If the Court Overturns Obamacare then What?

[koshergrl]

Is he still in S. Korea?

He has a knack for being out of the country at pivotal moments, doesn't he?

 

[SniperFire]

When obamacare goes, it will take the last breath of hope from the obama reelection campaign.

Epic failure for Liberalism across the board.


They can come along for the ride now, but they are going to have to sit in the back seat while we fix things.

obama intended to run on his success of obamacare. That was his centerpiece. He will start out with less than he started out the first time. A string of failures.

I would say he is a suck ass President, but that would be an insult to sucky assed Presidents throughout history.

 

[healthmyths]

Opponents of the law say it would be fine to turn back the clock and start from scratch. In fact, in our polarized political climate, a do-over is unimaginable. What’s more, the law contains many specific provisions that would be painful to lose.

The big elements are obvious: Without the law, insurance companies could keep turning away people with pre-existing conditions or charging them higher premiums. They could maintain annual caps and restore lifetime caps on how much they spend on care for an individual policyholder. They could stop paying the full cost of preventive services such as mammograms, flu shots and well-child visits. And young adults would no longer be guaranteed coverage on their parents’ plan until age 26.

We couldn't look forward to state insurance exchanges, those competitive online marketplaces where, starting in 2014, people without coverage from employers should be able to buy health insurance using federal subsidies. And, with no subsidies and no expansion of Medicaid, we’d give up on the promise of insuring 32 million more Americans.

Many less-often-discussed pieces of the 2,000-page law are valuable as well. Consider the “medical loss ratio” -- the requirement that for every dollar insurance companies collect in premiums, they spend no more than 15 cents to 20 cents on administration and profits. The rest has to go toward medical claims. Before the law, insurance companies often spent 25 percent to 30 percent of the money on administrative costs and profits.

Think, too, of the law’s charge to the Food and Drug Administration to arrange for speedy approval of “biosimilars” - - cheaper versions of expensive, complex drugs derived from living organisms, including vaccines and gene therapies, that are used to treat conditions from arthritis to cancer. Biosimilars are needed to bring down the exorbitant cost of using biologic drugs. A three-month course of the melanoma treatment Yervoy, for example, a biologic made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., costs $120,000. Last month, the FDA released its draft guidance, suggesting that makers of biosimilars could in some cases save the time and expense of human trials.

Without the law, other opportunities to improve care while saving money would be lost as well. Under the law, Medicare payments to hospitals are to be reduced if too many of their patients contract infections while they’re in the hospital or if too many of them, after their release from care, are quickly readmitted.

Another chunk of Medicare savings written into the law is a gradual elimination of the extra payments to private insurance companies for Medicare Advantage policies. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission estimates that, in 2011, payments to Medicare Advantage per beneficiary were 10 percent higher than those for traditional Medicare. According to the Congressional Budget Office, ending these overpayments stands to save Medicare about $136 billion over 10 years.

The law also provides for curtailing increases in other Medicare spending over 10 years, so that, all things considered, it saves the program almost $500 billion.

Finally, we would hate to give up the law’s push to improve basic medical treatment. Over 10 years, $3 billion is set to be spent on an independent, nonprofit organization called the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which will support studies assessing the benefits and drawbacks of medical treatments and diagnostic tests. The idea is to give doctors, hospitals and insurers the information they need to make more informed and less wasteful decisions about the care they give.

This is only a sampling of ways in which the law is already making progress toward mending and strengthening the health-care system. It’s not perfect, of course; nothing with so many facets could be. We don’t yet know, for example, whether the law’s incentives to move doctors and hospitals away from a fee-for- service system to one more focused on efficiency will work.

Just helping Americans to understand what’s changing in the health- care system is a challenge that remains unmet. But the law takes a great many small steps in the right direction -- toward a health-care system that provides good- quality care at a reasonable price for the largest possible number of people.

All Americans Lose If Health-Care Law Is Overturned - Bloomberg

PRETTY DAMN SIMPLE!

