From Stark:
A federal judge in Florida has ruled that the health care mandate in President Barack Obama’s health care reform law is unconstitutional.
Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, Republican, was among those challenging the law in federal court. He was quick to portray the ruling as a victory for freedom. His press release:
OLYMPIA—A Florida judge today ruled that Congress exceeded its Constitutional authority in approving a new health care mandate requiring all US citizens to have or purchase health insurance or face a fine.
“The existing problems in our national health care system are recognized by everyone in this case,” said US District Court Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida in his 78-page ruling. “There is widespread sentiment for positive improvements that will reduce costs, improve the quality of care, and expand availability in a way that the nation can afford.
“Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the Act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution,” Vinson said. “My conclusion in this case is based on an application of the Commerce Clause as it exists pursuant to the Supreme Court’s current interpretation and definition. Only the Supreme Court (or a Constitutional amendment) can expand that.”
Attorney General Rob McKenna, who joined the 26-state suit on behalf of the state of Washington, called the ruling a victory for individual and state rights.
“While we all recognize the vital need to access health care services in our country, forcing all U.S. citizens to buy a commercial product in the private market with their own money is an unprecedented and unconstitutional move by the federal government,” said McKenna. “Americans value their constitutional rights. They want a health care law that respects those rights and actually reduces the financial burdens on their families. That is why more than half of the states in America are challenging this new law.”
End press release.
From Stark:
Okay. But how do we get around the problem that, without a mandate, the people who choose to buy insurance will be the older, infirm people, which will make that insurance very expensive? How do we get around the fact that the uninsured will show up (already are showing up) in emergency rooms when they do get sick, to get care they cannot pay for, which becomes part of the hospital’s cost of doing business, which gets covered by those who have insurance? (This is where we are right now.)
If it’s unconstitutional to force anyone to pay for an insurance policy provided by a private insurance company, then let’s not do that. But what’s the alternative? Single-payer, also known as “Medicare for all”? Any other ideas?
I’m all in favor of single-payer health insurance.
But putting that aside for the moment, the ruling is quite obviously judical activism. We’ll have to wait and see whether the judical activists on the Supreme Court uphold the ruling.
What I’d like to know, is when McKenna will file with the State courts to overturn the auto insurance mandate, since according to McKenna’s reasoning it unconstitutionally forces all State citizens to buy a commercial product in the private market with their own money.
You aren’t required to carry auto insurance.
There are no restrictions on owning,
licensing or operating a car without it.
That a judge can fine you if you’re caught without it isn’t a mandate,
it’s a penalty you’ve voluntarily accepted.
John,
Any answer to your question must address the key issues of tax subsidies, access, and cost allocation.
As part of our nation’s health care safety net, taxpayers and those who pay insurance premiums already subsidize those who receive care but do not have health insurance and cannot afford to pay for their care. These subsidies include Medicaid, Medicare costs not covered by premiums, and expenses written off by hospitals and doctors.
Unfortunately, there are those who cannot access health care or choose not to. Those costs are not already factored into the equation. For those who cannot access health care, the safety net could be modified to ensure they can. For those who choose not to access health care, if the choice is not an informed one, then information should be made available.
Once all total costs are considered, insurance premiums must cover everything not covered by subsidies. Premium cost allocations are complex and are based on a whole host of factors, including group affiliation, age, pre-existing conditions, coverages, deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket (OOP) maximums.
As an alternative to scrapping the entire system, changes can be made to expand access and modify the allocation of total costs between tax subsidies and cost allocation. Individuals also may have the opportunity to adjust their coverage, deductibles, copays and OOP maximums to lower their premiums. They may also have the opportunity to affiliate with a variety of group plans to access more cost effective coverage.
We need a compassionate and cost effective national policy regarding the health care safety net. Can everyone have access to quality care even if they cannot afford it? There is no doubt that access to everyone CAN be provided so long as sufficient tax subsidies are available. The bottom line is: What portion of our tax revenues are we willing to allocate toward the health care safety net.
