205 replies to this topic

[Strike]

Well, yeah. I'm just saying, that argument is no more or less credible to me than the White House's counter-argument, that the risk you assume by not having health insurance affects all other health consumers. If I refuse to buy a car, the cost of cars doesn't necessarily go up for everyone else. If I refuse to buy health insurance and get into a horrible wreck, you end up paying more for your healthcare to cover my nonpayment. That's the argument.

Theoretically that's only because of the law you mentioned that mandates it. An alternative would be to repeal that law, instead of passing what most think the court is going to find is an unconstitutional mandate.

[jerryskids]

You don't have much of a choice, 99 weeker.

Apparently you missed the thread about me starting my business. I actually had an update I wanted to provide, I think I'll go do that.

[MDC]

Theoretically that's only because of the law you mentioned that mandates it. An alternative would be to repeal that law, instead of passing what most think the court is going to find is an unconstitutional mandate.

So then we have hospitals checking to make sure the patient is a US citizen with insurance coverage and/or a means to pay before treating stuff like traumatic brain injuries and gunshot wounds ... does that sound realistic or smart? I think most hospitals would be treating emergency patients (and passing the costs on to everyone else if they can't pay) even if it weren't mandated by law.

[Recliner Pilot]

Apparently you missed the thread about me starting my business. I actually had an update I wanted to provide, I think I'll go do that.

I find it funny that someone who, while on unemployment, scammed the system and committed fraud, is trying to look down his nose at someone else.

[jerryskids]

This discussion of emergency rooms makes me wonder if the birth control topic is going to rear its head on this. If Obamacare were a means to provide for emergency services and/or end-of-life care, you could make a strong case for the need to pay a priori because we're all either going to need it, or we'll need it to be available if we need it. Birth control treads dangerously close to the broccoli analogy. And with the way the law is written, a new administration could determine a whole new set of broccolis.

[Strike]

So then we have hospitals checking to make sure the patient is a US citizen with insurance coverage and/or a means to pay before treating stuff like traumatic brain injuries and gunshot wounds ... does that sound realistic or smart? I think most hospitals would be treating emergency patients (and passing the costs on to everyone else if they can't pay) even if it weren't mandated by law.

Why do you suppose they passed that law if hospitals were already providing care to everyone?

[NewbieJr]

I find it funny that someone who, while on unemployment, scammed the system and committed fraud, is trying to look down his nose at someone else.

Link?

[BudBro]

if this isn't the black guy pothead calling the kettle black. liberalism would be dead already if it weren't for judicial activism and agency regulations. enough with the stupidity. if he would go to work, something might get accomplished.

this is just another stump speech for his followers who are too dumb to fact check. this one is particularly full of lies...even more than most of his other speeches. if this falls, his cartoon image gets even more cartoony. his narcissistic personality disorder is on full display these days.

if he were a constitutional scholar and lawyer, which is highly doubtful and nobody can prove it, he would know that the job of the scotus is to uphold the constitution as it is written, not follow a poll of those who think they might like it when they know more about it but don't.

[MDC]

Why do you suppose they passed that law if hospitals were already providing care to everyone?

I don't know - I was 11 in 1986 and haven't read enough about it. I don't doubt that some hospitals refused emergency care. I'd be really surprised if many of them were turning away ER patients. I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if you know more about it than I do.

Either way I think hospitals checking out insurance coverage and ability to pay before giving potentially life-saving emergency care is a really bad idea for a whole lot of reasons.

[Strike]

I don't know - I was 11 in 1986 and haven't read enough about it. I don't doubt that some hospitals refused emergency care. I'd be really surprised if many of them were turning away ER patients. I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if you know more about it than I do.

Either way I think hospitals checking out insurance coverage and ability to pay before giving potentially life-saving emergency care is a really bad idea for a whole lot of reasons.

Don't necessarily disagree with you on this. That's not the point. If they weren't mandated to do so they could set their policies however they want. They could stabilize patients and send them on or release them. They could do exactly what they're doing now if they wanted, and the people who's health insurance uses that hospital could choose another health insurance plan that uses hospitals that have a policy more in line with their beliefs. Having congress pass a law that forces costs up and then passing this health care law based upon the previous law just doesn't seem right to me. And it certainly doesn't seem constitutional.

