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
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217 comments Add your comment
Don't Tread
November 17th, 2011
11:09 am
The law, like this legal “analysis” (using the term loosely here), is deliberately written that way in an attempt to weasel its way around Consitiutional issues.
Of course, the “fix” according to Democrats, is single-payer (i.e. complete government takeover of health care entirely, and 18% of the economy with it). Grubbling for dollars at its finest.
DannyX
November 17th, 2011
11:18 am
What is the rationale behind the conservative leaning DC appeals court decision to uphold Obamacare?
I thought you would have updated the scorecard by now. You sure are quick with the blogs when they go your way.
jt
November 17th, 2011
11:20 am
“No one on the right argues that Congress can’t enact a tax to pay for a government program such as Medicare. ”
.
BS.
I do.
.
This statement separates the Constitutional MEN from the statist BOYS.
.
Just because a Government Program has been in existence for years ..doesn’t make it right.
.
Ron Paul 2012..cuz…………Haven’t we had enough of this Metro-sexual pansy azz crap.?
jm
November 17th, 2011
11:26 am
Obamacare is a joke. Healthcare is a problem in this country but I don’t think Obamacare is the solution.
Hillbilly D
November 17th, 2011
11:27 am
In spite of all the legal arguments and anything anybody says here, it’s all going to come down to the vote of one Supreme Court justice. The other 8 will split 4-4 and what the 9th justice says, will be the law of the land, regardless of who does and doesn’t like it or what argument anybody makes. Who says one vote doesn’t count?
As for the Medicare argument, the way I see it, the Federal Government requiring you to participate in a Federal government program is a different proposition than Federal Government requiring you to purchase the product of a private company.
There might be a different outcome if it was a State Government requirement but that’s not the question here, as I understand it.
Scooter
November 17th, 2011
11:32 am
Obamacare just gets us into the transition period needed for single payer health insurance. The Obama stated his support of single payer and plan on video before he was elected to be our President.
Voice of Reason
November 17th, 2011
11:35 am
*sigh*
Get the Goverment out of healthcare entirely.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
11:36 am
Excellent point, Hillbilly D, and the exact one I was thinking of just before you posted.
You should be very worried that we’re thinking alike.
Hillbilly D
November 17th, 2011
11:50 am
Tiberius
Nah, it’s you who should be worried.
St Simons - we're on Island time
November 17th, 2011
12:02 pm
this is just an intermediate step to Medicare for All, as it should be
Supreme Conflict/Where is the Outrage?
November 17th, 2011
12:20 pm
What people need to be outraged about is the fact that Clarence Thomas and Anthony Scalia attended a Republican Fundraiser that was also attended by the attorney who will argue AGAINST the healthcare law! Clarence Thomas’ wife is also a lobbyist against the healthcare law.
That is a BLATANT conflict of Interest! Republicans throw rocks and hide their hands.
Shame on Clarence Thomas and Anthony Scalia!
carlosgvv
November 17th, 2011
12:23 pm
In a perfect world, lawyers arguing against Obama care would explain to the Judges that the Medical Industry is against it because they are afraid Doctors, Hospitals and Drug compaines will wind up making less money off the backs of the American People. Conservative politicians would also report to the people that they are bought and paid for by Big Business, which includes the Health Industry, and are doing and saying what said Industry tells them to do and say. Of course, if we lived in a perfect world to begin with, none of this haves and haves not situations would exist. All Americans, rich and poor would have access to affordable melical care and thousands of Americans would not die each year because they can’t afford doctors and hospitals.
Supreme Conflict/Clarence Thomas and Anthony Scalia
November 17th, 2011
12:23 pm
@jm November 17th, 2011 11:26 am – Obamacare is a joke. Healthcare is a problem in this country but I don’t think Obamacare is the solution.
What is your brilliant solution if you have one? NOT!
Bart Abel
November 17th, 2011
12:23 pm
To date, two out of three CONSERVATIVE appellate courts have ruled that the mandates are constitutional.
Last week, a the appeals court in the D.C. circuit broke the tie and ruled that the mandate is constitutional. This particular ruling was a major defeat for the right for a couple of reasons. First, the D.C. Circuit is generally considered the most important federal bench below the U.S. Supreme Court. And second, the judge who wrote the opinion was Judge Laurence Silberman. Silberman is a Reagan appointee known for being one of the most right-wing jurists on the federal appeals bench.
Siblerman wrote the following in his decision, “We acknowledge some discomfort with the Government’s failure to advance any clear doctrinal principles limiting congressional mandates that any American purchase any product or service in interstate commerce. But to tell the truth, those limits are not apparent to us, either because the power to require the entry into commerce is symmetrical with the power to prohibit or condition commercial behavior, or because we have not yet perceived a qualitative limitation. That difficulty is troubling, but not fatal, not least because we are interpreting the scope of a long-established constitutional power, not recognizing a new constitutional right.“
Old Timer
November 17th, 2011
12:26 pm
Before people talk about the supposed unconstitutionality of the ACA and how free you are from government mandates, go read Wickard v. Filburn. Filburn, a farmer, grew more wheat than his allotment, but he did not sell more than his allotment, retaining the excess for his private use to feed his farm animals. He argued that the federal government had no right to penalize him and tell him what he could do with his private property. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, sided with the federal government, declaring that although Filburn said he would not sell the excess, his growing the excess wheat could have an impact on the price of wheat, in that he would not be buying wheat to feed his animals on the market.
In short, you are not as free as you think you are. It is very dangerous to assume that your 10th Amendment argument will win out at the end of the day.
gm
November 17th, 2011
12:31 pm
Let you selfish idiots on the right call it Obama care because President Obama cares , because he cares about the 30 million people that dont have insurance and the millions of women that get cancer screenings from prgrams that you hypocrites on the right want to cut.
Uncle Clarence wife is leading the charge against heath care but the Thomas have government coverage and we have all these stupid rep redecks living in trailers and have no healthcare but standing with the Hannity, Limbaugh of the world who have best coverage, this tell you what bunch of retards in the rep party.
Get Real
November 17th, 2011
12:42 pm
gm….go back into your cave of ignorance; what complete and utter dribble
How can you begin talk about Clarence Thomas when Elana Kagan was Solicitor General and actually argued the law…..moron
Get Real
November 17th, 2011
12:43 pm
Supreme Conflict/Where is the Outrage?
Talk to me about Elana Kagan smart guy
Jefferson
November 17th, 2011
12:47 pm
Sooner of later you will have to help your fellow Americans, due to the excesses of the health industries.
von
November 17th, 2011
12:47 pm
Of course you could simply allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines to drive up competition and drive down insurance costs but that would be showing Americans that the free market is better than government control and the Libs just cant have that!
Bart Abel
November 17th, 2011
12:50 pm
To be sure, it’s not the mandate that bothers Republicans and their supporters. They simply don’t want to allow President Obama to succeed.
Proof of this statement is that mandate was a Republican idea, first floated by the Heritage Foundation, subsequently advocated by Newt Gingrich, implemented by Mitt Romney at the state level, endorsed for the national level by Jim DeMint when he supported Romney’s presidential campaign in ‘08, and endorsed by Senate Republicans, including Senator Chuck Grassley, until they succeeded at getting the public option removed from the health care legislation and then needed something new to complain about (at that point, Grassley and others reversed themselves on the mandate).
