolved in the Supreme Court the better.
However, I have no reason to believe that the Supreme Court will come to the obvious and logical conclusion here. That's not their job.
No it isn't their job. Their job is to interpret the law and constitution as it is written, not according their own personal opinion/logic nor yours.
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It's clearly established that the US government can force you to pay a tax for services you never use. The health care law is less restrictive than that. It still forces you to pay, but you can choose the entity you pay. If the government can force you to buy something from a single source, then it certainly should be able to force you to buy something from one of many sources.
The difference is that tax rate is also set by the government - that is, by your elected representatives. So a law mandating that you pay a certain amount that is also codified in the law is reasonable. With healthcare, the law mandates that you buy a service from a private party, and "the market" sets the price. That is what's wrong about it.
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You've already been answered by someone in this thread. Somolia has no government, and no support of individual rights. That is very clearly not what libertarians advocate or desire, so it does not serve as a invalidation of libertarianism.
The next question is... will people in this thread stop using that invalid Somolia comparison?
Libertarianism in Somalia? WHERE??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Please, tell me: which one of the many different governments in Somalia [wikipedia.org] has implemented a Libertarian society?
Single-payer, like Medicare, would have been fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Single-payer national health insurance, like Medicare, would have had no constitutional problems. If the "public option" had been retained in the bill, it might have ended up as the only option.
That's not a bad thing; Medicare's overhead is about 3%, while private insurers run a lot higher.
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Except single-payer wouldn't have primarily benefited the healthcare industries like the HCR law does.
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Hospitals here are already overcrowded with people dying in emergency room waiting areas, and we're already subsidizing them. Just at a much higher cost than we would for a single-payer system.
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Yea, because its not like there was a shit ton of lobbying done by the insurance industry to kill the idea of a single payer system.
Should have gone with single payer.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Should have gone with single payer.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've long thought the best thing for health care in this country would be for the law to be struck down. Too many people in this down economy already like provisions of it (no pre-existing conditions, keeping kids on your insurance longer). Were it to be unconstitutional I think there would be a large swell of folks pushing for them to find some way to re-establish the law and make it constitutional.
Single payer becomes the obvious choice. It may be that the way to single payer is to lose in the Supreme Court.
Re:Should have gone with single payer.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny that you mention the pre-existing conditions bit - that is what drove the requirement for everybody to have insurance or pay a tax.
It is a compromise:
1. Insurance companies are forced to sell insurance to everybody whether they want to or not.
2. People are forced to buy insurance, whether they want to or not.
You can't really have the one without the other. Insurers would either go out of business, or policies would become far more unaffordable than they already are.
There is no way the courts would strike this down. If they did insurers would just start denying pre-existing conditions again, and then fight that out in the courts for another 5 years while people die untreated in hospitals. One way or another they'd find a loophole since anything else would be financial suicide.
Re:Should have gone with single payer.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking of pipe dreams, explain why no one in France loses their house due to medical bankruptcies. Explain why other countries spend 1/3 as much as the U.S. does while receiving better care. Explain why Cuba has comparable health stats to the U.S. while spending less than $300 per patient per year. Explain why men in their twenties die in the U.S. from an infection that spread from a goddamn toothache, because they couldn't afford to have it treated.
Explain why a for-profit system that depends on increasing your premiums while denying your claims is magically "more efficient" than a system where you get what you pay for: health CARE.
Re:Should have gone with single payer.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or the general hospitals, who treat people who are uninsured.
Hospitals are required to help anyone at the ER. They stabilize you and kick you out. If it's a condition for which you don't need immediate attention NOW, you're screwed.
Have you been shot, and don't have insurance? You'll be ok. Do you have cancer and don't have insurance? You're screwed.
I can make an appointment and be seen TODAY. You can't do that in socialized medicine.
First, where do you live? Because I have insurance, live in columbia, SC and had a bad cough that lasted a month. When I decided it was time to see a doctor (obviously not an emergency room), I was told the soonest they could see me was in a week.
Second, have you ever lived somewhere with socialized medicine? I used to live in Brazil, where they have a mix of private and public care. You can say a lot of unflattering things about the public care there, but not that they can't schedule you for an appointment on the same day. I used to call right before leaving the house and make an appointment for however long it would take me to get there. The waiting lists you hear about are for things with limited supplies, such as organ transplants.
Never lived in either of those places, but I hear places like Canada and the UK don't have the same issues Brazil has with public health care.
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Just because you willfully ignore it, doesn't mean it isn't there. Single payer provides better care for less money. Deal with it.
Because they're rich, and they can afford it. Duh. Rush Limbaugh thinks nothing of paying $30,000 for a trip to the hospital because $30,000 is pocket change for him. Meanwhile a 24 year old father [go.com] dies from a toothache because he cou
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Demand creates jobs, not a "free market economy". And we already know about this so called free society.
- production creates jobs, demand is a trivial consequence of production.
Demand always exists, which is easily proven by the fact that USA has 53Billion USD /month trade deficit and the debt is constantly growing, as almost half of the money spent by US government is borrowed.
Production comes first, it needs savings to be used as legitimate investment and it needs real risk to be present in order to ensure risk aversion and balance and proper capital allocation.
Production comes first, that's why iPads were
Historical law (Score:3)
Individual Mandate originally a Republican idea (Score:4, Insightful)
.
Through the 1990's, various Republicans submitted health care bills [procon.org] specifying the individual mandate.
The Republicans are, as usual, being quite hypocritical in their objections to the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Perhaps it is time for the Republicans to back away from their objection to everything and roadblock generation, and get down to the business of governing.
The fundamentals under a prosperous civilization (Score:3)
Are health and justice.
Without a method of law and justice, there's anarchy. And a civilization can't exist in an anarchy (well, not a big one anyway, and certainly not a world player).
Hand in hand with that is health. When you're sick, you're returned to work, or the ability to go and get the next job.
Without both of those, life would be hard. That's what prompted the NHS in the UK years ago, and much as though it's a popular whipping boy sometimes, and a big money sink, we do have a well functioning medical body that will fix most things.
If you want it faster, by all means, take up private insurance as well (hell, when things go wrong at the private hospitals, they pack the patients back to the NHS where they know it'll be fixed).
If you really don't think the state should be involved in the general wellbeing of the people, then how do you feel about a completely privately owned police force and court system. You think you get it rough now with the MPAA and RIAA lobbying to get through a heavily one sided deal? It would be orders of magnitude worse under a completely private, for profit, arrangement.
Personally, I rate my health as highly as I rate a chance at getting a bit of justice (the legal system doesn't always give you the answer you want, same as a hospital won't always give you good news, but at least everyone should have a shot at getting some, without having to reach for a credit card).
That's part of what I call freedom. If the world falls apart around you, at least you have your health 'eh? What, you can't afford the medication, and you have to put yourself in someone's debt to be able to do so? Hmmmm...
Healthcare should be a function of government, with commerce adding the nice bits on top.. Faster, newer, hopefully better, but definitely more expensive. The real grunt work of keeping the masses healthy should be simple and cheap.. Not necessarily profitable.
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First of all, I have to correct myself. According to Wolfram Alpha, the U.S. poverty rate in 2010 was 12%, with "poverty" defined as annual income at or below $11,139 for a single person. I think we can agree, no matter where you are in the U.S., it is tough to get by on $11K per year.
So I took a look at the poverty level in 1980, and it was $4,190, again for a single person. Adjusting for inflation to 2010 dollars, Wolfram Alpha gives me $11,237. So I disagree with respect to adjusting the definition of