A.Nonymous

It really doesn't fail. The legally required car insurance covers the other guy, not you. I'm not required to have insurance that covers my car. If I wrap my car around a tree, I'm up a creek. I'm not required to have insurance that covers me. With health insurance, the feds are requiring you to cover yourself.

Show me another example where you are taxed for NOT doing something.

OutofDate1980

Bob Maxey

The SC made its ruling and that DOES NOT mean the next President cannot kill it off. My fear is the next El-presidente will not kill the bill. God help us if it is Obama.

Second, read the 2600 page bill and get back to me. There are things hidden in the bill that should scare you. No matter what Congress or Obama says, what is written down is all that matters.

i think there is a provision in the bill that says if your employer makes the slightest change to your coverage, it goes away. Some will be exempt but most will pay lots at the end of the year. Those new RS hires will be very busy and the public will likely learn that when you get what you ask for, it is sometimes not what you think you want.

OutofDate1980

i think there is a provision in the bill that says if your employer murders you your coverage goes away and your employer's action is justified homicide in that it was a reduction in force.

Read the 2600 page bill and get back to me.

OutofDate1980

A.Nonymous

Those are crimes under the law. Failure to have health insurance isn't a crime. It's a cause for a tax. Big difference. There's a big difference between punishing someone for something that is a criminal act under the law and taxing someone for not purchasing a product.

OutofDate1980

Supreme Court saves Romney Care.

Obamacare & The Broccoli Argument - The Colbert Report - 2012-28-06 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

OutofDate1980

So your argument is that not having health insurance should be a crime ?

Throw the freeloaders under the jail ?

A.Nonymous

No. My argument is the feds shouldn't force you to buy a product. I can't think of any other situations where you are taxed for not buying something.

jhtalisman

So everyone thinks that having the uninsured being a burden without penalty on the insured's health insurance premiums and hospital/doctor's bills is ok? We (the insured) have shouldered the responsibility long enough and frankly I am tired of it. The new law should lower premiums paid by employer/employee and allow the difference to be put towards increasing wages, other benefits, etc. The preventative care mandate alone is reason for it, as most major health issues can be caught early and therefore cost of treatment is drastically reduced. Most people do not go to the doctor until it is too late, and preventative care costs are a major reason why. Diagnostic tests are expensive.

My employer currently pays ~ $15,000 a year for my family's healthcare coverage. If others were forced to take personal responsibility for their healthcare costs and coverage, that amount would go down significantly along with the billed costs.

Last edited by jhtalisman; July 2nd, 2012 at 10:31 AM.

A.Nonymous

The new law won't lower premiums though. The logic behind this is sheer insanity. It kind of goes like this.

1. There are a bunch of people who are uninsured.
2. They are uninsured because they either choose to not buy insurance or they can't afford it with the majority falling in the second category.
3. The solution is to pass a law requiring that everyone buy insurance and we'll subsidize those who can't afford to.

How does that make sense? Would it not make more sense to address the problem of why it costs so much more to provide healthcare in this country than it does elsewhere? That is the root of the problem. Of course that involves politicians being the pockets of various lobbies so we don't want to talk about that. I had several clients who were healthcare providers. None of them were fans of this bill as they all claimed it would drive their costs up. Who do you think they're going to pass those costs along to?

saptech

Yes, let's make this about anything BUT health insurance companies practices, which are squeezing the actual health care providers (you know, the ones who actually do the medical work). It's why doctors have less and less time to spend with each patient. And why health insurance costs quadruple over the last few decades. And why, as costs for services rise, insurance companies increasingly make money by denying healthcare coverage instead of providing it.

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A.Nonymous

But Congress can't address those problems because those same health insurance companies are lining their pockets.

OutofDate1980

A.Nonymous

I find it extremely hard to believe that the feds getting involved in anything is going to make it more cost efficient.

OutofDate1980

CBO projects net saving of $138 billion over 1st 10-year period and $1.2 trillion over the following 10 year period.

ylexot

Has the CBO ever gotten an estimate right?

A.Nonymous

I find that extremely difficult to believe given that the business managers that I've spoken to said the opposite. These are people who are in the business of making money by providing healthcare services and they're telling me they are going to make less money under Obamacare.