Further proof that the mandate isn’t really a problem for Republicans is that reasonable alternatives to the mandate are easily legislated. (Notice that House Republicans voted to repeal ObamaCare, but never followed-up on the “replace” portion of their campaign promise.) However, Republicans have made no effort to replace the mandate because they believe that it makes ObamaCare more vulnerable to political and judicial attack.
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-392R
JDW
November 17th, 2011
12:59 pm
@Kyle, I still find it hilarious that the individual mandate, a mechanism dreamed up by and IMPLEMENTED by Republicans, is the platform they now wish to argue. But I guess it really doesn’t matter, I read somewhere this morning that if Obama announced that the means to make energy artificially, abundantly and cheaply by the afternoon of the announcement the Republicans would denounce him for destroying the profits of the oil business.
As for the arguments, I prefer simpler myself:
“The Commerce Clause refers to the federal government’s power to regulate commerce “among the several States” as enumerated in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. The Necessary and Proper Clause refers to the last clause in Section 8, which gives the federal government the power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers . . . .”
Simply put, if Congress wants to reform health care, it can do so because health care is a huge part of the nation’s commerce. And it can make any law that is necessary and proper to execute that reform.”
- Jack Balkin, a professor of constitutional and First Amendment law at Yale Law School
Please note that the Constitution “gives the federal government the power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers”. I see nowhere an exception for laws Republicans don’t like because they were touched by Obama.
td
November 17th, 2011
1:00 pm
carlosgvv
November 17th, 2011
12:23 pm
You are making a political argument. This is a legal question. As much as the libs might think otherwise, we have a Constitution and it does not allow the government to do whatever they want to do.
td
November 17th, 2011
1:05 pm
Bart Abel
November 17th, 2011
12:23 pm
“or because we have not yet perceived a qualitative limitation”
They will be getting there limitation very soon when the SC decides OBamacare is unconstitutional.
J
November 17th, 2011
1:05 pm
What about auto insurance? Yes its slightly different because you have a ‘choice’ to drive or not drive. But in some areas, reallly there is no choice if you live in the country… you have to drive and you have to buy auto insurance, otherwise a ticket.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
1:06 pm
Libtards don’t think government can do whatever it wants. They only think libtard-run government can do whatever it wants.
Libtards: Fascist hypocrites.
Bart Abel
November 17th, 2011
1:06 pm
Of course you could simply allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines
Allowing health insurers to compete across state lines amounts to the federal government telling the states that they can’t regulate, as they see fit, insurance sold in their states. You can’t honestly claim to support states’ rights by opposing a federal mandate to purchase health insurance (”leave it up to the states”) while simultaneously opposing states’ rights by arguing for allowing health insurers to sell their products across state lines. Otherwise, somebody might reasonably accuse you of being disingenuous…or worse.
Logical Dude
November 17th, 2011
1:08 pm
Kyle says: Is this the best the law’s most erudite defenders can come up with?
Kyle previously says: Few, if any, of these analyses will be as worthless as the one Einer Elhauge. . .
So, by picking and choosing the worthless arguments, you answer your own question!
How about choosing a validly supported argument and going after that one instead of the (your words) specious ones?
JDW
November 17th, 2011
1:10 pm
@VON…”Of course you could simply allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines to drive up competition and drive down insurance costs but that would be showing Americans that the free market is better than government control and the Libs just cant have that!”
Blue Cross Blue Shield sells in every state, Aetna sells in every state and so do many others. What you are really saying is if we let some companies selectively ignore certain state laws that might make insurance cheaper.
Bart Abel
November 17th, 2011
1:12 pm
How does a guy using a racist handle (”Lil’ Barry) get away with posting the word “Libtards”, among other things, on this blog? I’ve seen Kyle warn or penalize others for less.
MrLiberty
November 17th, 2011
1:15 pm
Medicare is as unconstitional as Obamacare. Wouldn’t expect a so-called conservative to appreciate that fact.
LT Dan
November 17th, 2011
1:19 pm
J: the Federal Government does not require an individual to purchase auto insurance. The states do. Each state has its own guidelines (there was a time in Alabama that the state did not require motorists to purchase auto insurance; I personally do not know if that has changed).
My personal opinion is that the individual states should preside over healthcare legislation within their respective borders and leave the Federal government out of it (as much as possible).
Jackson Baer
November 17th, 2011
1:19 pm
Ron Paul is going to pull an upset in Iowa, though now it’s less of an upset with him actually high in the polls. I’ve been saying it for a while now and this will definitely shake things up in the race. Even when you don’t agree with him, at least you know you’re getting what he really believes and not just talking points.
http://www.whatthehellbook.com/the-book/
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
1:24 pm
How do you get “racist” out of “Lil’ Barry”?
Typical libtard. Can’t compete so he wants the authorities to shut down his betters.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
1:29 pm
I know Bart, Lil’ Barry is a bit hard to take but he is the perfect caricature of everything that is “right” about today’s Republican Party
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
1:30 pm
“To be sure, it’s not the mandate that bothers Republicans and their supporters.”
Tell you what, Bart Abel. You don’t presume to speak for me, and I will afford you the same courtesy, OK?
“Cause it IS the mandate to THIS Constitutionalist!
Bart Abel
November 17th, 2011
1:33 pm
How do you get “racist” out of “Lil’ Barry”?
How do you not get “racist” out of “Lil’ Barry”? You’re obviously applying rapper slang to the President because of the color of his skin.
I don’t expect you to admit the obvious, but we get it.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
1:37 pm
@Tiberius…“Cause it IS the mandate to THIS Constitutionalist!
So how do you explain Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. The Necessary and Proper Clause refers to the last clause in Section 8, which gives the federal government the power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers.
Is there a definition of the phrase “all Laws” that does not include an individual mandate?
Bart Abel
November 17th, 2011
1:40 pm
I don’t believe you, Tiberius. Without ever having met you, I’m quite confident that, like most consistent Republicans supporters you had no objection to the federal mandate, a Republican idea, until the guys on Fox News told you to object to the federal mandate (about the time that the public option was taken off the table).
My comment above has the proof to support my assertion.
Dominick
November 17th, 2011
1:42 pm
Maybe healthcare is not a problem at all. Maybe it is a symptom that when looked at in hindsight, appears to be a problem. Maybe we are trying to fix the wrong thing.
No worries. I’ll take care of it.
brad
November 17th, 2011
1:42 pm
Lil’ Barry is Kyle’s alter ego.
carlosgvv
November 17th, 2011
1:45 pm
td – 1:00
It’s sad to realize there are people, like you, who foolishly believe that politics plays no part in our legal decisions. This Obamacare question is full of politics and money and if you actually think this won’t matter in our courts, you have much to learn.
JohnE
November 17th, 2011
1:50 pm
Like all good Republicans say. If you cant afford health insurance ….then die please.
Jefferson
November 17th, 2011
1:52 pm
If there was a extremly contagious disease that kills within a week of exposure, I’d bet some would be all for the gov’t doing something about it. Hard to spend all that money in heaven, you don’t need it.
