Perhaps the worst constitutional defense of Obamacare you will ever read
Now that the Supreme Court has officially taken up the question of Obamacare, we are in store for even more legal analyses attempting to predict which way the justices will rule, or argue which way they ought to rule.
A quick prediction of my own: Few, if any, of these analyses will be as worthless as the one Einer Elhauge offers in today’s New York Times.
Elhauge, a law professor at Harvard University and founding director of Harvard’s Petrie-Flom Center in Health Law Policy, makes one point that is patently — inane? specious? vacuous? let’s go with specious — and one point that unintentionally undercuts his own argument. Let’s look at each.
First, the patently specious point:
For decades, Americans have been subject to a mandate to buy a health insurance plan — Medicare. Check your paystub, and you will see where your contributions have been deducted, whether or not you wanted Medicare health insurance.
Many opponents dismiss this argument because Medicare (unlike the new mandate) requires the purchase of health insurance as a condition of entering into a voluntary commercial relationship, namely employment, which Congress can regulate under the commerce clause. Thus, they say, the Medicare requirement regulates a commercial activity, whereas the new mandate regulates inactivity.
Now, I have followed the Obamacare debate pretty closely, including attending the oral arguments at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals this summer, and I have never heard or read even a single person offering the rationale that Elhauge claims “many opponents” of the law make. However, I am willing to stipulate that the director of a center on health law policy may have been privy to more arguments than I have been, and that there may in fact have been some Obamacare opponents who have concocted such a line of reasoning.
Anyway, that’s not what makes his point patently specious.
What makes it specious is that Elhauge would have the reader believe this is the best, or maybe only, argument about the difference between Medicare and Obamacare. That is bunk. The best, clearest argument that’s been made about the distinction between Medicare and Obamacare is that Medicare is a government program, and the paycheck deductions are a tax to pay for that government program.
No one on the right argues that Congress can’t enact a tax to pay for a government program such as Medicare. What nearly everyone on the right argues about Obamacare, however, is that a) health insurance is a private product, and there’s no constitutional authority to mandate the purchase of a private product; and b) the consequences written into Obamacare for failure to comply with a mandate are not a tax but, in Congress’s own language, a “penalty.” Congress used the word “tax” elsewhere in the law, but not in the section that enforces the mandate. (Whether that’s because, as in other cases, congressional Democrats were sloppy in drafting the law or because they simply didn’t want to be seen enacting a tax is debatable, but irrelevant to the legal discussion.)
So, to distinguish between Medicare and Obamacare, one doesn’t need to resort to the tortured argument Elhauge offers up so that he can knock it down. There’s a much more straightforward and prevalent argument he avoids entirely, while making sure to weave the specious “anyone who has engaged in any activity that affects commerce must buy health insurance” claim into the rest of the piece.
Now, about his unwitting undercutting of his own position. Here’s what Elhauge writes:
Opponents of the new mandate complain that if Congress can force us to buy health insurance, it can force us to buy anything. They frequently raise the specter that Congress might require us to buy broccoli in order to make us healthier. …
There are, of course, limits to what Congress can do under the commerce clause. If it tried to enact a law requiring Americans to eat broccoli, that would be likely to violate bodily integrity and the right to liberty. But the health insurance mandate does not require Americans to subject themselves to health care. It requires them only to buy insurance to cover the costs of any health care they get.
And Elhauge thinks conservatives are the ones making distinctions without differences?
Here, I defer to Mickey Kaus, because I’m not sure anyone can improve on his rebuttal to this point:
Well, OK then! As long as we can just leave it rotting in the fridge.** … But it’s a little suspicious — and surely not a selling point — that under Elhauge’s argument the only limits on government would be the rights — like “bodily integrity” and privacy — that liberal lawyers have dreamed up but not the limit — i.e. whether or not something is “interstate commerce” — the Founders dreamed up.