OutofDate1980

Estimates are predictions, therefor not perfect.

How nonpartisan is the Congressional Budget Office? - Slate Magazine

"A study in the journal Polity examined the accuracy of economic forecasts made by the White House, the Federal Reserve, and the CBO between 1979 and 1997. During that time, the administration's forecasts were the least accurate and the CBO's were the most accurate. (The Fed forecasted inflation as accurately as the CBO but wasn't as good on gross-national-product growth and unemployment.) The study also found partisan bias in the White House forecasts: Republican administrations tend to exaggerate inflation while Democratic ones exaggerate unemployment. Neither of these tendencies shows up in the CBO's projections."

Darkencypher

$$$$$ that's why it costs so much here. When corporations can buy our reps we get f***ed. Obamacare is a small step in the right direction that hopefully ends with universal healthcare!

ylexot

They may be the most accurate government estimates, but they are still absolute garbage. I'll put it to you again...have they ever even been close?

jhtalisman

Insanity? Not quite.

The more insured people there are, the less the cost will have to be divided up onto everyone's medical bills.

The high cost of healthcare is directly related to the uninsured who go to the hospital and do not pay their medical bills. Those "losses" are put into the insured's bills by way of higher charges.

And the same group, doctors, also claim they will be put out of business by this law, when, in fact, they will most likely make more money due to the increased likelihood of receiving payment.

Common sense is not so common.

My wife went to the ER for abdominal pain in May. The billed amount from the hospital was just shy of $10,000. With the in-network discount, the total amount paid by my health insurance was $3400.

In the past 2 years, my family has used $80,000+ of billed services (not counting the surgery I had this past Friday), but after the in-network discount was applied, the paid amount by the insurance company was a hair over $40,000 (not counting the surgery I had this past Friday).

No wonder the uninsured can't pay their bills if they are 2-3x what an insured person's would be, yet they can't see how this benefits them! Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

High costs are also related to undetected conditions that are not found until they have reached an advanced stage, requiring extensive and expensive treatment. How does the Affordable Care Act counteract this? Preventative screenings are at no out of pocket cost to the patient. The reason for these conditions not being detected is simple: diagnostic screenings cost thousands of dollars, which many people simply cannot afford if their out of pocket maximum costs have not been met. An EKG, which detects heart abnormalities, recently cost $4000 billed, $2400 paid, for my 5 month old daughter who was born with a heart murmur. This was her 2nd EKG since leaving the hospital after birth, thankfully this one came with the news that the murmur had closed up and is no longer present.

Last edited by jhtalisman; July 3rd, 2012 at 10:22 PM.

A.Nonymous

More insured people means less cost just ignores the question of who is going to pay for those insured people.

jhtalisman

The insured and/or taxpayers already do. It's something the GOP will not come out and say, because they are afraid to admit that little will change in that aspect.

As far as premiums go, they have averaged a 14-20% increase year over year regardless. That is why full fledged healthcare reform is needed. This is a stepping stone to get there.

A.Nonymous

Logically, creating more demand for a product of limited availability is going to drive prices up, not down.

ElasticNinja

Shockingly enough, your federal government is probably better than a lot of other governments whos people have far far cheaper healthcare due to those governments involvement. Do not be so negative.
Yet as far as I know, this bill does not provide for extensive powers over the industry to reduce costs and cover everyone, unfortunately. My hope is that Obamacare will spur individual states into creating Universal Healthcare systems where the states themselves do their job of ensuring everyone has affordable care and that 20 cents out of every dollar isnt spent on health.

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ElasticNinja

I would imagine themselves, their employers, and the government.

Im pretty sure most of these people ended up using these services anyway.

A.Nonymous

I've yet to come across a single thing the government manages that they actually manage well.

ElasticNinja

...so the market itself would do better on its own? Mmm that's working out well for your country

A.Nonymous

I'm trying to do the math in my head and it just doesn't add up. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding and if I am, hopefully someone can correct me.