There are certainly ways to make the system more efficient that don’t impair patient choice and physician discretion. Unfortunately, the costs of maintaining a physical body from cradle to grave have increased well beyond the rate of inflation. As life expectancies increase and technologies are developed, total “lifetime maintenance” costs will only escalate. That’s a real dilemma: The cost of operating a human body for 80 or so years might exceed one’s ability to afford having one. Have we done everything we can to reduce our operating and maintenance costs?
[Correction to para 4, sentence 1 in CAPS]
As an alternative to scrapping the entire system, changes can be made to expand access and modify the allocation of total costs between tax subsidies and INSURANCE PREMIUMS.
citizen,
Your responses doesn’t make a bit of sense. As McKenna says in his press release, ”
OLYMPIA—A Florida judge today ruled that Congress exceeded its Constitutional authority in approving a new health care mandate requiring all US citizens to have or purchase health insurance or face a fine.“ (emphasis added)
The fine/penalty if you don’t have it, is what makes it a mandate, both for auto insurance and health insurance.
No it doesn’t.
A mandate that has a monetary penalty for not following the law but has no other punishment is a voluntary measure.
You can volunteer to pay the penalty if and when you’re caught,
or you can follow the law,
whichever you prefer.
That a judge calls it unconstitutional shouldn’t be mistaken for one man’s opinion.
Oh wait, yes it should.
I get a little confused when people start talking about “patient choice.” What is that exactly? In recent years, my employer chose to change our medical insurance provider. My physician of 20 years chose not to do business with that new provider. I then got to choose a new doctor from limited number of local doctors who choose to accept new patients. (fortunately my not-very-well-informed “choice” of a new doctor turned out well, although it was pretty much a shot in the dark on my part.) I do not feel empowered under the current system. Maybe that’s just me.
citizen,
I can’t make out what you’re arguing for. Something can not be both volunetary and a mandate.
In the health care reform law, if you don’t purchase health insurance, you pay a penalty at tax time and go on with your life.
The State law requires that drivers have insurance. If you’re caught driving without insurance, you’re fined and you are still required to have insurance. You don’t paying the fine instead of getting insurance. Drivers who persist in driving without insurance get their licenses suspended.
Chapter 46.30 RCW – Mandatory liability insurance
Okay, so the Affordable Health Care Act has been repealed by a judge?
Game over?
JUDGES MAKE STUPID DECISIONS EVERY DAY. IS THIS GUY ALSO CONFLICTED LIKE THE LAST ONE?
Really, the fact that so many don’t have it because they can’t afford the hosing by the insurance industry costs us all. You have to start somewhere and requiring all t have it is the most logica step. Because we are so addled it always takes time to work out the kinks, but that requirement is a must in moving our sorry butts forward…
@steve Lydolph… Steve the reason that car insurance is not the same is that no one is forcing you to buy a car or to get a drivers license whereas with the healthcare bill you are required to purchase insurance no matter what. the next thing you know we will all be required to buy a GM or Chrysler car since now we own most of the companies.
We should simply remove health insurance as “a commercial product in the private market.”
We should have a single-payer system, so we can also enjoy the health benefits and reduced costs that prevail in the rest of the industrialized world. In fact, if we were paying around 10% of our GDP for healthcare, instead of 17% like we are now, much of our state and federal budget deficits and long-term fiscal problems would be solved.
I had dinner with Rob tonight and thanked him for standing up for my (and everyone else’s) constitutional rights!
The problem with health insurance (just like every other problem we have today; just about) is too much government and not enough free enterprise. If the individual had more power and insurance companies and government mandates less, there lies the only real solution.
Any way you look at it Obamacare is a failure;
•While the new law will increase the number of Americans with insurance coverage, it falls significantly short of universal coverage. By 2019, roughly 21 million Americans will still be uninsured.
•The legislation will cost far more than advertised, more than $2.7 trillion over 10 years of full implementation, and will add $352 billion to the national debt over that period.
•Most American workers and businesses will see little or no change in their skyrocketing insurance costs, while millions of others, including younger and healthier workers and those who buy insurance on their own through the non-group market will actually see their premiums go up faster as a result of this legislation.
•The new law will increase taxes by more than $669 billion between now and 2019, and the burdens it places on business will significantly reduce economic growth and employment.