** — Rotting broccoli might breed disease and suppress appetites, inhibiting interstate commerce. Could Congress ban every means of disposing of the broccoli (that it has made you purchase) other than eating it? Is that any different from making you eat it? To enforce the right to “bodily integrity,” would the courts have to step in and void at least some of these rules for broccoli disposal, even if they are obviously regulations of commerce and do not, in themselves, violate bodily integrity? Elhauge’s rule may not get the courts out of the complicated business of meddling with federal regulations and striking down some of them. They’d just be meddling on grounds that he likes. (emphasis original)
Is this the best the law’s most erudite defenders can come up with?
– By Kyle Wingfield
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
217 comments Add your comment
Steve
November 17th, 2011
4:50 pm
Why we don’t have single payer is beyond me. Then folks who want Cadillac health care can pay a little more for insurance. Basically, Medicare for all. It works beautifully in Canada. It ends up costing us less for healthcare per person than we pay now.
However, the uber elite wealthy who run this country now will have nothing of this. Why reduce the profits of a few very wealthy people for the betterment of the rest of us? Go GOP!
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
4:51 pm
Dekalb Citizen: So are you suggesting that my tax dollars have not been used to pay for any infrastructure?
——
Not sure where you got that idea. Your tax dollars go to the same place as everyone else’s. Of course, the wealthy are paying a lot more to use the infrastructure than are the middle class.
GT
November 17th, 2011
4:51 pm
Nope wrong again. What the medical and insurance world did was dump it all on Mass. cost wise to made sure this didn’t work. Being the only state doing anything that other states are not doing is a formula for disaster. The south finds its itself like that quiet often. It is totally unique in its thinking from the rest of the country and then wonders why it is the lowest in education, health and earnings in the country. I would think some genius would take a survey of southern thinking and do exactly the opposite and have prosperity for eternity as long as he stayed away from the temptations of this thinking. What happen instead is the lowest common denominator not the highest is where the gravity of the masses tend to go. One fat child begets many fat children, hate begets hate, macho triumphs over intelligence and poverty is wall to wall. Yet from the closed outhouse door these pearls of wisdom still occasionally surface in quiet contemplation.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
4:53 pm
You’d think conservatives would LOVE Obamacare as all it does is add more people into the private insurance companies, increasing corporate profit.
———
Stupidest Post of the Day.
Beth
November 17th, 2011
4:55 pm
My mother (a government retiree) sought to opt out of medicare. It was allowed, but only if she was willing to forego her SS pension benefits and pay back the benefits she had already received. If she could have opted out, then everybody should be able to.
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
4:58 pm
Steve,
I don’t read the results of Democratic investigations if I want unslanted information. Romney was a Republican governor but he got a mandate which I believe meant he had no other choice about state healthcare.
I have heard of no other state clamoring to copy his “successful” program.. I don’t hear him mentioning it either. Surprising, isn’t it?
And now Welcome to the Occupation wants to convince you that evil Americans are out to let us all die in the streets without a tear. Oh my ! What fools ye mortal be when first they are brainwashed completely!
Voice of Reason
November 17th, 2011
4:59 pm
The individual mandate is the only way to solve a huge problem. We have decided that minimal hospital care cannot be denied to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay. That cost is already paid by everyone by higher care costs which ultimately drive up insurance rates.
The pure solution would be to say, No Insurance, No Care, but that would make us a “heartless uncivilized” country so we can’t do that.
The only other alternative is to force people to be responsible by buying insurance. This is a TAX on the freeloaders and deadbeats. It is a GOOD thing. Sort of like the lottery which is a tax on stupid people to pay for middle class kids to go to college.
Just change the law so that instead of a mandate to buy insurance, it is just a surtax on those that don’t. Federal Insurance Tax, $5000. Turn in proof of insurance with 1040, deduct $5000. Problem solved.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Thee Magnificent!!! mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
November 17th, 2011
5:00 pm
Seeing what happened when this mob was given charge of a few city parks, America is not only dead-set (as the polls show) against giving it control of anything bigger, but is taking back its parks, too. That’s a complete repudiation. And it took only two months.
Buh bye, bozos.
