Come up with another plan that they'll have to oppose as soon as democrats voice any support for it? I don't think so.

Ugh. That is just so hard for me to read. I feel like the GOP just got the Dems to do their dirty work (it's their plan, after all) and now they can even run against them and this evil specter that doesn't exist. Once again, this just proves that *half the Dems get their lunch eaten every time they try to go head to head with the GOP while the other *half are in total collusion.

SI

*half/half figures not exact

Another cost saver: Hospitals seeing less uninsured patience, less unpaid medical bills, and better income overall, which in theory should lower hospital prices in general. Of course, I have very little faith in the medical and insurance business in general. They always seem to seek the easy profit over the better health of the customer.

Great line.

What I don't like about the court is all these 5-4 rulings. I sort-of imagined the SCOTUS as this great collection of legal minds that arrived at a consensus.

Of course, I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, either, so I'm not surprised.

I think people will be surprised how much their insurance bills will rise in 2014. I doubt this decision will have much effect on the 2012 election, but the mid-terms will be murder on the Democrats, because the law will affect unemployment rates (higher hiring costs, especially for small businesses) and we'll remain in this uncertain jobless recovery period.

The big battles, for now, remain in the pension and benefits costs related to public-sector unions. Stockton filing for bankruptcy is a far, far bigger story than the media has afforded it.

Anyway, of course it's a tax. I was surprised that Obama denied that so vociferously when he was campaigning for the law. He has more of a legal background than most presidents, so he would understand the subtleties. If you take the purchasing decision out of the hands of the individual, whether it's for police protection, insurance or a new city hall, it's a tax.

Hmm?

That's what I worry about too, but I'm glad it will have a chance and can be tested so it won't become a part of eternal Democratic party lore simply as something that "would have saved everything and been great if not for meddling Republicans", which has pretty much been the party slogan since 2000, how great their ideas are in theory if they could ONLY ever figure out how to enact more of them.

I'm also glad the Commerce Clause apparently still means something.

The main argument is pretty much what you stated: The government forcing its citizens to buy a product. That's the biggest problem I have with the whole thing, besides the fact that it was ramrodded through congress and signed by Obama. I'm sure nothing was overlooked.

I would have no problem with the individual mandate IF and ONLY IF, health care providers, every single one of them were no longer 'for profit' businesses'.

There are many in the insurance industry who agree, in theory. There's even a push within many insurance giants to heavily market and subsidize preventative care as a mechanism for being able to offer lower rates and gain a competitive advantage.

Of course, the boards look at the more immediate bottom line and don't give the visionaries free reign.

The trouble with the entire industry, though, is that there's a disconnect between the increasingly-regulated health insurance and private medical practices. As one grows, so grows the need to regulate the actual cost of this health care.

How do you do that without making all doctors government employees?

This is where I want to end up too. Unfortunately I'm not sure it is feasible to think we could get there in one step. I think it's a multi-step process, and this was the first one.

It's only proactive if our country takes better care of itself from eating, exercising, and living a healthier lifestyle in general. We also have a rather large aging boomer population that is going to require more and more care, which adds up.

What about illegals?

RT @kaylawebley Length of the decisions: Roberts' opinion is 59 pgs, Ginsburg's is 61 pgs, the dissent is 65 pages. Justice Thomas? 2 pages.

Which sounds like a reasonable compromise to me. However, I've heard zero mention of that. Though, I think it would be disastrous if they did it cold turkey. I mean, look how hard it is just to get an accurate itemized statement from one of them. I think their brains would explode if they had to do it all at once. :)

Word.

SI

I read that there's a method to Thomas' madness on this one. He thinks the original ruling on the commerce clause way back when was incorrect so any time it comes up he basically says "I believe that Herp vs. Derp was adjudicated incorrectly and therefore strike down this bill." in 200ish words.

I'd be happy with a single public option plan as an alternative to the for profit companies.