Let's say I'm a doctor. I've got the ability to serve 100 people. I'm only one person. There are limits to what I can do. The community I live in has 125 people, but I only serve 75 of them as 50 of them have no insurance. So I'm happy. I'm helping people. My 75 patients are happy with their service. Then Obamacare comes in. Now everyone is forced to buy insurance and is now insured. I only have the ability to server 100 people and I've got 125 in the community. I've basically got two options at this point. I can either raise my prices to drive off the business that would overwhelm me or I can flat out deny service to 25 people. If I do the former, then that's not going to be all that effective. The insured aren't paying out of pocket much at all so they'll keep coming and the cost is just going to go to the insurance companies who are going to pass it along to the consumers in the form of premiums which are being subsidized by the taxpayers so everyone pays more. So my only option is to deny people service. We have a system that's somewhat taxed already. Add millions more patients and we will have people who are insured, but can't get service anywhere but an ER.

But let's lay this all aside for a moment. Let's say for the sake of argument that if everyone buys insurance, the cost of health insurance will go down and the quality of healthcare will go up. You still have no issue with the government FORCING people to buy a product and fining them if they don't?

A.Nonymous

Nobody is saying out system works. Just that this "solution" makes things worse.

ElasticNinja

Yet you would be opposed to UHC.

And I really would hope with the amount America spends on health that it isnt overstretched. Overstretched comes to mind when I think of European healthcare, inefficient is what comes to mind when I think of American healthcare.

jhtalisman

I am relatively sure you are required by your mortgage company that you have homeowners insurance. If your mortgage is backed by Fannie or Freddie then that is a government mandate.

jhtalisman

Please explain howso in something other than typical right wing opinion. Use facts, which I haven't seen much of in opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

OutofDate1980

That argument was lost in 1792.

The Founders’ ‘Musket Mandate’ | Consortiumnews

The debate also was influenced by the false assertion that never before in U.S. history had the federal government required Americans to buy a private product. For “originalists” – like Justice Scalia – that was particularly important because he claims to believe that only actions reflective of the Framers’ original vision can be constitutional.

But here was a stubborn historical fact, that Madison, as a member of the Second Congress, and Washington, as the first President, had supported the Militia Acts of 1792, which gave each able-bodied white male of fighting age six months to “provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball.”

Yes, I know that the law was passed under Article Two powers of the Executive, which makes the President the Commander in Chief of the military, not Article One’s Commerce Clause, which grants Congress unrestricted power to regulate interstate commerce. But the principle is the same, that the government can order Americans to buy something that Congress deemed necessary for the country’s good."

OutofDate1980

Of course estimates are off, CBO is required to abide by what Congress says it's going to do, not what it actually does. On health care, CBO has a historical bias to overestimate cost and underestimate savings.

The Gatekeeper - Reason.com

"In July Bruce Vladeck, formerly a top staffer at the Health Care Financing Administration, argued in Roll Call that “the CBO has routinely overestimated the costs of expanded government health care benefits and underestimated the savings from program changes designed to reduce expenditures,” pointing specifically to its overestimation of the five-year cost of the Med***** prescription drug benefit."

"But the agency’s inaccuracies must be judged relatively. “They’re the second worst source of forecasts on the effects of health care policy,” says Arnold Kling. “As far as the worst, all the rest are tied. I’m sure that their forecasts are flawed and subject to huge error. But the next question to ask is: Compared to what?” "

A.Nonymous

Completely different. If you've got a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgage than the government basically owns your home as they back the loan. They've obviously got a stake in protecting their property.

Not sure. You want me to argue that the current system is broken?

Actually it wasn't. As you mentioned the militia act was based on the militia clause, not the commerce clause. They are two completely and totally different legal precedents. They're completely independent from each other. Not mention the fact that the Militia Act was never enforced at the federal level.

OutofDate1980

You argued the Fed can't force you to buy a product. I showed that it's been done in the past. Now you argue that the reasons were different. So what, the result is the same.

George Washington enforced it at the Federal level in 1794 during the Whiskey Rebellion.

saptech

I still claim it's like auto insurance. Yes, you only purchase it if you own a vehical, but once you continue to drive said vehical, you are FORCED to purchase auto insurance.

About the only time I can think of one not needing medical services is when you die on the way to the hospital.

atljatl

I'm disappointed that president Obama is imposing this tax. He explicitly stated this bill was not a tax. He lied. That's not befitting of the president nor of politicians. I hope nobody kills him because of this. That would be unfortunate.

OutofDate1980

Scalia and gang get's caught in a lie, again.