Go back to the filthy hovels from whence you came.
ew
DGator
November 17th, 2011
5:07 pm
I find it odd that the republicans could possibly be opposed to forcing people to buy health insurance, if they don’t have health insurance, the rest of us have to pay for them when they go to the emergency room, when they could have probably avoided it if they had insurance and had seen a doctor. Republicans preach “self reliance” but by letting people walk around without health insurance, we are just asking to have to pay for their health costs.
We require drivers to have insurance, why would we not require individuals to have insurance, especially with the cost of health care??
I am not in favor of anything about Obamacare but overturning it on the only good thing about it is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Dekalb Citizen
November 17th, 2011
5:09 pm
Lil Barry…you must be off your meds or something
You wrote “The income taxes paid by the wealthy paid for the infrastructure, so there should be no whining about them using it.
Your sentence suggests that only the wealthy paid for the infrastructure which is not true. That is the point I was making.
EW’s point is that the wealthy did not pay for the entire highway. They didn’t pay for the public education of all of their employees that are needed to work in their factories and businesses. They use shared infrastructure and benefit from shared institutions such as schools and the like. They have done nothing all by themselves.
She has no problem acknowledging they may have invented something new, offered a new service or improved on one, etc. that has resulted in the generation of wealth. And neither she nor even the likes of the OWS crowd have a problem with these individuals keeping a good chunk of that money. But they are not “self-made” because part of their ability to generate this wealth has been by using shared infrastructure, employing people educated in public schools where they may have paid for a portion of the education but not all of it. Further they benefit from the market economy and the laws of this country such as limited liability, etc. that are granted to them by WE THE PEOPLE.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
5:13 pm
Steve: “Why we don’t have single payer is beyond me. Then folks who want Cadillac health care can pay a little more for insurance. Basically, Medicare for all. It works beautifully in Canada. It ends up costing us less for healthcare per person than we pay now.”
But we can’t be told we should do things like the Canadians or the Brits or Europeans do — that’s socialism and we got our American Exceptionalism to uphold don’t cha know.
Voice of Reason
November 17th, 2011
5:14 pm
The Republicans are falling right into the Left’s trap. By and large, US citizens like the benefits of Obamacare because they are cost-shifting freebies: no pre-existing conditions, 26 year olds can go on family policies, no absolute denials of coverage, subsidies for those who don’t have insurance
Of course all those cost money which will be spread among paid insurance policies so costs will go up, WAY UP. The flip side of that is that everyone is supposed to get insurance = forced responsibility and spreading the risk pool, which should drive insurance costs down.
If the court throws out the individual mandate, all we have left is a bunch of giveaways which is going to destroy the private insurance market by making it too expensive for companies and individuals. Then what? Something MUST be done!! The Lefties swoop in with a single-payer plan or Medicare for All or some other government-controlled option.
Wise up people. The individual mandate (or some legal version of it) is the last chance for private insurance.
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
5:16 pm
Now comes dear GT,
“Fat children begets many fat children, hate begets hate, macho triumps over intelligence and poverty is wall to wall.”. R U posting from Venzuela, GT? You couldn’t be American.
Then GT tries to throw the blanket over the “south”. Go ahead, GT. According to the AJC Southerners are being beseiged by citizens from New York and other seemingly desirable places. What a surprise that we should have so many permanent guests in our fair South. You cannot run them off with a stick.
So keep on, GT. The Chamber of Commerce won’t like you but you do have a bit of merit. Just a little bit.
Michael H. Smith
November 17th, 2011
5:17 pm
Truth is Kyle, these so-called Progressives a.k.a. Fascist Socialist Democrats have no Constitutional bases for a great deal of what they have managed to pass into over the years law.
Nothing wrong with expanding the Constitution mind you, although doing so without amendments ratified by the Constitutionally require number of States simply violates everything a Republic, “this Republic”, ever was, ever was intended to be or ever should exist as – otherwise I’m for evoking the remedy as prescribed in the Declaration of Independence. Sorry if it offends your Lincoln-ess but his union can be divided and it can end.
Oh and before some DEMwit or some knee-jerk journalist up and says, “well, the Declaration of Independence has no legal weight!”
Really? You mean your human rights, your inalienable rights, have no legal weight?!