My only concern with that would be a quality issue with that system. No competition, just like cable companies, would mean that they don't have to worry about the quality of their services.

So there's the rub. How do you maintain quality without dangling the carrot of profits in front of a company? I honestly don't know.

Oh, Rand Paul...

Rand Paul on health care ruling: 'Obamacare' is still unconstitutional - POLITICO.com

"Sen. Rand Paul doesn’t think the Supreme Court gets the last word on what’s constitutional.

The Kentucky Republican belittled the high court’s health care decision as the flawed opinion of just a “couple people"

So now BHO will have to flip-flop on his long held position that Obamacare isn't a tax?

Checks and balances...checks and balances, Rand. It's not that difficult.

Woo woo - BHO-time!!

Good - clearly laying out what the ruling means to ordinary people. Poll after poll shows that the underlying components of the plan are BROADLY popular across all breakdowns of voters.

No. He can disagree with the reasoning for the court's ruling, while still being happy that it was upheld.

Don't give Rand a hard time, he's too busy attaching amendments to student loan bills. Like the one he did yesterday once everyone agreed to keep student loan rates lower, where he scuttled the bill by adding an amendment defining life as beginning at conception. Because that is important to student loan rates.

Eh, whoever doesn't like any given opinion sees problems with the system itself and a "couple of justices". (See Citizens United). If you disagree with the policy an opinion creates it's usually attacked as "political" or "activism".

LMAO - ZING!!!

Obama points out that the mandate has enjoyed support from members of both parties "including the current Republican nominee."

He's a "libertarian" after all.

Every Sperm is sacred.

EDIT

Obama knows the different between state and federal, he's just pandering to those who don't. It's not inconsistent to believe in a mandate at the state level (or even as a policy at the federal level) but also believe its unconstitutional for the federal legislature to carry it out.

No he isn't but don't let facts get in the fact of trying to put down libertarians and their wackyness!

Which should be held less decisive than the opinion of one man, Rand Paul

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe...

So I guess they just read the first part of the opinion and went live with it? The media is terrible at understanding and reporting on appellate opinions, it's always better to read the source or give everyone a few minutes to get their act together.

To be fair, there are plenty of folks who think that the SCOTUS shouldn't be the only branch to determine Constitutionality of laws and that each branch has a co-equal duty in its determination. It is no doubt that the courts have taken far more power in interpretation since the passage of the Constitution (Thomas Jefferson was livid after Marbury v. Madison, saying the court had no power to invalidate laws).

Exactly. It's their never ending quest to "WE BROUGHT IT TO YOU FIRST!!". Sorry, I want my news accurate, not first.

Never mind that Thomas signed onto the main dissent. Why not criticize Alito or Kennedy for not writing anything supplemental?

Haha!

Biggest non-shock of my life.

Politwoops - Deleted tweets from politicians

*chuckles* It's kinda interesting to see some (now-deleted) politician tweets that were caught by the fakeout on CNN/fox

Stock market seems to like it.

Anyway, was reading about what it's going to cost the individual taxpayer - please tell me that they were smart enough to put the $250k jointly "means you're rich" is tied to inflation, unlike the stupid AMT tax.

Ramrodded? It was debated in the Dem primary. It was debated in the general election. It was negotiated for a year in the Senate. It passed by a large majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate.

How is that ramrodded?

What would you advocate?

The payment boards have great potential to lower costs. Broadening the pool of insured can lower costs. The focus on digital records can lower costs. There are a number of ideas in the bill with the potential to lower costs. There aren't any guarantees, but the only way you can guarantee lowering costs is to lower payments for providers or limit access, neither of which are politically feasible for either party.

It took less than a year for it to go from committee to Obama signing it from what I remember.

From wikipedia: "Beginning June 17, 2009, and extending through September 14, 2009, three Democratic and three Republican Senate Finance Committee Members met for a series of 31 meetings to discuss the development of a health care reform bill."

"signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010."