Scott
November 17th, 2011
1:59 pm
If you want other people to pay for your health care then you are a leech and a maggot. Get a job and get a life.
td
November 17th, 2011
2:00 pm
carlosgvv
November 17th, 2011
1:45 pm
It is not politics but instead philosophy. Politics are affiliated with parties but there are lib Republicans and conservative Dems. This is about philosophy. Traditionalist vs. Non-traditionalist, founders interpretation or living document, conservative vs liberal, people that want the limited role of government vs. the people that want government to take care of them from birth to grave, the producers vs. the parasites.
saywhat?
November 17th, 2011
2:01 pm
lil barry is a moocher who either has no job and lives with his mom, or else steals from his employer by blogging at a 3rd grade level all day instead of working. Either way, it spells loser with a capital “L”. The Affordable care act will be upheld. Suck on it rightards.
saywhat?
November 17th, 2011
2:03 pm
brad
November 17th, 2011
1:42 pm
“Lil’ Barry is Kyle’s alter ego.”
As misinformed as Kyle may be, thats still just a mean thing to say about him.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
2:07 pm
JDW, you may not pick and choose what part of the Constitution you need to make your point. Parsing of the Constitution is NOT allowed in intelligent discussion.
And Bart Abel, there is a difference between a Republican and a Constitutionalist. While I may support some things that the GOP does (like oppose this abortion of a health care law), I do so with a principled argument that Federal mandates to buy a private product are NOT Constitutional, no matter who is or was for them. And while you may need teh DNC or a liberal news outlet like MSNBC or CNN to tell you what to think, I do my thinking as a free and liberty-minded individualist; something you cannot comprehend.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
2:12 pm
Lil’ Barry is Kyle’s alter ego.
Lil’ Brainout thinks he’s fighting for the true way banging away at his keyboard trying to defend the parasitic class of the 1% who are trying to consolidate their power by consigning the bulk of the population to debt peonage. The fact that Barry (by the way what’s up with using the name of the person you purport to hate as your moniker?) is obviously not one of the 1% is sad and shows his true colors. He’s happy to join the shock troops and do propaganda duty for the ruling powers as a way to convince himself he’s part of the 1% usurper class, which otherwise he would be shut out of.
Old Timer
November 17th, 2011
2:14 pm
And Bart Abel, there is a difference between a Republican and a Constitutionalist. While I may support some things that the GOP does (like oppose this abortion of a health care law), I do so with a principled argument that Federal mandates to buy a private product are NOT Constitutional, no matter who is or was for them.
Yes sir, Dave R.—I mean, Tiberius.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
2:23 pm
Bart’s obviously desperate to play that race card…typical of libtards when they discover they’ve lost.
One might suspect Bart is the racist, since he equates certain types of music with particular races.
Bart Abel: Incompetent. Racist.
saywhat?
November 17th, 2011
2:24 pm
“And Bart Abel, there is a difference between a Republican and a Constitutionalist..”
Yeah, a “constituionalist” is just like a “libertarian” or a “conservative” – a republican with just enough shame to be too embarrassed to admit it
td
November 17th, 2011
2:24 pm
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
2:12 pm
Would you please give up this ridiculous 99% vs 1% bull. It is the 47% (non tax payers) Vs. the 53% (taxpayers). The 47% parasites want the government to GIVE them a free college education in the Ivy League, FREE health care, Free home, Free Cell phone, Free internet connection and FREE food while they do not have to work. They want all these freebies and just tax the 53% more for them.
td
November 17th, 2011
2:27 pm
saywhat?
November 17th, 2011
2:24 pm
So I guess you think the Constitution is just some historical document that does not have to be followed? I guess you think we have PROGRESSED pass the antiquated ideas behind the founding of this nation and we need to have more government control over our lives?
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
2:30 pm
Just because you’re not principled enough to stand on your own two feet instead of kowtowing to the phony ideals of one of the major political parties, saywhat?, don’t disparage those who are, OK?
Darwin
November 17th, 2011
2:45 pm
Kyle – If the courts can rule that hospitals cannot deny medical treatment based on lack of health insurance, then they should rule that the government can penalize those who do not carry health insurance. And of course, the mandate was brought by the insurance companies you so love to protect and defend. This is their mandate. Without it, people would buy insurance in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and drop it in the discharge office. You continue to defend the status quo and it demonstrates your inability to provide answers that confront our country’s escalating health care costs.
Jefferson
November 17th, 2011
2:49 pm
Self respecting adults are just that and name calling children are just that.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
2:51 pm
td: “They want all these freebies and just tax the 53% more for them.”
We’re not going to agree on anything, td.
People like you are still going to focus on irrelevant figures like 53%, because you still want to cling to the myth that something like “hard work” and “effort” still matter in the current rigged system. And you want to keep looking away from the painful fact that the 1% who are buying up our political system and we speak so they can further rig it to their advantage didn’t get there from relying on anything like those virtues. They got it through inheritance and cynical exploitation.
And people like me are going to keep doing our work to gum up the works, to pull up the tracks out ahead of the train these crooks have created.
So the same dynamic will keep going on .. until it stops going on .. but only one of us is actively working to make it stop .. as you know
williebkind
November 17th, 2011
2:52 pm
Supreme Conflict/Where is the Outrage?
November 17th, 2011
12:20 pm
Here we go again! The progressive liberals can not win the debate so attack attack attack attack the messenger (ie. Thomas and Scalia). I hope they do not recuse themselves. Just as the Obamacare was passed, the conservatives must return likewise but this time it will not smoke filled closed backrooms. Or buying the votes! I remember liberal! I will not forget.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
2:54 pm
“Without it, people would buy insurance in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and drop it in the discharge office.”
And of course without it today, people are doing just that, aren’t they, Darwin?
GT
November 17th, 2011
2:54 pm
I pay for police protection. Never had to use it but I am force to pay for it and the speeding and parking tickets they give me. I pay for schools I have never used, my children have never used, they went to private schools so I paid twice, I considered myself forced in this situation plus my wife volunteered me to mow the schools grass when it became a eye sore for our community. So I paid twice for that too. Of all this I don’t mine paying someone’s health insurance. It may be one of the few things I understand where my money goes and have actually seen educated studies that convince me it will eventually save the country a lot of money and tame this medical inflation that has taken advantage of our country.
I am not quiet sure where in the right’s mental picture of all this stuff ends up. Why do they think people dying in our street is a good thing. Why do they think being the policeman of the world can continued yet we have this human condition developing at home and that is not our problem. Where in 100 years at this rate do you think this country is going to be? We did learn a new word today, specious. Or did we?
williebkind
November 17th, 2011
2:55 pm
Darwin
November 17th, 2011
2:45 pm
Darwin you need to evolve. You so full of it. People go to the doctor easily when someone else is paying for it. Hell, like you they demand it.
jt
November 17th, 2011
2:57 pm
Constitutional Man or Whining Father-Figure seeking boy…………………………..
.
Everyone has to grow up eventually…………but often keeps putting it off via O’RomneyBama.
.
For men………Peace……Decency …and Goodwill………..Ron Paul 2012.
.
All others……report to Toys-R-Us.
williebkind
November 17th, 2011
2:58 pm
GT
November 17th, 2011
2:54 pm
I am so glad your are so generous with your time and money. Did or do you take care of your parents or did you send them to a nursing home.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
3:01 pm
@Tiberius…”Parsing of the Constitution is NOT allowed in intelligent discussion.”
I have given you my basis for Constitutionality, what pray tell is your opposing argument? The only one I have seen so far is “’cause I said so”.
