Obamacare

[plthijinx]

i know plenty of you here LOVE obama. personally, i think he could be a one term dude and i'd be happy with that. rail me if you want but you will not "change" my views. however, healthcare has been an issue for decades. this "forced" healthcare program he is trying to do is not right.

At issue on Day 2 of three days of oral arguments before the justices was the health care mandate, the requirement that with few exceptions all individuals must have health insurance or pay a penalty via their income taxes.

i can afford insurance now. 6 months ago i could not. since i returned from my hiatus from society i could not. not until i got a decent paying job. so basically he's saying that if i cannot afford healthcare then it's going to be taken from my tax return. gee. really.

oh and here's another thing....i had to be taken to the emergency room about a year and a half ago. i chose the "free" hospital because i did not have insurance. i still get bills to this day for their sorry ass service.

Verrilli defended the mandate by saying Congress found it to be the best way to insure the more than 40 million Americans who lack insurance and end about $43 billion a year in cost shifting – the amount of free care provided to the uninsured that hospitals ultimately make up through a taxpayer-funded government program and raising insurance rates.

i never saw such things. i'm white. i will never see that.

yeah i said that. rip me one. i'm not gonna care. i am jaded. very. and i usually stick to my own self but every now and then i've had enough and have to voice my opinion.

now back on subject:

Verrilli argued that any healthy person is only a car accident or a cancer diagnosis away from needing hugely expensive health care. Requiring health coverage only when people become sick would blow a hole in the insurance industry’s risk-pool model and make health insurance unaffordable to many, Verrilli said.

ok lets see here. insurance companies. yyyyyeah. they are in it for what people? your best interest? i think not. money. they want to turn a profit for their shareholders. they could give a rats ass whether you die or live tomorrow. unless you are on their policy. then they care.

i understand obama's interest in making sure everyone has insurance but lets be real. in america.......snot gonna happen.

[plthijinx]

and this is the dude that took my first return in as many years but i agree with him here: (and on taking my tax return actually)

ETA: for the states fuck up in my child support payments when they didn't take enough out

“We knew that if we could get the court to agree to focus (on how the law) infringed on individual liberty, we had chance of winning,” said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who attended the court session. “We were pleased to walk out of the courtroom today knowing that five justices of the United States Supreme Court focused their powerful questions against the U.S. government on that very issue.”

[plthijinx]

wow. they're stating the obvious now:

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who also was in the courtroom, said: “As government grows, individual freedom shrinks. That’s what this case is all about.”

[BrianR]

I'm on Fred's side on this. The Congress has been abusing the heck out of the commerce clause ever since Teddy Roosevelt's administration. Back then, the Supreme Court sharply limited the government's power. Since then, every President has packed the Court with as many appointees as he could, tilting the Court ever more toward an activist Court which has granted more and more power to the Congress and President. There is an excellent article on this subject here.

I, too, want everyone to have health insurance. But I would much rather see everyone get it through their job, rather than forced upon them. Unlike Fred, I have to pay for mine every month but I have a really low bill and a decent company stemming from my days in the service. So, unless I am REALLY broke, I will always have it. It isn't perfect but it does what we need it to do most of the time so I cannot complain.

The thing is, it's the principle, darnit! Giving the government such broad powers is foolish in the extreme. They can do much more than take a penalty out of your tax return. They can reach into your bank account and take money out, too. Think of what a $500 bite would do to your household budget. Or even $100. They could also monitor your spending. There are many things to dislike about that bill. But there is no guarantee on how the Court will rule.

I strongly suspect the Supreme Court will rule only narrowly on the Individual Mandate portion and leave stand the rest of the bill. I might be wrong but this Court is not the Court of a century ago. It is rare that the SC does NOT cede more power to the government.

I certainly hope, for America's sake, that the entire bill is struck down.

[glatt]

My brother in law is in his early 40s and has never had medical insurance in his adult life. Last year, he was in a bicycle accident and went to the emergency room for treatment. He never paid a penny for that, but the cost was in the thousands of dollars. I'm sure he continues to get bills from them, but knowing his financial situation, those bills are unpaid.

He's probably never going to voluntarily buy insurance, and we taxpayers are going to continue to pay for his sporadic emergency room visits.

I'd like to see him forced to chip into the pot. I'm in favor of a mandate. especially since going hand in had with a mandate is the elimination of pre-exisiting conditions exclusions.

By brother in law is a good guy, and I wish him well. But he's the kind of guy who is a drag on the system. He should pull his weight.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by BrianR

I, too, want everyone to have health insurance. But I would much rather see everyone get it through their job, rather than forced upon them.