June 17, 2009 - March 23, 2010 = less than a year.

The scariest thing to me is the government's track record when they try to increase access to a privately sold product. (higher education, home ownership). Maybe it'll be different.

So, can somebody educate me on what this will do for myself.

24
Single
Student (For 2 1/2 more years)
On university health insurance, mediocre.
Single mom, low class, on disability.

Did I hit the key points?

Okay, but the discussion started in early March of 2009. For a bill, a year is an eternity of discussion. And this is after a year of discussion on the campaign trail.

A "ramrodded" bill would be the original Patriot Act.

Introduced into 8 House subcommittees: October 23, 2001
Passes House: October 24, 2001
Passes Senate: October 25, 2001
Signed into law: October 26, 2001

Let's be serious. Those tools in Washington don't read a thing of what they pass. Anyone claiming they didn't have enough time to is probably trolling.

All of those state universities are private? Interesting. The government forced the investment market to re-package subprime debt as an A+ instrument and over-leverage their positions? Interesting.

Just because it's popular doesn't mean it will actually work. Time will tell.

Didn't Nancy Pelosi herself say publicly that they needed to pass to bill to find out what's in it?

You have health care insurance, so in essence this does absolutely nothing for or to you in particular. it may inf act give you far broader access to better health care plans based on your income level.

But that doesn't matter most of the time. No one is going to be an expert in highway appropriations, healthcare, defense spending priorities, port regulation, etc., etc.

What we should expect is to have members briefed by competent staff on the issues, but just because few people read the full text of bills isn't a reason to excoriate Congress. (There are plenty of good reasons for excoriating them.)

I just don't think it's attacking the real costs of health care. Technology, doctors, education/training, drugs (both buying and researching them), staffing, insurance, building costs, utilities, are all expense, and as we demand better treatments and research, it's going to progressively increase in terms of cost. You might be able to nip at rate that costs are increasing, but I don't see them staying flat or going down.

Yea, I stumbled across a link to the Kaiser Family Foundation that seems to have some pretty good information. Need to educate myself. Better late than never.

So what would you do?

The fact that some of the universities are in some sense, "public" supports my point. Their status didn't stop them from taking full advantage of government backed "access" to the crap they sold. Government backed student loans and the subsequent student loan debt promote wealth disparity in this country as much as anything else. And on the second point, you're describing more the financial meltdown than the housing boom.

You don't think that the housing boom and the financial meltdown are inextricably linked?

I personally don't really hold much weight to what was discussed/promised while a candidate is trying to win an election, plus, I'm sure his original 'vision' probably looks like a distant cousin to what was signed into law.

However, something this 'big' would do well to be done carefully and if it takes two years, fine, just do it right. Instead, I fear that 4 or 5 years down the line, something is going to pop up (I have no idea what) that is going to be a big 'whoops' we didn't think about that, now we have to do a major reworking of the bill. I hope I'm wrong though, but, I think I'd have more faith in successfully navigating through a asteroid field in the Millennium Falcon than our government getting things right.



I totally agree with you. And look at the abomination that is the Patriot Act. This is a clear cut example of why you don't want to be too hasty on certain things.

Jon, if you had Kennedy voting to invalidate and Roberts voting to uphold, I want to know next week's lottery numbers. :D

One led to the other, but I'm just talking about costs. The wrong kind of government intervention caused or accelerated booms in housing and higher education costs. I think it's a reasonable fear that the wrong kind of government intervention will cause the same thing here.

Edit: The government isn't providing the services, they're trying to create greater access to a product provided by a private industry that already has a bad reputation. That's the comparison I'm drawing. This may not go well. Or maybe the legislation is masterfully drafted and will reign in the insurance companies. Time will tell.

So I stopped paying attention to all this like a year ago but basically doesn't this all boil down to
Poor people are for this as they can't afford insurance so this will help them with subsidized insurance?
Rich hate it because well they can afford medical care without insurance?
Middle class people are for it as it could lower there insurance costs alittle by increasing the insurer pool of paying customers ?