Is the sale of insurance commerce…CLEARLY
Does the legislature have the right to regulate commerce…YES under Article 1 Section 8…
“The Congress shall have Power To…regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”
Are those rights limited…NO Further stated in Article 1 Section 8…
“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
http://www.constitution.org/constit_.htm
The duly elected Congress of The United States of America can make any law they wish pertaining to the regulation of commerce in this country. The sale of insurance is commerce. Your recourse is to elect a Congress that will rescind the law not try to find a way to legislate from the bench.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
3:02 pm
Funny how libtards think the 1% can somehow cast more than 50% of the votes come election time. If you have a problem with who we elect, look in the mirror…you are responsible.
seabeau
November 17th, 2011
3:07 pm
The States need to reassert their political power by calling a Constitutional Convention,in which the power of the Federal Government could be forever constrained as the framers intended.
td
November 17th, 2011
3:07 pm
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
2:51 pm
Who is the top 1%? What is their income limits? Anyone making over what amount?
“They got it through inheritance and cynical exploitation.”
Bill Gates?, Warren Buffet?, Steve Jobs?, Larry Ellison?, founders of Google?, Zuckerman?, Sam Walton? All of these men did not work hard? All of these men got their money from inheritance? Did you know Microsoft has created 3 billionaires and over 300 millionaire? Apple has produced 2 billionaires and 100 millionaires?
Did all of these people not work hard for their money? Are all of these people just a bunch of cheaters and use and abuse the middle class and the poor?
Your whole argument is a huge fallacy. Where is your supporting evidence that all the 1% got their money from ill gotten means?
Why do not admit that you did not do what you should have and gotten a good education, stayed away from drugs, did not have children before you could afford them. You do not want to be a risk taker. You do not want to work 100 hours per week, eat beans and rice and sacrifice. You would rather grip about the system and have the government confiscate the wealth of hard workers because you are unwilling or unable to go out and earn the things you want out of life.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
3:08 pm
JDW, “regulate” does not mean “force people to buy”.
You may wish to consult a dictionary for that reason alone.
Darwin
November 17th, 2011
3:09 pm
@Willie – What in heaven’s name are you talking about? The idea is to get people to pay for it. That’s the idea. What grade are you in?
yoda
November 17th, 2011
3:16 pm
Journalists that use the term “Obamacare” should go back to school.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
3:19 pm
Presidents who think there are 57 states should go back to the madrassa.
Ivan
November 17th, 2011
3:22 pm
bloggers that post under the name “yoda” should stay in their basement
JDW
November 17th, 2011
3:22 pm
@Tiberius…“regulate” does not mean “force people to buy”.
No one is forced to buy anything. Any persons may choose to self insure by deciding not to purchase recognized health insurance. In that case the government levies a fine to offset potential costs associated with that decision.
It would do you good to read Judge Silberman’s. He is as conservative as they come, he mentored Clarence Thomas, and does not like the law and yet understands that it is “clearly Constitutional”
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/055C0349A6E85D7A8525794200579735/$file/11-5047-1340594.pdf
Republican Bloggers are INSANE
November 17th, 2011
3:23 pm
@Welcome to the Occupation November 17th, 2011 2:12 pm Lil’ Barry is Kyle’s alter ego.
Lil’ Brainout thinks he’s fighting for the true way. The fact that Barry (by the way what’s up with using the name of the person you purport to hate as your moniker?) is obviously not one of the 1% is sad and shows his true colors. He’s happy to convince himself he’s part of the 1% usurper class, which otherwise he would be shut out of.
I loved your comment to Lil Biddy Barry! Hahahahahahahaha!
JDW
November 17th, 2011
3:24 pm
ooops Judge Silberman’s Opinion
What's Up With That?
November 17th, 2011
3:27 pm
@Lil’ Barry Bailout (Revised Downward) November 17th, 2011 3:19 pm
Yeah, by the way what’s up with using the name of the person you purport to hate as your moniker?
We think you got a thing for Obama! Don’t you? Admit it!
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
3:34 pm
I’m glad you recognize my handle as referring to Obozo. That tells me something.
And I don’t hate. Heck, I’ve never even so much as voted Democrat once.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
3:35 pm
Oh, I see, JDW. If you don’t buy health insurance for health care, you pay a fine which – buys health care!
Got it.
Mike
November 17th, 2011
3:37 pm
“Obamacare” is simply a mandate that requires everyone to purchase insurance, it has almost nothing to do with “care”.
GT
November 17th, 2011
3:42 pm
williebkind my mother is 98 years old and lives independent, my father died in his easy chair at home in 1988. My father was a Republican from birth because the Democrats were so crooked most of his life. He was in the air conditioning business and they would show up about once a year to solicited their bribes to put air in the state buildings. Of course he never sold them an air conditioner because of it. Government corruption is a bit like the Penn State thing, everybody knows it goes on but no one wants to get involved. When they do they wish they had not because the police and everybody they turn to are under the influence of the powerful that are doing wrong.
The healthcare thing is a bit of that mob mentality. A lot of emotional people who have their facts wrong. I am sure there is a lobbyist helping this misinformation from the insurance company and a politician getting money from that lobbyist and votes for his “righteous” battle, not unlike Ralph Reed. I think my father would have switched parties as he watched the Baptist with the Rolex watches jumping the fence to join him in the Republican Party.
Rafe Hollister
November 17th, 2011
3:46 pm
Obviously anyone reading the Constitution to determine the intent of the framers, quickly learns that the individual mandate is unconstituitional.
HOWEVER, long ago the courts decided that the Constitution was meant to be read as a reference and its wording used and parsed to justify whatever the courts decided was what is best for mankind i.e. a strong imperial Federal Government.
That is how you get a Constitution with a bold no nonsense 10th Amendment that is totally disregarded, because the courts determined it was out of date and got in the way of their rulings.
That is how the courts determined that a man growing wheat, from seed he saved, to feed his own farm animals, that he slaughtered for his own use, was involved in “interstate commerce”. This decision frames the progressives opinion that the Fed Gov has control of everything, because of the Commerce clause.
So in this light, the Supremes may rule either way. Recent efforts to return original thinkers and Constitutional lovers to the court may not be enough to overcome the “living/breathing- change with the times” crowd.
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
3:49 pm
Kyle,
Please speak to your technical people. They (?) wipe out my ID everytime I leave this blog. I asked for their help twice but nothing!! This started happening about a week ago. Thank you.
Kyle Wingfield
November 17th, 2011
3:51 pm
Dusty: Check your inbox…I emailed you about this.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
4:00 pm
td: “Bill Gates?, Warren Buffet?, Steve Jobs?, Larry Ellison?, founders of Google?, Zuckerman?, Sam Walton? All of these men did not work hard? All of these men got their money from inheritance? Did you know Microsoft has created 3 billionaires and over 300 millionaire? Apple has produced 2 billionaires and 100 millionaires?”
Do the ranks of the wealthy include many who worked hard and/or are in possession of unique talents that have enabled their rise to the top? Sure. But whether they are hard working or not, the fact is that the vast majority of the wealthy have benefited from an infrastructure and other resources that have originated in the public sphere and been
The Internet that Gates and Ellison and Jobs and others benefitted from would never have been possible without government/military investment in that technology. Every major technological boom going all the way back to the railroads has consisted of a market that was created by public investment and was only then exploited by private interests afterward.