•While the law contains few direct provisions for rationing care, it nonetheless sets the stage for government rationing and interference with how doctors practice medicine.
•Millions of Americans who are happy with their current health insurance will not be able to keep it.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11961
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“Obamacare stands on a flawed foundation of false promises, sketchy assumptions, and missed opportunities. Together, these shortcomings will cause it to crumble.
It pledged to reduce health-care costs. It won’t. Premiums are already rising across the country.
It assured us that “if you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan.” False again: Employer-based plans for workers and Medicare Advantage coverage for seniors already are changing.
It misses opportunities to lower costs by curtailing junk lawsuits or giving Americans more choices for insurance coverage….
As a means to provide health services to the poor, Obamacare is both fiscally reckless and morally bankrupt. A more compassionate approach empowers individuals, helping them become self-sufficient and able to purchase their own insurance, not making them lifelong dependents in a permanent underclass.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/258422/obamacare-pivot-point-fred-upton
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Frankly AFY, if we get any more of your “free enterprise” in the health care field, none of us will be able to afford insurance.
Obamacare is a distraction. It was brought to you by the insurance industry with the support of the other monopolies feeding off the public.
I for one hope this band-aid is removed and the crisis in health care erupts in time for us to choose a new government in 2012.
My dear GHK, what we now have is a system that the regulated(insurance co) has become the regulators (insurance co)which means competition has been regulated out the door.
That is what all you planners seem to miss, if you sit up the planning framework those that are suppose to be regulated always end up taking over the position of regulators.
The individual and free enterprise breeds off competition if only the regulators will get out of the way!
Solutions can be found with freedom!!! Nature is a funny thing, if we let it take it course, it will heal it self, it’s only when man thinks they knows best and they get in the way of what is natural is when we get real problems.
Competition is the only way to have the real cost control anything else is artifical and very short lived.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“”The Constitution establishes a framework of limited government in order to protect our liberty,” commented Pacific Legal Foundation principal attorney Timothy Sandefur. “You simply can’t square constitutional, limited government with the Obama Administration’s idea of forcing everyone to buy health insurance, or any other product or service. Judge Vinson has brought us back to basics and reminded us that we do not live in a society where our lives are ordered by bureaucrats in Washington D.C.”
We find Judge Vinson’s reasoning persuasive. We also find it obvious that Congress has no authority to dictate whether private people purchase or don’t purchase health insurance or any other privately provided commodity or service. We’re encouraged by Monday’s ruling and hope the Supreme Court takes up the matter sooner rather than later.
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/judge-286442-ruling-act.html
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
What does nature have to do with profiteering?
Let a man have a dollar for providing one,
and soon he’ll be taking three.
And when you pay a man three dollars for providing fifty cents towards your doctor bills,
where’s the nature in that transaction?
If you really had a meal with Mr. McKenna,
I hope you lost yours on the ride home from Wendy’s.
Single payer health care and publicly funded campaigns….two cures we are too stupid to fully embrace that will be our bain…
Ciz you are such a nice person!
Nature has to do with the natural way of things. If you give people the freedom to make their own decisions IMHO they will make the best decisions for themself that is the natural way of things. Instead we have a system with health care where individual decisions have been mandated (taken) away by government regulations and insurance companies who take advantage of those regualtions. There is a huge amount of money spent on health care in this country mostly taken from business and handed over to insurance companies on behalf of their employee’s on a monthly basis. How about giving that money to the end users, the individual and let them decide how to spend it, like letting them go directly to doctors and shop for the best deal. Use part of it for a major medical thus protecting against the disaster which would be far cheaper than the monthly bite of health insurance today, leaving a fair amount for the individual to spend as they feel fit, on medical if required or on their others cost or even by saving it (That is called Health Saving Accounts).
The indidvidual and personal choice is the solution to most of all of our problems not more government nor more control by insurance companies who main goal is to eliminate competition which only cause prices to increase.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Nature and money don’t mix.
Self-interest and money don’t mix.
Middlemen and health care don’t mix.
You and Mr. McKenna don’t mix.
He is logical,
you are a lovable nutcase.