Not according to the founders of this once Republic. In fact they said those rights came from a far higher power and authority than any government or “legal weight thereof” – they were endowed upon us by our CREATOR, the laws of nature and nature’s GOD.
Good-night libs
Truth Squad
November 17th, 2011
5:18 pm
No one on the right argues that Congress can’t enact a tax to pay for a government program such as Medicare. What nearly everyone on the right argues about Obamacare, however, is that a) health insurance is a private product, and there’s no constitutional authority to mandate the purchase of a private product; and b) the consequences written into Obamacare for failure to comply with a mandate are not a tax but, in Congress’s own language, a “penalty.”
In other words, exactly the points made in the article.
No matter how you spin it, deductions for Medicare/Medicaid are not voluntary. That makes them mandatory by definition.
Second, “private conduct” can be regulated under certain circumstances and the article does cite precedent which is ignored in Mr. Wingfield’s analysis. If you’d like a more recent case, just google Gonzales v. Raich and read Justice Scalia’s concurrent opinion.
As for the objection to the statutory language, my question is why not change the language and the mechanism? Why repeal the entire thing? There are other options that are voluntary that could be substituted (ex. offering lower costs to those who sign up early) but would require Republican cooperation.
No matter how you dress it up, Republicans don’t agree with social safety net programs unless they are for the rich and well connected.
We will all witness judicial activism at it’s finest as the court legislates from the bench. Given the questions on the table -that go far beyond the mandate- they clearly are acting as a “superlegislature” and that is supposed to be anathema to conservatives.
Lastly, a couple of predictions. First, if the mandate is completely obliterated, there is nothing standing in the way of rescinding not only Medicare/Medicaid, but also Social Security. I hope the court upholds precedent and moves along. That would be the best for both parties.
But if they start legislating health care policy, it will be a PR nightmare for President Obama, but an electoral nightmare for the Republicans in November of next year. Putting health care policy on the table in 2012 is a losing proposition for the Republican Party. Suddenly it will no longer be about repeal, but replacing. Governor Romney has disavowed his grandchild Obamacare, and will have to go much further in to policy than he currently has to with an easily breakable promise to repeal.
That discussion will not go well for him. For President Obama, he will be free to offer a policy more aggressive, say along the lines of President Nixon’s proposal, than he otherwise would have had the court not meddled.
When all is said and done, the majority of citizens in this country do not want a bunch of uninsured citizens especially those that work. They want to do away with preexisting conditions, lifetime limits, and dropping coverage when you get sick. Millions have their young adult children on their plans now and want to keep it that way. They also don’t want to let the elderly and disable fend for themselves. You can’t do these things cost-free which is why Republicans championed the mandate in the first place. Health Care policy is a losing issue for Republicans, just ask Senator McCain how his standard-issue Republican proposal went over with the public.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
5:20 pm
Voice of Reason: “If the court throws out the individual mandate, all we have left is a bunch of giveaways which is going to destroy the private insurance market by making it too expensive for companies and individuals.”
You’re half right.
The prviate health insurance model — which was a historical accident, a Frankenstein solution that was cobbled together to the needs of 1940s and 50s life — is collapsing anyway because it’s hopelessly outdated and unworkable in a 21st Century labor market.
Michael H. Smith
November 17th, 2011
5:22 pm
I’ll go you one better libs… why not do it the right way and change the Constitution!
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
5:27 pm
Too many socialists here trying to make a socialist America. Well, I’m going to take care of my own, thank you.
Right now, that means I am going to fix dinner and feed my hungry crew ’cause I don’t want somebody else feeding us. Thanks anyway, socialists, but I just luv our independence. So keep your lazy hands off of it. Got it?
Truth Squad
November 17th, 2011
5:31 pm
@Voice of Reason, you are correct about the parts being more popular than the sum.
However, you are wrong about the cost shifting. Obamacare mandates that insurance companies spend 80-85% on health care as opposed to administrative costs and profits. Known as medical loss ratio,currently in Georgia, the standard is around 60%.
I refer you to the excellent resources of the Kaiser Foundation: http://www.statehealthfacts.kff.org/comparetable.jsp?ind=940&cat=17
The ACA isn’t perfect, but everyone should be working from facts rather than the talking points of either party.