“You would rather grip about the system and have the government confiscate the wealth of hard workers because you are unwilling or unable to go out and earn the things you want out of life.”
As I said. We’re not going to agree here. You are invested in placing your faith in a system based on the myths of the rugged individual and hard work, which is translated into unlimited support for corporate interests which have nothing to do with those virtues.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
4:06 pm
The income taxes paid by the wealthy paid for the infrastructure, so there should be no whining about them using it.
Elizabeth Warren’s talking point is so easily debunked as to be laughable.
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
4:08 pm
Kyle,
Did not get your first message but got the second one. Sent you a reply (and filled in my ID since it was gone). Thank you.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
4:09 pm
@Tiberius…”Oh, I see, JDW. If you don’t buy health insurance for health care, you pay a fine which – buys health care!”
Not really, the fine offsets the expenses to treat uninsured patients that today are paid by health care providers and taxpayers. It doesn’t by health insurance. See what I don’t get is why you object to collecting money from irresponsible people that in most cases are going to leave you with the bill. It was a GREAT idea when:
In 1989 when a book named “A National Health System for America” by Stuart Butler and Edmund Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation introduced the concept.
“We would include a mandate in our proposal–not a mandate on employers, but a mandate on heads of households–to obtain at least a basic package of health insurance for themselves and their families.” Stuart Butler in a 1989 lecture.
It was even better when Newt supported the idea in 1993…
“I am for people, individuals — exactly like automobile insurance — individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance,” Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press.
It was the best thing since sliced bread when the Republican front runner Romney actually implemented it in Massachusetts in 2005.
What happened, other than an attack of hypocrisy?
Dekalb Citizen
November 17th, 2011
4:13 pm
Lil’ Barry…I do not consider myself wealthy and I pay plenty of income taxes to both the federal and state government. I might be considered upper middle class but I am not wealthy.
So are you suggesting that my tax dollars have not been used to pay for any infrastructure? What were they used for? Maybe mine were just used for bombs and bullets. Or maybe they were only used to pay Congress critters or the “real deal”.
Please enlighten me on where my tax dollars have been going the past 30 years….I’m sure others on this blog would also like to be enlightened by your infinite wisdom.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
4:19 pm
@Rafe…”Obviously anyone reading the Constitution to determine the intent of the framers, quickly learns that the individual mandate is unconstituitional.”
Boy that sounds really good…until you read the Constitution…
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution…
“The Congress shall have Power To…regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”
Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the U.S. Constitution…”The Congress shall have Power To,,, make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers ”
Why there it is in black and white, he duly elected Congress of The United States of America can make any law they wish pertaining to the regulation of commerce in this country. The sale of insurance is commerce.
Try Again
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
4:20 pm
The income taxes paid by the wealthy paid for the infrastructure, so there should be no whining about them using it.
What income taxes paid? We have bridges falling down in this country, a transportation infrastructure that has never been renewed and is a laughing stock compared to other countries, and we’re laying off teachers in droves. So whatever they’re paying — and it ain’t much — it ain’t enough.
Holding out my hands now … gimme some more .. let’s see it!
Elizabeth Warren’s talking point is so easily debunked as to be laughable.
Only if you’re laughing by the graveyard because you’re terrified that her message will start resonating with the public.
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
4:22 pm
Welcome to the Occupation,
You were going good until you got to your third paragraph. Then you fell into the net of socialism like a fish leaving his free life in the sea. Sad1
Most Americans have not lost their lost their rugged individualism, their ability to work and their independence. They have not retreated into some seance of political leaning that declares, basicly, that all rich people are evil and out to kill our country.
Corporations are the backbone of our economics and even Obama knows it. He wouldn’t be trying to stimulate big & little business in foolish measures if he did not. Or his advisors told him so.
You want someone else to run your life.
Get a clue. Most of us value the virtue of independence. You have obviously lost yours.
GT
November 17th, 2011
4:26 pm
Rafe Hollister the slavery thing was part of that constitution I assume you do not want that, though that may be a rather large assumption. The constitution is a living breathing thing that guarantees equal treatment under the law of all human beings yet the very writing infers all human beings are not equal. Newt and others have said the courts are too independent, they want them answerable to the mob. Then if we decided a Jewish pencil maker raped a child in his basement we could legally lynch him, not be weighted down by a moral conscience or a thing call justice. If I were Newt and the way his life is turning around his greed for money and lust I think I might leave that court and human justice alone for a while. He very well may be needing the medicine he is so energetically against at this high and mighty moment, as might we all. Our system is not the problem with the country, it is the people that live in this country that need some changing.
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
4:31 pm
JDW
I was under the impression that Romney’s healthcare was an expensive failure. That estimated costs of the program were vastly underestimated and cost rose far beyond expectations.
If one state program ended like that, can you imagine what will happen if ObamaCare for the whole USA is not repealed? Think hard about “cost beyond expectations” because that is the usual.
UK is revising their health program. Others will too as citizens tire of giving up 50% of their income for poor service.
Steve
November 17th, 2011
4:37 pm
You’d think conservatives would LOVE Obamacare as all it does is add more people into the private insurance companies, increasing corporate profit.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
4:41 pm
You’d think conservatives would LOVE Obamacare as all it does is add more people into the private insurance companies, increasing corporate profit.
Yeah well they can’t have too much overlap when there’s the myth of a black Kenyan Marxist to uphold — they’ve got minions to keep motivated you know — so that one kind of had to go by the waysides.
Steve
November 17th, 2011
4:44 pm
Dusty – you are wrong.
WWLP) – New data has been released on the effectiveness of Massachusetts’s health care law, and most of the findings are positive.
The new study, released this week by a team of Massachusetts economists, shows that the state’s health care insurance requirement has been key to the health care law’s success. This requirement, which was enacted back in 2006, states that all Massachusetts Residents must have health insurance coverage.
http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/massachusetts/Study:-Mass.-healthcare-law-a-success
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
4:48 pm
Steve: “You’d think conservatives would LOVE Obamacare as all it does is add more people into the private insurance companies, increasing corporate profit. ”
Besides, that was long before they ever dreamed they could get away with a wholesale rollback of the New Deal — recall that in 2008 Jim DeMint of all people supported Mitt Romney and touted his health reforms in MA, Jim DeMint!!
So the RomneyCare plan — which originated in the Heritage Foundation in the 80s, ancient history — itself was just a plan put forward under the assumption that the liberal New Deal was in some sense a permanent framework and could never be directly opposed. Thus they had to propose a conservative version that could fly under the New Deal regime and undermine it from within.
But after 2008, when the Kenyan Marxist took power, everything changed. Now that the big enchilada is within reach — total rollback — the old Heritage Foundation idea is of no use and is even counterproductive. Hence it must be ruthlessly killed.
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
4:48 pm
Well, GT wants to change the people of this country so he can enjoy the “true” way. Seems the “mob” here is not to his liking.
I suggest something better. Go, GT, and find the country that has people you can enjoy..
Bon voyage! Send us a postcard when you get there. .
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
the
November 17th, 2011
8:59 pm
@@ is the most crass of any commenter I’ve ever read ever. Imagine Rush Limbaugh with three sets of cheeks.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
9:00 pm
Keep your religion off my blog, thumper.
the
November 17th, 2011
9:10 pm
Okay. Obamacare. We are on the precipice of diseases that have evolved over the millenia along with us. We get these localized scares, like the airborne ebola virus, but somehow mankind gets out of it intact.