[Recliner Pilot]

Obama's Preemptive Strike on the Supreme Court

By W. James Antle, III on 4.3.12 @ 6:11AM


What's ahead if the president doesn't get his way on the health care decision.

Harry Truman ran against the "Do Nothing" Congress in the 1948 presidential election. Will Barack Obama run against the Supreme Court this year? Answer: he will if the nation's highest court repudiates his signature health care reform law as unconstitutional.

The president nearly gave away the game during his press conference yesterday. After a long soliloquy about the "human element" the justices would be letting down if they ruled against his administration, Obama slipped and almost said he expected the law to be overturned rather than upheld. (He corrected himself mid-sentence.)

"Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Obama averred. Perhaps he meant "democratic" with a capital d. Only Democrats voted for the law and it passed the House by just seven votes despite a three-fifths Democratic majority in that chamber.

According to one careful estimate, the Supreme Court has struck down 53 federal statutes between 1981 and 2005. So in post-Marbury v. Madison America, it wouldn't be exactly "unprecedented." Didn't Linda Greenhouse teach us that "unprecedented" was a word used by people whose legal arguments are without merit?

Obama chided conservative commentators who complained about "judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint" when "an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law." He concluded: "Well, this is a pretty good example."

Supporters of the president have been laying the groundwork for this reaction ever since it became clear that the Supreme Court wasn't simply going to rubber stamp the adminstration's request for untrammeled federal power. Greenhouse insisted the constitutional challenge was baseless but sighed "the justices will do what they will do." Paul Krugman asserted “while most legal experts seem to think that the case for striking the law down is very weak, these days everything is political.”

This has nothing to do with the law, they chant. It is simply the "wingnuts" on the Supreme Court deciding to impose the Tea Party's vision of the Constitution on America. (Yet if the law is upheld, the same people will celebrate the Court as a great and powerful body whose wise rulings should go unquestioned, with the "wingnut" who cast the deciding vote venerated as the preeminent jurist of modern times.)

What is at stake here isn't the Tea Party's Constitution. It is the Constitution written by the Founding Fathers and ratified by the American people. It is the idea that the federal government derives its power from the consent of the governed, consent given not merely every two to six years at the ballot box but when a large majority of the states and the people expressly delegate power to the central government.

Nowhere in the confident declarations of the health care law's constitutionality do we see any evidence that the people who wrote or ratified the Constitution intended to give the federal government these powers. More than half the states in the country have joined in the constitutional challenge and plainly don't want to delegate this police power to Washington.

What we see instead is the insistence that liberal policy preferences simply must be constitutional. "I'm confident that this will be upheld because it should be upheld," said Obama.

For all the talk of ideologically rigid conservative justices, it was always the four members of the Supreme Court's liberal bloc who were viewed as locks to uphold Obamacare. The persuadable justices were John Roberts, the chief justice nominated by George W. Bush, and Anthony Kennedy, who was nominated by Ronald Reagan. They tried in vain to get the solicitor general to establish some limiting principle for the power he ascribed to the federal government, to tie the mandate to something enumerated in the Constitution.

"The plaintiffs had no coherent constitutional theory on severability and on Medicaid," writes American Enterprise Institute legal scholar Michael Greve. "For that reason they will lose on both issues, and all the partisanship on the Court, real and imagined, won’t help them." Greve continued by noting "the justices gave the government every chance in the world to draw a constitutionally grounded enumerated powers line. It couldn’t, and so it will lose."

Just as he did when he lectured the justices about Citizens United, Obama plans to demagogue any Supreme Court ruling that is unfavorable to his health care program. The same president who holds Roe v. Wade inviolate, a decision that invalidated the laws of all 50 states on an issue no one had previously imagined to be under federal jurisdiction, will inveigh against judicial activism.

But Obama's cheering section also gives away the game when they lament that the Supreme Court has for the past 75 years allowed Congress, with the president's permission, to act as a national problem-solving machine without the Constitution getting in the way. What changed in the last 75 years? The Constitution or the composition of the courts? Raw political power, indeed.