How Scalia Distorts the Framers | Consortiumnews

In their angry dissent on June 28, the four wrote: “If Congress can reach out and command even those furthest removed from an interstate market to participate in the market, then the Commerce Clause becomes a font of unlimited power, or in Hamilton’s words, ‘the hideous monster whose devouring jaws . . . spare neither sex nor age, nor high nor low, nor sacred nor profane.’” They footnoted Hamilton’s Federalist Paper No. 33.

That sounds pretty authoritative, doesn’t it? Here’s Hamilton, one of the strongest advocates for the Constitution, offering a prescient warning about “Obamacare” from the distant past of 1788.

Except that Scalia and his cohorts are misleading you. In Federalist Paper No. 33, Hamilton was not writing about the Commerce Clause. He was referring to clauses in the Constitution that grant Congress the power to make laws that are “necessary and proper” for executing its powers and that establish federal law as “the supreme law of the land.”

Hamilton also wasn’t condemning those powers, as Scalia and his friends would have you believe. Hamilton was defending the two clauses by poking fun at the Anti-Federalist alarmists who had stirred up opposition to the Constitution with warnings about how it would trample America’s liberties.""

OutofDate1980

Roberts Embraces Right’s Fake History | Consortiumnews

In striking down the Commerce Clause as a justification for the Affordable Care Act, Roberts also parroted the Right’s propaganda line that it is not commerce when an American chooses not to buy health insurance.

However, that ignores the fact that virtually every American is involved in the commerce of medicine from birth and reenters that “market” periodically, especially near the end of life.

The failure of some people to obtain health insurance, to essentially choose to self-insure, is still part of the larger commerce of medicine, which operates across state lines and thus is within the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce.

Yet, Roberts joined his right-wing colleagues in saying that the Commerce Clause only allows regulation of “existing commercial activity” and that the insurance mandate “compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product,” a principle that Roberts said could lead the federal government to require other mandatory purchases.

However, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four more liberal justices, noted the fallacy of Roberts’s argument. “Unlike the market for almost any other product or service,” she wrote, “the market for medical care is one in which all individuals inevitably participate.”"

Last edited by OutofDate1980; July 6th, 2012 at 12:09 AM. Reason: Format

A.Nonymous

Again, it's completely different. A law based on the militia clause has a completely different precedent than a law based on the commerce clause. The reasoning behind them is irrelevant. The differing legal foundations is what matters.

You purchase insurance to cover the other guy. Not you. You tbone my car and are only carrying the legally required amount of insurance, and you are up a creek. I'm covered. Your insurance protects the people that you might injure. No one requires you to protect yourself. It's completely different.

OutofDate1980

Drhyde

Couldn't you say that me being sick with a contagious disease that can be prevented or cured, say Meningitis, but I choose not to, be just the same in the sense that I'm spreading misery and death around? Smashing a car into somebody requires you to have insurance to keep them safe from medical expenses, so logically keeping insurance on yourself would keep you from becoming a biohazard to the rest of the world.

__________________
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Bob Maxey

And, when Obama is gone and we have a new leader, it matters very little. Obamacare will likely go away and be replaced with something more logical.

Bob Maxey

Health insurance will be required by law. Everyone must pay for it at an estimated 2,000.00 to 2,500.00 per year and it will be collected by the IRS.

It would be like every person being required to purchase auto insurance even if they do not drive.

Bob Maxey

I am not required to purchase any insurance because I presently do not own a home. Health insurance is required by law and everyone must carry it.

It would be like non-home owners being required to carry home insurance.

I do carry insurance to protect my crap. but it is my choice, not the gubbermints.

saptech

Haven't anything been put in place before now, what makes you think they will after Obama? It seems those in power, or whoever prefer to keep the healthcare the way it always been.

The argument was about being forced to buy insurance, some say you are not forced when buying auto insurance, and I say you are, by law. Of course if you do not own or drive an auto you don't have to have it but if you do, you are forced to have some type of insurance.

The one thing about health insurance, you will get sick at some point in your life, so maybe that is why the law is set to require everyone to have health insurance.

Of course if you die at the same time you get sick before reaching the hospital, then you won't need health insurance. But you may need burial insurance!

OutofDate1980

Naw, just a good wood chipper.