Well, guess what folks. Every once in a while, a disease gets real smart and evolves a strategy that overcomes our slow-paced immunities.
Without Obamacare, and the justice that such legislation rest upon, we will be sitting ducks for any smart-virus that decides to destroy America. If we don’t have free healthcare for all, then the Dustys and the @@ will succeed in abetting these microscopic demon viruses to infect us all. Look, history shows us that mankind always get a warning, and without Obamacare, then the first instances of this new plague will go unnoticed and untreated and thus will be allowed to fester and infect and probably kill us all.
But go ahead and listen to the Rush Limpdouches like @@ and Dusty. Then watch your family sing that famous song, “…. ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies, ashes ashes we all fall DOWN!!!”
Dusty and @@ are evil sirens, and total cuckoo birds of hate.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
9:15 pm
Dlink, I do believe you’re rambling.
Try succinct and cogent sentences, please.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
9:17 pm
Uh, the? Nothing in Obamacare will do anything towards treating any exotic or new diseases.
Nothing.
David Green
November 17th, 2011
9:19 pm
Lil barry bailout insults and name calling isn’t debating and for the record when I submitted my complaint to the ajc about your post I requested that you be banned.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
9:26 pm
@Rafe…”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.”
Guess you missed Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 …”The Congress shall have Power To,,, make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers ”
That bit about all Laws includes ALL Laws assoicated with the specifically granted right to regulate commerce as granted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 …even those with individual mandates.
So that means that in the case of healthcare regulation The Powers have been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
9:28 pm
JDW, you keep equating “regulate” with “purchasing a private product”. It doesn’t fly, no matter how many times you repeat it.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
9:31 pm
David Green: I requested that you be banned.
———–
Typical of people who can’t cut it. The next debate you win will be the first.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
9:31 pm
@Streetracer..” 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?”
They could, if they could get it passed by Congress. See thats how this stuff should be resolved. If you don’t like it elect a Congress that will make different laws.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
9:35 pm
Wishful thinking, JDW. Forcing people to purchase a product is not among the enumerated powers, so there can be no laws executing this non-existing power.
Keep trying!
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
9:38 pm
“They could, if they could get it passed by Congress. See thats how this stuff should be resolved. If you don’t like it elect a Congress that will make different laws.”
Except that even Congress knows that such a law would be un-Constitutional, JDW.
As they should have with the mandate in Obamacare.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
9:38 pm
@Tiberius…”JDW, you keep equating “regulate” with “purchasing a private product”. It doesn’t fly, no matter how many times you repeat it.”
Actually it does in case after case. Just as Judge Silberman said a couple of weeks ago.
“The majority addressed Congress’s regulatory authority in the insurance market and found that, “Broad regulation is an inherent feature of Congress’s constitutional authority in this area; to regulate complex, nationwide economic problems is to necessarily deal in generalities.” Further “The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local–or seemingly passive–their individual origins.”
He doesn’t like the law but understands that the right to regulate the market in any way they see fit falls to the Congress. You don’t like it, elect other Congresspersons.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
9:41 pm
LBB, I usually have an issue with people saying “it isn’t specified in the Constitution”, so it can’t be Constitutional.
The Constitution doesn’t spell out specifically what the government can do, but rather, is a limiting document on the powers of government. Therefore, the argument about “It isn’t in the Constitution” really doesn’t fly.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
9:42 pm
Judge Silberman is not the be-all and end-all in Constitutional authority, JDW. He is but one justice on one Appeals Court
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
November 17th, 2011
9:47 pm
“Actually it does in case after case.”
JDW, there is only ONE case where Congress has mandated purchasing a private product – Obamacare. Therefore, this statement of yours is patently false.
JDW
November 17th, 2011
9:57 pm
@Tiberius…well hop on over to Intrade and put your money where your mouth is….you can buy cheap because the smart money understands the definition of the phase “The Congress shall have Power To,,, make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers ”
http://www.intrade.com/v4/home/
getalife
November 17th, 2011
10:03 pm
You cons love corporate welfare so you should like this bill.
You cons can’t protest for two months straight.
OWS kicked your con azzes.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 17th, 2011
10:09 pm
The Constitution doesn’t spell out specifically what the government can do
——–
Incorrect. The Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
10:10 pm
What sort of thug town is New York City anyway?
DLink
November 17th, 2011
10:10 pm
Yo Tybee, you don’t like the way I talk, don’t read the truth of the matter. You bore me.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
10:19 pm
Nothing’s more dangerous to Newt Gingrich than a little success.
DLink
November 17th, 2011
10:34 pm
Take care of your people, people. It’s the only solution that’s ever worked, present and past. Apparently, it worked for Jesus, Tybee, you should tell us all about how that works.
What happens when you die?
(I know, don’t feed the trolls), but a guy’s gotta have fun, eh?
Welcome to the Occupation
November 17th, 2011
10:41 pm
Hey Barr, think Bloomie wishes he’d just let them all stay in Zucotti Park now?
DLink
November 17th, 2011
10:54 pm
OH PLEASE, I know better than to feed the troll. Not everyone is an idiot.
Dusty
November 17th, 2011
11:00 pm
I just came back and read a little more. (and put my ID and email in again).
Do not worry, “the”. USA will not be wiped out by disease if we don’t have Obamacare. I am a part of the HealthCare of this country and you will be receive care just like always. You might ;also notice that the leaders of many countries come here for the best medical care in the world.. I just hope it stays that way.
Socialized medicine is not the same as you get from you and your doctor. You will go through a “chain” such as an aide, then an LPN, then a RN, then a Nurse Practicioner or a PA. If you are not dead by then, you will see the first MD that is available, only if necessary.
It is not the best of medical care. And the cost to the government is almost uncontrollable.
If you can settle with all that, then ObamaCare will suit you fine. But careful. Getting TOO old may cause you problems. Think about it. It might be very expensive and the government may decide that……….. well, nevermind, You have enough to worry what with ebola in Africa and you might get it. Now go get some rest. We do not want you sick.
Lysander
November 18th, 2011
1:04 am
Regardless of your political persuasion, constitutional precedent requires but one outcome here: Obamacare is a constitutional exercise of Congress’s enumerated power to regulate commerce. Two cases dictate this result: Gonzales v. Raich and Wickard v. Filburn (throw in Comstock for good measure). Go read them: we’re farther down the rabbit hole than you think.
And as much as I personally disagree with this remedy to a serious national problem, these cases would have to be overruled in order for SCOTUS to hold that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the Court is unlikely to overrule these cases – if for nothing more than their precedential entrenchment in constitutional jurisprudence.
Elmer Gantry
November 18th, 2011
4:42 am
the health care act is creating quite a kerfuffle in the Supreme Court this normally staid reserved, dignified, scholary men and women cannot understan the consternation over the health bill. They have been in a kerfuffle situation for sometime now.
Techfan
November 18th, 2011
5:39 am
See: The Second Militia Act of 1792, and The Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen Act of 1798 as to mandates.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 18th, 2011
6:30 am
constitutional precedent requires but one outcome here
———————
Constitutional government requires but one outcome here. The smacking down of Obozo and his fascist power grab.