Those who say they are against it because they don't want the Feds telling individuals what to spend money on is another group that spreads all the three socioeco groups of course.

That would work if everyone involved were working towards a common goal, but that isn't the way politics works. The longer a bill is discussed the more opportunity the opposition has to kill it or attach poison pills to it so that it can't function. The outcome after two years wouldn't be any better and would probably be worse.

Six months is plenty of time for a bill to be discussed, provided the discussions and the final product are the same. I also think there should be a reading period of a few days for most bills where the public can find out about the details. I don't think any amendments should be allowed without time for them to be public and the authors should be public.

You can't, though, build a system that relies on cooperation when that isn't going to be standard.

You're a woman?

Even after the recession I would find it hard to argue that since FDR, federal housing policies have made the populace worse off. I'd argue the same for student loans, too.

That doesn't mean there aren't problems, but you can't look at only the bubble and declare failure.

Thanks, I didn't have the balls to go there ... but I thought the same exact thing.

:D

Aha. No. I was under the impression the next question could be the mention of staying on parents health care until I'm 26, but was just explaining that that would not be an option.

Nice summary from Orin Kerr:

I can't believe he called his mom low class.

I actually don't disagree with you much on that. I just think certain things need more brewing time than others. I know it's a bit of a fantasy in today's hyper polarized politicizing of everything these days to expect it, but, you would think our fearless leaders would be conscious of that instead of just keeping their eyes on when the next election is.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this bill/law (what I know of it) a 3. Part of it could be some misunderstanding on my part, I will admit, but, seeing how every other thing the government tries to get involved with ends up costing 10 times more than they said it would, I'd be shocked if it works as intended.

I hate you all :(

No Steam Summer Sale today, and now this. And it's 98 degrees outside.




Well, she does drink Busch Light when she drinks.

Someones vagina is scratchy...

The outcome, simply the outcome.

But now they can go get it checked out, and not have to worry later about being denied coverage for a pre-existing scratchy vagina condition!

I'm not saying the government shouldn't ever be involved in housing or higher learning (and especially healthcare). But there's been changes since FDR. You can now borrow $200,000+ of public money to get a worthless degree and you can't discharge the debt. I don't think that was FDR's vision. Personal accountability comes into play there, but those policies impact us all in so many ways, most of all education costs which now almost ensure you start life in a deep hole unless you're rich. Housing was similar. The sensible members of the middle class were punished by the (claimed) drive for "fairness" and "access". Healthcare isn't exactly the same dynamic, and maybe this is all more FDR than Barney Frank, and I'm glad something's new out there that can either fail or succeed, we've just been burned before by government/corporate/private interest tag-teams.

I don't think my current insurance covers that :(

The right wing blogosphere is calling for Roberts's head. Sounds like they would have been much happier with Harriet Miers.

Ah good point, very good point.



I'm sure Kaiser would. If not, the good news is, you can be on your parents health care until you're 26 I think.

I agree on current problems with student loans, but I still don't think that means we should have never helped students go to college. There are problems, but the net benefit has been substantial.

On housing I don't think the middle class was punished in a drive for access. Everything I have read makes it clear that default rates on those specific loans were lower than those on traditional loans. The largest group of defaulters were people in the middle class that simply spent more than they could afford(sometimes knowingly and sometimes not).

Except those who just see this a clever tactical ploy by Roberts (I've seen that angle out there too). The commerce clause is back, and enough moderates don't like Obamacare to ensure his November defeat.

This is true, and I acknowledge that.

I wouldn't say it's pandering - I would say it's a shrewd political move given that Romney has yet to draw that distinction. Either a) Romney doesn't realize that, or b) Romney isn't convinced that his voter-base understands that. Either way, a win for Obama by highlighting it.