Evelyn
November 17th, 2011
5:34 pm
We should be focused on fixing our health care problems in this country. These types of tribal discussions are doing little to help.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
5:36 pm
Evelyn: “We should be focused on fixing our health care problems in this country. These types of tribal discussions are doing little to help.”
The solution to the crisis — single payer, universal — is no mystery. It’s just that such an approach has extremely powerful enemies. So the problem is purely ideological and political.
Truth Squad
November 17th, 2011
5:38 pm
@Michael H. Smith…you do a wonderful job up until the point you ignore slavery as written into the Constitution and how that institution (and the state’s Jim Crow laws after it), kept this country from being the more perfect union it is destined to be.
seriously
November 17th, 2011
5:40 pm
Kyle Wingfield why dont you copy the guy who committed suicide last week and jump off of the overpass. How did you get this job?
seriously
November 17th, 2011
5:40 pm
If you live, our tax dollars wont go towards saving your life either.
Rafe Hollister
November 17th, 2011
5:47 pm
JDW
The Powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Didn’t see requirement to force people to purchase Health Care among the enumerated powers, Article 1, section 8,allocated to the Federal Gov.
Truth Squad
November 17th, 2011
5:47 pm
@Evelyn and Welcome to the Occupation, Medicare For All, or something close to it is going to be the ultimate end to the health care crisis. Sadly, we know that, there are also conservatives that know it too, but unfortunately, their base hasn’t accepted it yet. That base also includes many zero-summers, Social Darwinist types. At least they are until they need help.
One cannot be a fiscal conservative without fixing health care. As long as private insurers are allowed to be health care cost gatekeepers, we will have a deficit problem in our households and the nation.
Some people have to learn the hard way.Hopefully the evolution to a more efficient and cost-saving health care system will not require turning Medicare into a voucher system and Medicaid into a block grant program first.
markie mark
November 17th, 2011
5:54 pm
@Truth Squad – and you, sir, ignore that that was a compromise, as bad as it was, to get a Constitution that has allowed you to freely argue these points 200+ years later….show me another country on the planet with that type of longevity….
Truth Squad
November 17th, 2011
5:57 pm
@Rafe: The Powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Didn’t see requirement to force people to purchase Health Care among the enumerated powers, Article 1, section 8,allocated to the Federal Gov.
Ok, well tell us how to spot said powers. Then tell us which ones belong to the state and which to the people.
I would argue that health care is a right of the people, yet it is not enumerated in the Constitution,but neither is it prohibited. Conservatives love to use the 10th Amendment to denounce the imposition of unenumerated power, but the 10th Amendment only made it because it did not do that.
The problem with both the 9th and 10th Amendments is that they are sweeping and yet quite vague. Anyone who tries to tell you that the 10th Amendment was written with modern conservative ideology in mind is either really dumb, or desperately clinging to coded talking points fed to them.
Truth Squad
November 17th, 2011
6:02 pm
@markie mark, so you are mad that I dare bring up inconvenient facts so you act as if I am against the 1st Amendment or argued that this is not a great country? Really? Nothing I said was untrue and you know it. Nothing I said resembled anything you responded to in your comment.
But, bless your heart just the same.
@@
November 17th, 2011
6:07 pm
Well…did they burn NY to the ground?
Looks like there was some healin’ goin’ on.
So Harvard’s Mr. Elhauge is flom dockin’ in a petrie dish?
I dunno…having the federal government force itself upon me constitutes a violation of my “bodily integrity”.
Broccoli? I like. Broccoli salad, I love.
@@
November 17th, 2011
6:14 pm
Kyle Wingfield why dont you copy the guy who committed suicide last week and jump off of the overpass.
Must I share space with someone so crass?
Some days it just doesn’t pay to stop by.