Techfan
November 18th, 2011
6:38 am
Since the founding fathers were members of Congress, John Adams was President, Jefferson was President of the Senate, they might have a pretty good idea on the original intent on the Constitution.
Real Athens
November 18th, 2011
7:20 am
Dusty:
How much “socialized medicine” have you been subjected to? I have been treated for the same ailment in VA, GA, LA, Vancouver, BC, UK, Sweden and Denmark. The treatment was less expensive, quicker, did not involve a hospital stay or emergency room visit and patently much more humane in Vancouver, Sweden and Denmark.
Whether that is the fault of socialized medicine or a better class of physician (or both) — I don’t know. I just know what the outcome was.
Uncle Jed
November 18th, 2011
7:24 am
If the Obamacare was such a good and wholesome change for all of us “mere citizens”, any clue as to why the democrats worked in the wee dark hours of a cold December night? I guess it must have been a big ol’ dose of that transparency promised back in January of 2009. I think the most telling statement came from Pelosi. To paraphrase: “we must pass it to find out what’s in it”. Sort of like riding a blind man pass[sic] barns in chicken country.
I think the mandate will be found to be unconstitutional in spite of the willing accomplice; the conventional media outlets. (and if any recusal is in order, it would be Kagan, as if we can’t figure out why she was installed)
Uncle Jed
November 18th, 2011
7:26 am
@Real Athens
November 18th, 2011
7:20 am
++++++++++++++++++
Delllta is readyyy when you arrre
Real Athens
November 18th, 2011
7:31 am
Dusty:
“You will go through a “chain” such as an aide, then an LPN, then a RN, then a Nurse Practicioner or a PA. If you are not dead by then, you will see the first MD that is available, only if necessary.”
You forgot you have to get a referral from your PCP first — he has to get his piece from the insurance companies,
This is exactly what happened to me last week when trying to get a prescription re-filed that the doctor had written. Guess what? I have very good, company provided, health insurance.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (that’s what it’s called, Kyle) reforms certain aspects of the private health insurance industry and public health insurance programs, increases insurance coverage of pre-existing conditions, expands access to insurance to over 30 million Americans, and increases projected national medical spending despite lowering projected Medicare spending under previous law.
Is it perfect? No.
However, it ain’t “socialized medicine” and any buffoon who says otherwise is … well, uninformed.
Real Athens
November 18th, 2011
7:34 am
Jed:
I travel for my job. I pay taxes in Georgia.
Hate the message, not the messenger, tool.
JDW
November 18th, 2011
7:48 am
@LBB..” The smacking down of Obozo and his fascist power grab.”
Delusional yes…Constitutional no
@@
November 18th, 2011
7:50 am
Common ground in the South.
Occupy Memphis, Tea Party Members Meet
Then he said the Occupy groups should go home and work within their community to try to bring about change.
“Get people elected,” Gregory said.
OWSers should listen to their elders.
@@
November 18th, 2011
7:51 am
An “evil siren”!!??!!
I kinda like that one.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 18th, 2011
8:11 am
David Green…whazzaaaaap? LMAO!
Bob
November 18th, 2011
8:14 am
Is the Harvard scholar trying to tell us that if you do not work and you make no income that you are still compelled to “buy” medicare ? I think it was Bill Clinton that told us that our tax system is voluntary, if you do not work of generate income, you pay no fed tax. Do people that pay no tax have to send in premiums to the gov for medicare ?
Now with Ten Percent More Flavor
November 18th, 2011
8:21 am
No one on the right argues that Congress can’t enact a tax to pay for a government program such as Medicare.
If you give yourself artistic license to make such a patently false claim upon which to build your case, anything is possible, Kyle.
Poll Position: Should Obamacare’s day in court be televised? | Kyle Wingfield
November 18th, 2011
8:30 am
[...] week, the Supreme Court agreed to weigh the constitutional merits of Obamacare. But even if the court decides to throw out the president’s health reform, [...]
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 18th, 2011
8:38 am
It should be noted that getting your health care via Medicare is completely voluntary, not forced by government. For the moment, we have the freedom to get healthcare where we want, when we want. Democrats want to take those freedoms away.
Streetracer
November 18th, 2011
8:43 am
The commerece clause gives the Feds authority to regulate interstate commerece. The problem here, as I see it, is that the purchase of insurance is intrastate commerece. Any insurance product I buy in Georgia is subject to the laws, regulations and rules established by GA’s Insurance Commission, not to some Federal or other authority. Therefore, no other state has skin in the game and it is NOT interstate commerece.
Real Athens
November 18th, 2011
8:44 am
Democrats want to take choices away? It is common knowledge that in the early 1990s Newt Gingrich and the conservative Heritage Foundation backed the idea of a mandate compelling individuals to purchase health insurance.
Streetracer
November 18th, 2011
8:54 am
LBB:
There are some compulsory facats to Medicare. One must enroll within a 7 month window (the month one turns 65 and 3 months either side of it) or be subject to various penalties and lapses of coverage for ever.
JDW
November 18th, 2011
9:02 am
@LBB…”It should be noted that getting your health care via Medicare is completely voluntary, not forced by government. For the moment, we have the freedom to get healthcare where we want, when we want. Democrats want to take those freedoms away”
It should also be noted that buying healthcare insurance under the Individual Mandate is also completely voluntary and not force by the government. It is simply a matter of pricing. You wll have the complete freedom to getto get healthcare where you want, when you want.
No one has tried to remove a single freedom from you…now if you want to talk “Patriot Act” that would be another story but since that was a Republican folly I don’t suppose you do.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
November 18th, 2011
9:51 am
I guess the term “individual mandate” doesn’t lead you to believe that there is some “mandatory” aspect?
Think before posting.
Democrats: Fascist control freaks.
Welcome to the Occupation
November 18th, 2011
10:08 am
Democrats: Fascist control freaks.
Flabby spined democrats “constrol freaks”? Sure you don’t want to save that line of attack for leftists?
David Green
November 18th, 2011
8:12 pm
:Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”
Benito Mussolini
Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benito_mussolini.html#ixzz1e6oZOLUS
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It is the republicans and not the democrats who seek to merge corporations and the state together. Hence it is republicans who are fascists.
Seriously ??
November 19th, 2011
9:01 am
Obama care is one step closer to Socialism. I want to keep my freedom. 54 percent of Americans favor repealing all or some part of that law. How can so many people be wrong? Not a question just a point to ponder.
TabbyB
November 23rd, 2011
11:18 am
hmmm, regulate in the 18th Century meant: Verb. To make regular. We can’t use modern definitions to understand historical documents even 50 years ago because of language drift. We must understand what the definition of the words at the time the document was written. Anyone who understands hermeneutics understands this.
Pete0097
November 23rd, 2011
11:18 am
I still don’t understand that if obamacare is supposed to cover more people than are covered now, why are more people not covered now? Also, if it is supposed to keep costs down, why did my health insurance just go up 30%? What was wrong with poor (or anyone else) people being able to go to the local public health unit to get health care? The way to keep costs down is a different trail that cuts the GREED in the healthcare system.
Dave
November 23rd, 2011
11:20 am
There is a simple explanation to it all, no need for convoluted answers to prove one side or the other. Medicare is a government program. Democrats wanted Obamacare to be a government program but knew it was a stretch to get a mandated government health care through. So to ease it past the voters/congress it was written as a private program, with mandates particular only to government programs, a veiled attempt to hide the fact that they want healthcare to become a government . program. The Constitution was in the way, so they tried to hide it as a penalty as they knew anything called a tax would fail congress. It was the real reason for the few holdouts such as Nelson from Nebraska.