I agree with AFY that each person needs to take more control over – and be more involved in – their health care decisions. When costs are paid by a third party, individuals tend to ignore those costs and focus solely on the potential benefit. The result, considering the large number of people involved, is a tremendous rise in total costs.
The best insurance plans are those that transfer the risk of events that are of low probability but very high cost. In terms of health care, these include expensive procedures and treatments, such as open heart surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, etc. The portion of insurance plans that cover essentially routine (high probability) and fairly inexpensive services, such as visits to general practitioners, are generally not cost effective as they represent a shuffling of relatively small dollars and the introduction of a middle-man who takes his cut off the top. Removing high probability / low cost services from insurance plans tend to reduce premiums – and total costs to the insured – significantly. Additionally, forcing individuals to weight the benefits and costs of these services because they pay for them directly reduces abuse and, therefore, overall costs.
Plans with moderate deductibles and no copays are very cost-effective. Insureds understand that the first $1,000 or so will come out of their own pocket, so they more carefully weigh the cost and benefit of health care services and make better financial decisions. Most times, when choosing a higher deductible, a large percentage of the difference in deductibles is covered by the reduction in premiums.
Motivating insureds to take a greater interest in their own health care decisions and the cost of services and treatments will help lower total health care costs and will ultimately result in lower premiums. At the same time, expensive treatments and procedures are insured against so total costs are capped at reasonable levels.
PS – AFY, for the record, this is the second time in two days I have agreed with you.
Thanks for the compliment!
So, ciz when you earn your living, is it solely with the greater good in mind and there’s no self interest? Are you also known as Mother Ciz?
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
A777, what is the world coming to?
Power to the people!!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
AFY, When earning one’s living, it is neither wise to focus exclusively on one’s self interest nor to completely ignore one’s self interest. There is an appropriate middle ground where both self interest and the common good are considered. In fact, Herman Daly wrote all about that in “For the Common Good: redirecting the economy toward community, the environment, and a sustainable future.”
You might actually enjoy Daly’s insights.
I enjoy all insights even those of which I disagree.
Here’s my main thing, that we all, each and every one of us have the ability to chose for ourselves, for the community or our own self interest or some of both in what ever % we deem right, my problem is with those who think they know what is best for the rest and thus think they have the right to decide for others.
We all have an obligation to a civilize society if we wish to live in one but where that obligation is inflated & forced on the individual by the power of government and thus becomes an obstacle to freedom and the choice thereof that where our differences lie.
To err for freedom is a better direction of error to make, methinks, because nothing will ever be perfect.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
John Donne
I agree that freedom is essential; however, acts by free people that adversely impact others must be acknowledged and factored into the economic equation. Some actions that are so adverse must be regulated against to prevent such impacts.
Do you acknowledge these limitations as they relate to these adverse impacts and externalities?
If not, then your freedom is not worthy of support.
That’s right.
I don’t charge my customers based on my greed,
add my personal perks to their invoice or
make them pay more because they can.
I don’t keep a pile of their money for myself and then shortchange their project,
I don’t raise my rates every 6 months,
quick in the middle of a job
or cancel their work half-way through because I’m tired of spending their funds.
I also don’t employ a group of pencil-pushers that tries to find ways to avoid performing what I’ve contracted to build.
No middleman will ever have the best interests of the clients in mind since his take is separate from those interests.
To be free means to be able to chose, without harming others.
Sometimes we plan to overcome one thing while penalizing something else also. Individual rights must always be protected but those that are eager to punished some, end up many times with fish in their nets of which they were not fishing.
So my answer is to those who want to plan a better society thru the power of government first must understand and defend the rights of individuals within their planning.
And that is why I believe in limited and small government!
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
James Russell Lowell
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
AFY wrote: “To be free means to be able to choose, without harming others.”
Finally, we agree. Those who act based on this freedom must compensate those who experience adverse impacts caused by those actions.
However, if the impacts of those actions are so adverse as to threaten the health, safety and welfare of others, then those actions must be regulated and restricted. As an extreme example, one cannot be allowed to dump toxic waste into another’s drinking water. A less extreme example might be that one cannot increase the risk beyond a reasonable level of flooding or landslides on another’s property.