In fact, it was 75 years ago that FDR unveiled his "court packing" scheme to scare justices away from enforcing the enumerated powers doctrine when it interfered with his legislative agenda. It worked then. Will Obama's version work now?

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/04/03/obamas-preemptive-strike-on-th

[MDC]

Don't necessarily disagree with you on this. That's not the point. If they weren't mandated to do so they could set their policies however they want. They could stabilize patients and send them on or release them. They could do exactly what they're doing now if they wanted, and the people who's health insurance uses that hospital could choose another health insurance plan that uses hospitals that have a policy more in line with their beliefs. Having congress pass a law that forces costs up and then passing this health care law based upon the previous law just doesn't seem right to me. And it certainly doesn't seem constitutional.

I'm not saying it is or isn't constitutional - from the start I said I can see both sides of the argument.

The idea of hospitals refusing emergency care until they confirm that the patient can pay for coverage though is pretty dumb. Unless you're cool with patients who actually have converage dying while the doctor starts doing a credit and finance check. Hell, the ambulence ride itself can cost hundreds. Are the dispatchers going to demand a bank reference?

[Recliner Pilot]

The idea of hospitals refusing emergency care until they confirm that the patient can pay for coverage though is pretty dumb. Unless you're cool with patients who actually have converage dying while the doctor starts doing a credit and finance check. Hell, the ambulence ride itself can cost hundreds. Are the dispatchers going to demand a bank reference?

Who has proposed a plan that would do these things?

[Strike]

I'm not saying it is or isn't constitutional - from the start I said I can see both sides of the argument.

The idea of hospitals refusing emergency care until they confirm that the patient can pay for coverage though is pretty dumb. Unless you're cool with patients who actually have converage dying while the doctor starts doing a credit and finance check. Hell, the ambulence ride itself can cost hundreds. Are the dispatchers going to demand a bank reference?

You must be for single payer then. Great..........

[MDC]

Who has proposed a plan that would do these things?

It sounded like Strike was proposing that plan, since he was complaining about the law that requires hospitals to provide emergency care regardless of the patient's ability to pay.

I don't want to speak for Strike though, that's just what it sounded like to me.

[Strike]

It sounded like Strike was proposing that plan, since he was complaining about the law that requires hospitals to provide emergency care regardless of the patient's ability to pay.

I don't want to speak for Strike though, that's just what it sounded like to me.

I'm for allowing hospitals to set their own policies. God forbid.

[MDC]

I'm for allowing hospitals to set their own policies. God forbid.

And when a loved one of yours bleeds to death in the ER because they can't find his/her proof of insurance, you're down with that?

[Strike]

And when a loved one of yours bleeds to death in the ER because they can't find his/her proof of insurance, you're down with that?

Everyone in my family carries proof of insurance with them, but thanks for that. You sound like the people who chastised Ron Paul for his comments about health care.

[MDC]

Everyone in my family carries proof of insurance with them, but thanks for that. You sound like the people who chastised Ron Paul for his comments about health care.

I don't know what Ron Paul's comments about health care were.

So when your wife or kid is in a car wreck they should search his / her wallet or purse for proof of insurance before sending the ambulence out there, right? Do you see the problem here?

[BudBro]

I'm for allowing hospitals to set their own policies. God forbid.

a hospital can't deny coverage. how would you react if, for some reason you had lost coverage, your son or daughter was denied coverage from a hospital and then died in route to find another hospital that may or may not cover him? you would sue everyone you could name. therein lies the american problem. even if they only stabilized the problem, sent you on your way, then your kid died, you'd still sue them. if i remember, there was a push to address the litigation angle, but it was poo-pooed because it was a conservative approach.

[Strike]

I don't know what Ron Paul's comments about health care were.

So when your wife or kid is in a car wreck they should search his / her wallet or purse for proof of insurance before sending the ambulence out there, right? Do you see the problem here?

Nope.

[Strike]

a hospital can't deny coverage. how would you react if, for some reason you had lost coverage, your son or daughter was denied coverage from a hospital and then died in route to find another hospital that may or may not cover him? you would sue everyone you could name. therein lies the american problem. even if they only stabilized the problem, sent you on your way, then your kid died, you'd still sue them. if i remember, there was a push to address the litigation angle, but it was poo-pooed because it was a conservative approach.