Cecil
November 23rd, 2011
11:27 am
@ JDW at 12:59 – The commerce clause says that congress shall REGULATE interstate commerce not INITIATE – or COMPEL commerce – -The mandate is unconstitutional.
spxz
November 23rd, 2011
11:34 am
2000 pages of law was written and shoved down the throats of Americans by an all Democrat House, Senate and White House that was incapable of passing a budget for over 18 mos. (and never DID pass a budget). All they needed for healthcare was a law allowing insurers to sell across State lines, a malpractice tort reform similar to the one working so well in Texas, and a system of STATE RUN (shared funding – state-Fed) clinics for the uninsured, to remove the burden of uninsured people from using the Emergency Rooms in hospitals for basic health care. Obamacare was not about reducing costs. Anyone who believes that belongs in an asylum, because they are too stupid to be allowed to walk in public.
Allison
November 23rd, 2011
11:37 am
So here’s a thought. What if all the people (or a lot of them) make claims at the same time and the insurance companies can’t cover them? We morph into single payer! Two birds, one stone. The government will take over more of the free market and all of our health freedom! This sounds like the democrap plan.
Kyle Wingfield
November 23rd, 2011
11:56 am
Welcome to everyone who apparently is coming here from BigHealthReport.com. My regular readers may or may not revisit this post since it’s a few days old. But if you’re interested in other topics, I encourage you to check out some of the more recent posts. Thanks again.
Robert Morrow
November 23rd, 2011
12:08 pm
First of all I do not want Health Care for when I am Healthy I do not need care. I would like Sick care when I need it. Second we have to stop the Shadow Governments from making the population sick with poison drugs and toxic food additives. That is the FDA (murder for profit inc.), by allowing over 15,000 toxins to poison the foods supply and the Pharmaceutical from selling poison drugs being pushed by AMA/Pharmaceutical trained Doctors. This pushing of bad drugs(that does not even apply to what is going on) happens and for profit many times over. I know as I have it happen any time I visited a Doctor. My thoughts is to stay away from Medical Doctors as much as possible. On this same train of thought we could cure the debt crisis by removing these shadow Governments which rule by degree with enforcement by Petty Bureaucrats who have no common sense. I did not vote for any of this Shadow Government and they rule with no controls so that is removal of my rights and put us in the Socialist states of America. Why did this happen? It happen because our Elected Officials sold us out to the highest bidder so that they could received their 30 Pieces of Blood Stained Silver. I know my have here in the State Of New Mexico. So Fellow Serfs just be happy eating your Staff Of Life (bread) filled with outlawed plastic foam and Cellose (wood from trees) and dine on the other allowed poisons to make you sick to sell you poison drugs. Have a good day.
Dave Vegan
November 23rd, 2011
12:10 pm
Medicare does not constitute the purchase of any insurance policy — Medicare is a tax — period. If the Oblamacare chumps want to argue otherwise, then their arguement would be that Medicare too is unconstitutional.
Bill
November 23rd, 2011
12:34 pm
This guy is teaching at Harvard? He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Yes, everyone in non-government employment pays SS taxes for retirement and Medicare. However, when a person retires, his “Medicare Hospitalization”, or Part A of Medicare, costs NOTHING. Since a worker has already paid for this coverage, that makes sense. On the other hand, Medicare Part B, or coverage for doctors, and other non-hospital coverage is OPTIONAL. In other words, when people go on SS, they DO NOT have to accept the Part B coverage. Therefore, it IS NOT mandatory! Most people DO opt for Part B, but at least it’s a conscious, though nearly forced, decision. In obamacare, there is NO option. Take it or get nothing. I suppose there is an option in there. It is this; take obamacare and get mediocre or next to non-existent care, or take nothing, whereby you’ll die. So you have the choice of obamacare or death – not much of an option if you think about it. They are both equally dangerous to your health. And with the obama death panels, you’re taking your life in your hands with obamacare. Anyway, it’s clear from this article that the numbskull, Elhauge, who wrote the article is absolutely ignorant on the subject of SS laws. Kinda scary when you realize that he is a “teacher” at Harvard. It’s no wonder Harvard is beginning to be thought of as a bastion of idiots.
teaman
November 23rd, 2011
12:37 pm
Just like the Obambulating Manure Spreader will win re-election because his thuggish minions will steal it for him, the perverted left will win at the Supreme court. After all, that will be the final nail in our Nations coffin as we slip into 3rd world status and the Obambulating Manure Spreader becomes the Obambulating Manure Spreader of the “NEW WORLD ORDER” under the control of George Sorass.
Mark
November 23rd, 2011
1:13 pm
As always, lawyers and bureaucrats can take the simplest thing, that is the constitutionality of the health insurance issue, and turn it into something so complicated no one can explain. It is that simple. If the government wants to get into the health insurance business (which they shouldn’t) simply make it so there are affordable options for everyone. In other words, make it more competitive like all businesses in a capitalistic society. If the word capitalism offends the left, so be it. Their complaint is that capitalism is oppressive and there’s no mercy for the poor. Bull. There’s far worse poverty in other countries. Caused mainly by the very form of government the left would prefer to see here in America. Therein lies the irony. The leftist loons are ready to abandon the most successful, compassionate and prosperous form of government in history, free enterprise and capitalism here in America and exchange it for something proven to be unsuccessful. How can they be so obtuse???
RED-WHITE-BLUE
November 23rd, 2011
2:42 pm
From what I hear, Obamacare has a clause in there that you have to pay a certain % upon selling your home. What! Are you kidding me? What in tarnation does the sale of your home have to do with healthcare? I*m sure there are other stupid clauses in there also. It*s best to abolish it asap!
Kyle Wingfield
November 23rd, 2011
4:32 pm
Folks, I’m checking out for Thanksgiving and won’t be back until Monday. I’ll post a holiday-related column around 6 p.m., but nothing else is scheduled until Monday morning.
Per AJC.com policy, comments will be held in moderation starting now. I’ll try to log in and release a batch or two between now and then.
I hope each and every one of you have a great Thanksgiving.
Tho
November 23rd, 2011
8:49 pm
Is Obamacare constitutional? Probably not. The federal government was granted only limited powers, like the power to pass laws that regulate interstate commerce, not commerce that is available in any state. Other powers were reserved to the individual states. The federal government has been overstepping this boundary for some time, and it is time to say enough is enough.
Is Obamacare morally right? It was passed without being read by Congress. That’s wrong. It has directives in it that set up government committees that will choose how much and what kind of medical care you get and you will not be allowed to step outside of these decisions even if you can afford it. That’s wrong. It creates hundreds of expensive new bureaucracies that must be paid for with no proof they will improve healthcare or how much they will cost.
Do we want our government to provide our medical care? Sure medical care is important, but not as important as food, so our government should provide EVERYBODY with food before medical care, and I would like steak and lobster! But what would we get? Beanie weenies, or maybe macaroni and cheese? Then why would we expect them to provide steak and lobster medical care? We shouldn’t because logically they wouldn’t!
So even if Obamacare is called legal under a “flexible” constitution, we should repeal it as soon as possible.