GT
November 17th, 2011
6:14 pm
Dusty he didn’t mention it because he is running for office in the wrong party. You don’t try to educate this crowd, they go as far as to boo soldiers and cheer the death penalty. There is nothing meaningful about these Republican debates except who can look the least dumb on a platform of idiocy. It would be like a speaker at a NAACP convention talking about how nice white people are. In fact the NAACP is now more an open forum than this, “behind the Dairy Queen” format the Republican have labeled a debate.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
6:15 pm
Truth Squad 5:57. Well said. Agreed.
@@
November 17th, 2011
6:22 pm
Rather than have a one-size fits all, I’d much prefer 50 experiments. A competition of sorts. May the best state win.
50 trumps “The One”…and that’s all I’m gonna say. I have grown to Despise the AJC’s left-wingers, and by extension, anything with a “D” behind their name. Wasn’t always so. Is now!
GT
November 17th, 2011
6:26 pm
“AJC left wingers” who sells these people the drugs they are on?
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
6:40 pm
It’s obvious that Mitt Romney desperately — just desperately — wants to be president of the United States.
And that’s a hell of a problem
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
6:44 pm
One thing’s for sure though about Willard. He’s the most consistently slimy and ruthlessly determined aspirant to the White House of anyone I can remember in my lifetime.
And therein lies a certain kind of devilish discipline that’s admirable, I have to admit.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
6:46 pm
Dekalb Citizen: EW’s point is that the wealthy did not pay for the entire highway. They didn’t pay for the public education of all of their employees that are needed to work in their factories and businesses. They use shared infrastructure and benefit from shared institutions such as schools and the like.
——————————–
Nonsense. The wealthy pay more property tax than others, and so pick up a disproportionate share to educate the public. They pay more income tax, and pay a disproportionate share of general government functions, including regulatory agencies. They pay more gas tax and pay an outsized part of the road construction tab.
I hope EW makes this claim during her debates with Scott Brown so he can give her the bitchslapping her brand of idiocy so richly deserves.
Streetracer
November 17th, 2011
6:50 pm
Only kind of skimmed the other comments, so this may have been mentioned already. If the government can compel people to buy a product or service from one class of vendors, why not others? For example, would it not be good for the economy if each household were required mto buy a new GM vehicle? Especially since the Government still owns about 30% of GM?
MarkV
November 17th, 2011
6:51 pm
I have not seen a sensible argument against the single payer system yet, and I have no doubt that it is the future of health care, but the road to it in this country may take many turns, including setbacks. Also, there can be many variations, and nobody knows which one will emerge as most efficient.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
6:58 pm
I have not seen a sensible argument against the single payer system yet
————————-
Yes, you have, you just choose to ignore them.
Here’s mine: My health care is none of anyone else’s business, including the government’s. So kindly flip off.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
7:02 pm
Barry’s kids blocking the Brooklyn Bridge–another campaign commercial for the GOP!
@@
November 17th, 2011
7:08 pm
MarkV:
When I read comments from a left-winger who advocates no investment in care for the elderly and infirmed (babies in distress), I cringe at the thought of
left-wingers getting their government-run healthcare. They take on the appearance of resource hoarders, not caregivers.
I’m out.
DLink
November 17th, 2011
7:38 pm
I’m with GT. The first rule of infrastructure is building structures to help further yourself and your fellow man. Roads, phones, light/heavy rail, internet, bridges, tunnels, military…. I put the healthcare of my fellow man before ALL of them. ALL. I’d pay what I could to do this, but, I can’t afford healthcare for myself. I am uninsured. I work with a retired guy who worked just for healthcare in his later years. Making $18,000yr takehome, and paying $9,000yr for health insurance.
Why do I want mandated healthcare? Easy, my employer would have to cough up more than basic survival pay, because I would have to have it just like everyone else. Just like car insurance in GA. I wouldn’t work without being paid enough to go there in the first place.
Considering the number of home foreclosures, lost jobs, inflation recently and upcoming, the number of people w/out healthcare will do nothing other than skyrocket. And yet here is everybody arguing about, WWTCD (What would the Constitution do?) Pretty sure it would say something like care for thy neighbor. Same concept as in a lot of Bibles, Korans, etc out there. Because, that makes sense.