Nope. None of that would happen.

[MDC]

Nope.

You think that having a dispatcher check to make sure a victim has insurance coverage or money before sending an ambulence is not utterly focking retarded. That's it?

[BudBro]

Nope. None of that would happen.

ahhh strike. never say never.

so, now re-evaluate and find a better angle. yours has no legs.

[Strike]

You think that having a dispatcher check to make sure a victim has insurance coverage or money before sending an ambulence is not utterly focking retarded. That's it?

Nope. Look, throughout this health care debate I've made numerous proposals as far as fixing the problem. At least they're a starting point. Post me a link to the thread with your plan in it. Then we'll talk. Same with you Bud. I want to see if you're both just whiners of whether you've actually got any solutions.

[MDC]

Nope.

You actually think dispatchers should confirm the patient's ability to pay before sending an ambulence? I think you've just painted yourself into a corner defending a totally unrealistic plan and now you're too prideful to admit it.

Look, throughout this health care debate I've made numerous proposals as far as fixing the problem. At least they're a starting point. Post me a link to the thread with your plan in it. Then we'll talk. Same with you Bud. I want to see if you're both just whiners of whether you've actually got any solutions.

I wasn't debating healthcare solutions - I was talking about the Supreme Court case. And I wasn't even saying I back one side or another. I was explaining what I thought were the main pro and con arguments and why I think they both have some validity.

Since when did this become a healthcare debate?

[BudBro]

Nope. Look, throughout this health care debate I've made numerous proposals as far as fixing the problem. At least they're a starting point. Post me a link to the thread with your plan in it. Then we'll talk. Same with you Bud. I want to see if you're both just whiners of whether you've actually got any solutions.

i'm glad you offer alternatives, but yours relies on the most basic people in the chain.

here's one: how about we make all employees 1098, or whatever the number is, self employed contractors. they have no taxes withheld from their checks, but instead pay estimated taxes or pay taxes only one time per year, after deductions for expenses. then, all can qualify for group of 2 or group of 1 insurance plans, which allow for pre-existing conditions.

if the employers are going to drop the employees from the benefits package anyway, why not allow them to be considered self employed contractors?

[Strike]

I wasn't debating healthcare solutions - I was talking about the Supreme Court case. And I wasn't even saying I back one side or another. I was explaining what I thought were the main pro and con arguments and why I think they both have some validity.

I don't think so. Your reasoning for the validity of Obama's case seems to be that the only alternative you've mentioned would be "dumb."

[Strike]

i'm glad you offer alternatives, but yours relies on the most basic people in the chain.

I have no idea what this means. Care to elaborate?

here's one: how about we make all employees 1098, or whatever the number is, self employed contractors. they have no taxes withheld from their checks, but instead pay estimated taxes or pay taxes only one time per year, after deductions for expenses. then, all can qualify for group of 2 or group of 1 insurance plans, which allow for pre-existing conditions.

if the employers are going to drop the employees from the benefits package anyway, why not allow them to be considered self employed contractors?

How is this going to deal with the current problems in our health care system?

[MDC]

I don't think so. Your reasoning for the validity of Obama's case seems to be that the only alternative you've mentioned would be "dumb."

Err, no. My reasoning for the validity of Obummer's case is that we are all at least potentially healthcare consumers so your decision to forgo insurance affects the cost of my care.

Your answer is that ER's should just stop treating patients without insurance. You haven't bothered to explain how this actually works in the real world, with hospitals dispatching ambulences and treating critical patients.

[Strike]

Err, no. My reasoning for the validity of Obummer's case is that we are all at least potentially healthcare consumers so your decision to forgo insurance affects the cost of my care.

Oh please. If Bill Gates doesn't buy health insurance do you think that will affect the cost of your care? It may actually bring it down because he's paying cash and likely getting gouged.

Your answer is that ER's should just stop treating patients without insurance. You haven't bothered to explain how this actually works in the real world, with hospitals dispatching ambulences and treating critical patients.

If you're going to mischaracterize what I've said I'm not going to continue this discussion with you. In fact, until you post either a link or what your proposed solution would be, I'm not going to anyways. Have a nice day.