Why do you want to burden businesses with paying for health insurance costs? Think of the small business owners who will be bankrupted. If a business can't or won't provide healthcare insurance for their employees, what happens?

I don't view this as a power grab by the government. It's an attempt to fix an unfair system that is broken, and to help Americans when they are unwell. It's certainly not perfect (that would be a system like the UK's or Canada's, IMHO), because it had to pass through congress, and Democrats wanted bipartisan approval. Remember, this plan is similar to the plan put forth by republicans in the early nineties.

Fred, you need to do some more research, and be less racist.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

It's certainly not perfect (that would be a system like the UK's or Canada's, IMHO),

Single payer, baby. I'm not sure a socialized medicine system like the UK's would work in the US, but I know single-payer would.

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Fred, you need to do some more research, and be less racist.

[Griff]

If I'm using the term properly, single-payer would be superior to the mandate. Guaranteeing insurance companies a profit and forcing their products on people seems the greater sin. I don't think severing insurance from work does any great harm to peoples motivation. It may in fact make people more willing to risk starting businesses.

[plthijinx]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Why do you want to burden businesses with paying for health insurance costs? Think of the small business owners who will be bankrupted. If a business can't or won't provide healthcare insurance for their employees, what happens?

I don't view this as a power grab by the government. It's an attempt to fix an unfair system that is broken, and to help Americans when they are unwell. It's certainly not perfect (that would be a system like the UK's or Canada's, IMHO), because it had to pass through congress, and Democrats wanted bipartisan approval. Remember, this plan is similar to the plan put forth by republicans in the early nineties.

Fred, you need to do some more research, and be less racist.

spexx, i'm not racist. far from it actually. that comment came from experience. the lady next to me when i was leaving just got her food stamps approved and she was all happy, don't blame her, but lo and behold she got in her 2009 Escalade and trucked it on down the road. i was denied stamps due to the fact that i'd cashed in a 401k recently and lived with someone who was retired and "deemed fit to support me" is i believe what the lady told me? anyway, point/counterpoint, we could go back and forth all day with quotes and quips and still not get anywhere. just saying. having been on both sides of the spectrum rich/poor to damn near broken, it's been my experience that unless you know how to "work the system" you won't get what is supposedly there to help you. government needs to fix what it fouled up in the first place. President Nixon, John Erlichman and Edgar Kaiser are the ones to blame. i remember my father talking with fellow doctors in the doctors lounge about how their proposal was going to throw a monkey wrench in the healthcare system.

i do hope it gets fixed. will it? no. unfortunately not. there are too many executives and shareholders out there with insurance companies to allow it to happen. change? not gonna happen here.

once again, sorry if i sounded racist. i'm not.

[Clodfobble]

1.) Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional
2.) Obama wins a second term
3.) With nothing to lose, and proof that compromises just implode on themselves, the Democrats are now able to say "Fuck bipartisan support" and force a single-payer system through Congress.

That's what I'm hoping, anyway. Hooray!

[tw]

Let's face it. Free markets are the best way. If you cannot pay in the hospital or Wal-Mart, you do not get the service or product. That is fair. It is unfair and illegal to require any hospital to serve you if you cannot pay. Constitutionally they have the right to put you out on the sidewalk if you cannot provide proof of payment.

These wacko extremists who want all costs dumped on hospitals must be drinking from Limbaugh's Oxycotin cup.

[Lamplighter]

If free markets are best, and "it's unfair and illegal to require hospitals to serve you",
is there agreement to removing their non-profit status so they pay a fair share
of property taxes, and income taxes, and they stop being reimbursed by Medicare ?

And, maybe reconsider their legal rights to put a lien on the patient's home for whatever unpaid bill
the patient incurs out of services and supplies priced at the hospital's discretion of "regular and customary rates"

We might just see how many would survive in the "free market".

In reality, most hospitals and physicians and their medical aides are given a special place in society,
and are not simple retail businesses subject to fair-market competition, freedoms, and restraints.
As such, they have other responsibilities to their community.

So sayth this wacko extermist.

[Stormieweather]

In my opinion, all health care and medical costs are a complete and utter ripoff. There is NO reason to charge $129 for a box of Kleenex in the hospital or $86 for an Ace bandage. A prescription that cost $3 to manufacture should not cost $180 per month. A broken ankle should not cost $5,000 to fix. Of course, if expenses like these were reasonable, insurance policy costs would not be through the roof and just maybe your average Joe could afford to buy it.

[Trilby]

Wait. Where is this "free hospital" filthy speaks of? I need to
check that out.

[Trilby]

Americans feel they are entitled to excellent healthcare whether
they csn pay or not. Like Glatt's example. If everyone had to
bear some cost it would be a better system.