EXCELLENT article about SCOTUS/Obama Cares

[Synthaholic]

It’s Not About the Law, Stupid

Forget precedent. Ignore Scalia’s musings. Next week’s health care argument before the Supreme Court is all about optics, politics, and public opinion.​

I'm not even going to post any of it. If you're interested, go to the article.

 

[Synthaholic]

I do agree with the 8-1 prediction.

 

[dblack]

I do agree with the 8-1 prediction.

Wish I could be more optimistic, but you may be right.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

It's sure to pass. We all love mandates.

 

[California Girl]

"excellent" - if one prefers biased articles to informational ones.

 

[Synthaholic]

"excellent" - if one prefers biased articles to informational ones.

You love to step in it, don't you?

You must have anticipated someone asking you to point out the bias.

Therefore, you must be prepared to point out the bias.

Go!

 

[dblack]

It's sure to pass. We all love mandates.

Don't we just. My life was chaos until I learned the joy of not thinking for myself. Decisions are just so much easier when they're made for you!

 

[Valerie]

Next week the Supreme Court will hear arguments over the Affordable Care Act, what many people know as Obamacare. The mainstream opinion is that this is unquestionably the most important case of this term. That opinion is no doubt supported by the attention it will receive—six hours of argument over three days. But amid all the throat-clearing, odds-making, and curtain-raising that surrounds next week’s health care case, it seems worth noting what is in dispute and what’s not. So let’s start by setting forth two uncontroversial propositions.

The first proposition is that the health care law is constitutional. The second is that the court could strike it down anyway. Linda Greenhouse makes the first point more eloquently than I can. That the law is constitutional is best illustrated by the fact that—until recently—the Obama administration expended almost no energy defending it. Back when the bill passed Nancy Pelosi famously reacted to questions about its constitutionality with the words, “Are you serious?” And the fact that the Obama administration rushed the case to the Supreme Court in an election year is all the evidence you need to understand that they remain confident in their prospects. The law is a completely valid exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause power, and all the conservative longing for the good old days of the pre-New Deal courts won’t put us back in those days as if by magic. Nor does it amount to much of an argument.


The Supreme Court is more concerned with the politics of the health care debate than the law. - Slate Magazine





^ Just because the Supreme Court may find the plan constitutional, doesn't mean it's necessarily a policy in the best interest of the American people...

Mitt’s Plan
Health Care

On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all fifty states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible.

In place of Obamacare, Mitt will pursue policies that give each state the power to craft a health care reform plan that is best for its own citizens. The federal government’s role will be to help markets work by creating a level playing field for competition.



Restore State Leadership

Restore to the states the responsibility and resources to care for their poor, uninsured, and chronically ill:

Block grant Medicaid and other payments to states
Limit federal standards
States will experiment and learn from one another
Flexibility to deal with uninsured: e.g., charity, exchanges, subsidy for private coverage
Flexibility to deal with chronically ill: e.g., high-risk pools, reinsurance, risk adjustment

Empower Individual Ownership

Give a tax deduction to those who buy their own health insurance, just like those who buy it through their employers:

End tax discrimination
Greater consumer choice—can buy what you want, not only what your employer wants
Promote portability
Help control health care costs

Focus Federal Regulation

Focus federal regulation of health care on making markets work:

Correct common failures in the insurance market
Ensure that individuals with pre-existing conditions who are continuously covered for a specified period may not be denied coverage
Empower individuals and small businesses to form purchasing pools
Eliminate counterproductive federal constraints
Remove barriers to the sale of insurance across state lines
Allow providers to design plans that meet consumer needs

Reform Medical Liability

Reduce the influence of lawsuits on medical practice and costs:

Cap non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits
Innovation grants for state reforms: health courts, alternative dispute resolution, etc.

Introduce Market Forces

Make health care more like a consumer market and less like a government program:

Unshackle HSAs—e.g., permit HSA funds to be used to pay insurance premiums
Promote “co-insurance” products
Encourage “Consumer Reports”-type rating of alternative insurance plans
Facilitate IT interoperability
Promote alternatives to “fee for service”

 

[kwc57]

It’s Not About the Law, Stupid

Forget precedent. Ignore Scalia’s musings. Next week’s health care argument before the Supreme Court is all about optics, politics, and public opinion.​

I'm not even going to post any of it. If you're interested, go to the article.

Obamacare: The reckoning - The Washington Post Charles Krauthammer

"Beginning Monday, the Supreme Court will hear challenges to the law. The American people, by an astonishing two-thirds majority, want the law and/or the individual mandate tossed out by the court. In practice, however, questions this momentous are generally decided 5 to 4 — i.e., they depend on whatever side of the bed Justice Anthony Kennedy gets out of that morning.

Ultimately, the question will hinge on whether the Commerce Clause has any limits. If the federal government can compel a private citizen, under threat of a federally imposed penalty, to engage in a private contract with a private entity (to buy health insurance), is there anything the federal government cannot compel the citizen to do?

If Obamacare is upheld, it fundamentally changes the nature of the American social contract. It means the effective end of a government of enumerated powers — i.e., finite, delineated powers beyond which the government may not go, beyond which lies the free realm of the people and their voluntary institutions. The new post-Obamacare dispensation is a central government of unlimited power from which citizen and civil society struggle to carve out and maintain spheres of autonomy.".......

......."Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness. Little wonder the president barely mentioned it in his latest State of the Union address. He wants to be reelected. He’d rather talk about other things."