[MDC]

Oh please. If Bill Gates doesn't buy health insurance do you think that will affect the cost of your care? It may actually bring it down because he's paying cash and likely getting gouged.



If you're going to mischaracterize what I've said I'm not going to continue this discussion with you. In fact, until you post either a link or what your proposed solution would be, I'm not going to anyways. Have a nice day.

Great discussion, learned a lot.

[NewbieJr]

If you're going to mischaracterize what I've said I'm not going to continue this discussion with you. In fact, until you post either a link or what your proposed solution would be, I'm not going to anyways. Have a nice day.

That's about ten times you dodged the question about how you'd enforce the no insurance/no treatment option you want to allow hospitals. Seems you didn't think this through.

[Strike]

That's about ten times you dodged the question about how you'd enforce the no insurance/no treatment option you want to allow hospitals. Seems you didn't think this through.

Wait. Not just a drive by? If you weren't such a d*ck around here I'd answer but that's what you've become. A d*ck who ruins threads. NJIAFP.

ROFL.

[MDC]

That's about ten times you dodged the question about how you'd enforce the no insurance/no treatment option you want to allow hospitals. Seems you didn't think this through.

That's my thinking.

I wasn't arguing Obummer's case, I was saying I thought both sides have merit. Then Strike starts badgering me about Obummer's case. So I play along and tell him what I think the argument will be despite the rollyeyes, etc. I think I kept it polite. Strike starts arguing that hospitals should be able to set their own rules RE: offering emergency care to patients. I give him a few examples of how this is problematic. He picks up his ball and goes home.

And people wonder why nobody really discusses politics around here.

[Strike]

That's my thinking.

I wasn't arguing Obummer's case, I was saying I thought both sides have merit. Then Strike starts badgering me about Obummer's case. So I play along and tell him what I think the argument will be despite the rollyeyes, etc. I think I kept it polite. Strike starts arguing that hospitals should be able to set their own rules RE: offering emergency care to patients. I give him a few examples of how this is problematic. He picks up his ball and goes home.

And people wonder why nobody really discusses politics around here.

This isn't about politics. It's about the constitution. It's about whether Obamacare is constitutional. The repercussions of it being found unconstitutional are irrelevant. It's like, if you want to combat poverty just take all of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's money. But that's unconstitutional!!!! Who cares, it will combat poverty and if we don't do it there will be poor people. Let's discuss the constitutionality of it. But you don't. You say you see both sides but one of the sides is unconstitutional. And I went through this crap with you in another thread a few weeks ago and I'm not doing it again.

[NewbieJr]

Wait. Not just a drive by? If you weren't such a d*ck around here I'd answer but that's what you've become. A d*ck who ruins threads. NJIAFP.

ROFL.

And wtf are you? Just a fat fock who likes to shoot his mouth until he's cornered into giving an actual answer. No wonder you don't feel like addressing what MDC (and now I) have been asking you for an hour. SIAFF ROFL

[Recliner Pilot]

And wtf are you? Just a fat fock who likes to shoot his mouth until he's cornered into giving an actual answer. No wonder you don't feel like addressing what MDC (and now I) have been asking you for an hour. SIAFF ROFL

[Strike]

And wtf are you? Just a fat fock who likes to shoot his mouth until he's cornered into giving an actual answer. No wonder you don't feel like addressing what MDC (and now I) have been asking you for an hour. SIAFF ROFL

You've been asking for an hour? LOL.

[MDC]

This isn't about politics. It's about the constitution. It's about whether Obamacare is constitutional. The repercussions of it being found unconstitutional are irrelevant. It's like, if you want to combat poverty just take all of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's money. But that's unconstitutional!!!! Who cares, it will combat poverty and if we don't do it there will be poor people. Let's discuss the constitutionality of it. But you don't. You say you see both sides but one of the sides is unconstitutional. And I went through this crap with you in another thread a few weeks ago and I'm not doing it again.

I've been about as polite as you can expect and asked you some serious questions about your opinions. If you're donoe with the conversation fine but you're the one getting all hot under the collar and insulting just because I think the White House has a case.

Whatever, I tried.