And/or c) he knows most of his base would be against mandates at the state level as well, so he doesn't want to highlight he likes them at least in some circumstances. If you adjust your vision just enough, and depending on what he's running for, Romney is actually more moderate than the average modern Republican.

Because no country on Earth says "Fuck Socialized Health Insurance" like Canada.

I'm waiting for the mass exodus to Canada, shortly after which I'll be listening for the mass screaming as they realize the error of their ways.

Politically, I don't think that this makes much of a November difference. Probably a bit better for the President to not have the Court declare his most visible accomplishment unconstitutional. But this also gives Romney a clear message: If you don't like this law, you need to vote for me.

Policywise, I think that this is not the end of federalism as we know it. Indeed, as the guys at volokh have noted, the Commerce Clause section of the opinion is a win for federalism--and that is much more likely to have an impact going forward. That this mandate happened to also be a tax is kind of a rare occurrence.

Also, if you read J. Robert's opinion, he goes out of his way (over J. Ginsburg's objection) to hold that he HAS to reach the Commerce Clause question in order to get to the tax question. That's simply false. Any constitutional attorney can point to dozens of cases where the Court declined to reach a constitutional question in favor of deciding a case on other grounds.

So, I think that J. Roberts very carefully made sure to provide lots of ammunition for federalists in future cases.

@EliBraden: "UGH IM SO MAD THE REPUBLICAN-APPOINTEE-DOMINATED SUPREME COURT UPHELD THE REPUBLICAN-CREATED HEALTH CARE PLAN" - Republicans

oh, and this is the same Court that recently decided U.S. v. Comstock 7-2 against federalism. So I also would not read TOO much into J. Roberts's Commerce Clause opinion.

2012, for good or ill, is a much more federal world than 1789.

:D

SI

The best part of this is that OBVIOUSLY some of these are people making a joke, but something like this is great at removing all context. Now the people on this list get to deal with moronic left-wingers mocking them because they don't understand the joke or deleting their accounts.

People said this after Morrison and Lopez, but it clearly wasn't true as we saw with Raich.

I've been crunching some numbers on this, though it's hard to tell right now what insurance will cost or consist of in 2014. I believe that for most of the healthy self-employed middle class, it will be a good economic decision to pay the fine and refuse to purchase health insurance.

The question is whether the non-conforming health insurance plan I have now, which has a $10k deductible, will be legal in 2014. I think it won't - at least not at anywhere near the cost I pay right now. So I will probably drop health insurance and hope my perfect driving record holds up. And if I get cancer or something else incredibly expensive, I'll be able to purchase health insurance without a bias against the pre-existing condition.

Yes, gaming the system. But the projections for the percentage of your income this plan will cost the average self-employed member of the middle class are extraordinary. I honestly don't think this is going to work like Obama thinks it's going to work.

Interesting...

So, what you're saying is that if you appoint people for life and they have no true accountability, they'll do whatever the heck they please?

SI

True, but I think Morrison and Lopez and this one today keep the discussion going, and more lower appellate courts can find teeth in commerce clause if they're inclined to find it, whereas pre-Lopez it was just dead.

Well that's kinda the point of the way it was set up, although it's not true that there are no checks. There is impeachment and also Congress can remove jurisdiction for SCOTUS to rule on certain issues.

I think life appointments for SCOTUS was one of the greatest ideas the founders came up with, and am completely opposed to any other format. Judges should not have to worry about whether a decision will cost them a chance at re-election.

Imagine that.

I can't say I'd be satisfied with just his head.

Hung, drawn, quartered ... now maybe that's at least a starting point.

I'd agree with this. I'm likely to drop my insurance and pay the fine. It really doesn't make sense to keep it if you're healthy from what I've seen.

I like long term appointments with no elections. However, I would prefer a 20 year term. Something where you could have someone a long time on the bench which limits outside influence. However, it's also a system where you don't rush to find the youngest possible justice that checks off your litmus tests and can get crammed through confirmation.

SI