 

[dblack]

If Obamacare is upheld, it fundamentally changes the nature of the American social contract.

It nullifies mine.

 

[Valerie]

Keep in mind that SCOTUS is NOT judging the merits of the plan, but only the constitutionality of the plan, so don't be fooled when the decision comes out, as if it's some sort of endorsement or reinforcement of the plans merits...




>>

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether the 2010 health reform law is constitutional. At the forefront will be the question of whether Congress has the right, through the commerce clause, to mandate the purchase of health insurance.

Last month, two state attorneys general traveled to Washington, D.C., for a debate on the issue at the National Press Club. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, whose state implemented a precursor to the national health reform law in 2006, argued in favor of the individual mandate. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli -- a national leader in the fight against the law -- said that it impedes freedom of choice and is not within the bounds of federal power. Instead, he insists, it is a measure that states should decide for themselves. Cuccinelli is leading Virginia's health care mandate challenge, which is separate from the case before the Supreme Court this month.

Neither attorney general will argue before the court next week, but their arguments offer a handy cheat sheet of the fight to come. Find a condensed version of their major talking points below.


Should You Have to Buy Health Insurance? 2 Attorneys General Debate | The Rundown News Blog | PBS NewsHour | PBS

 

[Synthaholic]

"excellent" - if one prefers biased articles to informational ones.

You love to step in it, don't you?

You must have anticipated someone asking you to point out the bias.

Therefore, you must be prepared to point out the bias.

Go!

Where did CowardGirl slink off to?

 

[Synthaholic]

"excellent" - if one prefers biased articles to informational ones.

You love to step in it, don't you?

You must have anticipated someone asking you to point out the bias.

Therefore, you must be prepared to point out the bias.

Go!

Where did CowardGirl slink off to?

Still AWOL, I see. Pity.

 

[old navy]

There are some elements of the law I am in favor of.

Telling someone to buy insurance though is not providing health care. I scratch my head whenever I see Pelosi and company praising the PPACA because they got nowhere near what they were trying for.

Another thought is the SCOTUS is damned if they strike it due to the pre-determination that the decision will be political. I like that Cagen ?sp recused herself not because it tips the favor to the RW, but because it was the right thing to do. I still have faith in our system of government and hope that they come to the right decision.

 

[Sallow]

I do agree with the 8-1 prediction.

I'm reasonably sure that Alito and Thomas are voting against it. They don't even need to hear the arguments.

Roberts, although conservative, is fairly good at listening. Scalia? He's already commented about Judicial activism..I think he will vote to keep the law in place.

 

[Sallow]

There are some elements of the law I am in favor of.

Telling someone to buy insurance though is not providing health care. I scratch my head whenever I see Pelosi and company praising the PPACA because they got nowhere near what they were trying for.

Another thought is the SCOTUS is damned if they strike it due to the pre-determination that the decision will be political. I like that Cagen ?sp recused herself not because it tips the favor to the RW, but because it was the right thing to do. I still have faith in our system of government and hope that they come to the right decision.

Kagan recused?

Thomas should too. And both Scalia and Thomas should have recused during Gore v. Bush.

 

[old navy]

There are some elements of the law I am in favor of.

Telling someone to buy insurance though is not providing health care. I scratch my head whenever I see Pelosi and company praising the PPACA because they got nowhere near what they were trying for.

Another thought is the SCOTUS is damned if they strike it due to the pre-determination that the decision will be political. I like that Cagen ?sp recused herself not because it tips the favor to the RW, but because it was the right thing to do. I still have faith in our system of government and hope that they come to the right decision.

Kagan recused?

Thomas should too. And both Scalia and Thomas should have recused during Gore v. Bush.

Because of Thomas' wife?

 

[Synthaholic]

I do agree with the 8-1 prediction.

I'm reasonably sure that Alito and Thomas are voting against it. They don't even need to hear the arguments.

Roberts, although conservative, is fairly good at listening. Scalia? He's already commented about Judicial activism..I think he will vote to keep the law in place.

Since I see Thomas purely as a political person, not an unbiased jurist, I'm wondering how much pressure is being put on him by his insurance industry friends to keep the mandate. It's a huge amount of money that he could be depriving them of.

 

[Synthaholic]

There are some elements of the law I am in favor of.

Telling someone to buy insurance though is not providing health care. I scratch my head whenever I see Pelosi and company praising the PPACA because they got nowhere near what they were trying for.

Another thought is the SCOTUS is damned if they strike it due to the pre-determination that the decision will be political. I like that Cagen ?sp recused herself not because it tips the favor to the RW, but because it was the right thing to do. I still have faith in our system of government and hope that they come to the right decision.

Kagan recused?

Thomas should too. And both Scalia and Thomas should have recused during Gore v. Bush.

Because of Thomas' wife?

That, plus the fact that there isn't a Republican cocktail party that he will not attend. He is totally in the pocket of the far Right. He officiated Limbaugh's latest wedding, fer fuck's sake.

 

[kwc57]

Kagan recused?

Thomas should too. And both Scalia and Thomas should have recused during Gore v. Bush.

Because of Thomas' wife?

That, plus the fact that there isn't a Republican cocktail party that he will not attend. He is totally in the pocket of the far Right. He officiated Limbaugh's latest wedding, fer fuck's sake.

Well bless your little heart! All of that pearl clutching and hand wringing must just wear you out.

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