As an aside, totally cool thing with the latest Firefox web browser. The power went out in the middle of writing this for 2 hours and I’m now obligated to follow through as I opened my browser and there it was. ‘Cause that just makes sense. The first car wasn’t perfect, it was a start. Healthcare for everyone isn’t perfect, it’s a model T, to use the comparison. To think it can’t be made better is foolish, and I for one, am happy the first one is pushing its way out the door. **NOW** is better than later.
Jack
November 17th, 2011
7:52 pm
If I have to spend $50 thousand to pay for employee health care, I’ll fire a $50 thousand employee in order to stay in business.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
8:00 pm
Truth Squad, how is health care a right?
Do you even know what a “right” entails?
Think about this for a bit. How can something be a right, when it requires the active participation of someone else without their consent?
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
8:09 pm
And let’s get a few things straight about Romneycare, shall we? I’m originally from Massachusetts, so I know a bit about what did go on, and what’s happening there.
First, health care in Massachusetts was going to pass whether Mitt was governor or not, as the state is populated with misguided liberals. The state legislature has a veto-proof House and Senate. Romney could veto anything at all, and both houses would simply override his veto. At one point there were less than 2 dozen Republican legislators in both houses COMBINED. So frankly, all Mitt could do was try to reign in the excesses wherever possible.
Second, Romneycare has proven to be exceptionally expensive to implement, with hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns that have effected the state’s budget. As usual, cost estimates were far rosier than anticipated.
Third, health care costs have risen at or above the national rate in Massachusetts, so it hasn’t done anything to help in that regard.
Finally, there is a serious shortage of doctors in the state since this bill was passed. Practices are no longer accepting new patients and wait times for procedures are lengthening dramatically. Massachusetts is a time bomb waiting to explode, health care wise.
DLink
November 17th, 2011
8:24 pm
For DeKalb person, if you ever make it down this far, I read your post. For Homey who chided someone for maybe not taking care of their parents? FU, I not only take care of mine, I pay the rent.
I read and I GO TO WORK! I walk out at 5:30am, and
http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Aftershock-2012-Money-Market/2011/08/09/id/406642
I may have mentioned before, I don’t care about these kinds of problems over the healthy neighbor. Healthy people can work in the morning. Unhealthy people can’t. It’s in everyone’s interest to keep people healthy in the coming times. Just a general question, ever carried the coffin of a dead person? Seriously, I’ve done this. 8 People, and it was HEAVY! I could hardly walk straight… it’s not an easy thing. He’d earned it by me, though. A coworker, not family. Walked away from the accident, the hospital killed him. HIS healthcare insurance was too good to let him go, and that’s a problem. Michael Jackson’s personal doctor, that’s a problem.
Give me a good family practitioner I can afford. I’ll go away and leave the whole thing alone, only, that’s not happening and that’s a problem. How about we fix the problem, and quit pretending there isn’t one.
DLink
November 17th, 2011
8:48 pm
Tiberious the terrible. You are terrible, you know. I mean really. I’m pretty sure you’d be against the billions of military inoculations that have saved so many. You know, saved a million killed 2? People will always need doctors the way they need phones and the internet today. Only it’ll always be more important to them personally than the phones all the internets etc. They’re just owned and traded by corporations nowadays and that’ll cost a whole lot extra.
More doctors, less administration, and Massachusetts has better over-all healthcare than most states out there, including GA. Check baby deaths. Check abandoned babies. Check the suicide rates. Ford Model A, perhaps – You can get back to me. Statistically speaking – ha ha, the statistics, they do NOTHING. Politicians, they just use the numbers people make up, I’m not a politician
the
November 17th, 2011
8:57 pm
Dusty obviously has health care. Let’s hope she doesn’t need it ever the way most liberals understand that we are all sitting ducks for corporate caused brain, breast, and liver and lung cancer.
But Dusty won’t get any of these diseases, she’ll live on and on torturing those who strive for justice.
Jesus allowed the Dusty-types to crucify him, so we musn’t feel ill will toward her and her ilk. His message was that justice will prevail because the universe is such a big place and it goes on and on and maybe a pathetically self-aggrandizing victory on a blog will evolve into an eternity in hell.
We can only hope.
bwa