90% of physicans say they bill $1. of every $4 purely out of fear of lawsuits...
$600 billion a year DEFENSIVE MEDICINE!
Duplicate TESTS! Specialist referrals... 2nd, 3rd opinions ALL because they are afraid of BEING SUED! Afraid of having to take time off to appear in court! Take time to appear before boards.. ALL totally non productive costly time ALL adding to $600 billion in DEFENSIVE MEDICINE AND not just the minute costs of malpractice insurance which many opponents of TORT reform THINK is the reason!
Nine out of 10 physicians reported practicing defensive medicine.
Doctors Estimate Defensive Medicine Costs Americans $650-850 Billion Annually
Doctors Practice Medicine in Fear, New Study Finds

Why defensive medicine ...
If 1,231 physicians...(90%) Ninety percent of physicians surveyed said
"doctors overtest and overtreat to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits.
"Defensive medicine is when doctors order multiple tests, MRIs and other procedures, not because the patient needs them, but to protect against litigation based on allegations that something should have been done but wasn’t. according to the survey published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine.


THEN we have Medicare GLADLY paying 6,000% EXCESSIVE OVERCHARGES from
hospitals that take "uninsured" patients all because of the 1986 EMTALA !

SO SOLUTION is TAX the lawyers 10% of their $100 billion a year!
Use that to pay for the truly 8 million "UNINSURED!

As a result nearly $100 billion EASILY between LOWERED Medicare charges and Lowering the $600 billion in Defensive Medicine!

Hospitals bill directly the govt run Uninsured Health Insurance Company©!
UHIC© using the $10 billion in taxes from the 10% lawyers pay the claims from Hospitals and physicians won't be sending "fear of lawsuit.. Defensive Medicine" charges and Medicare won't be paying "padding and passed" hospital claims!

 

[MarcATL]

Then it's on...we fight for single payer. And we'll win.

 

[koshergrl]

Doesn't look like it.

 

[Wacky Quacky]

Question ...

If its unconstitutional that people must buy their own hc insurance, why isn't it also unconstitutional to force the insured to pay the bills of the uninsured?

Because health insurance is optional. So, no ones forcing you, you're choosing to.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

"• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program."

John Mackey: The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare - WSJ.com

This would be ideal

TORT reform is the lynch-pin...

let's not forget the illegals.....they account for a huge part of the "free" services that bump up costs....clamping down on this intrusion from other countries would help dramatically...

 

[Juanita]

Maybe some sanity will begin to creep back into the what we call the Congress.[/QUOTE




Unfortunately, there will be no sanity in Congress until those far right, conservative, tea party evangelicals are voted out, out, out.........

 

[Liability]

Maybe some sanity will begin to creep back into the what we call the Congress.

Unfortunately, there will be no sanity in Congress until those far right, conservative, tea party evangelicals are voted out, out, out.........

There will be no sanity in Congress as long as conservatives are not in control of the dump.

 

[MarcATL]

Doesn't look like it.

Depends who's looking. And looks can be deceiving!

 

[francoHFW]

Obama thinks the mandate is unnecessary, and he's right.

Loss of insurance requirement would complicate, but not kill Obama's health care overhaul

This horse race, controversy above all media coverage SUCKS. I see all the dupes are into it.

This can be just as good as single payer, and we won't have to wait 20 years AGAIN. JFC!!

 

[francoHFW]

This isn't politics?

 

[007]

Fortunately, if the mandate is struck down, as it should be, as being unconstitutional, that will make it easy as pie to repeal with a republican president, congress and senate. Then we can approach health care reform the "RIGHT" way, with the "RIGHT" in control. No more locked door secret meetings, no more people being bought off for their vote, no more we have to vote for it to see what's in it, NO MORE LEFT IN CONTROL. We'll get it "RIGHT" the next time around.

 

[Syphon]

Question ...

If its unconstitutional that people must buy their own hc insurance, why isn't it also unconstitutional to force the insured to pay the bills of the uninsured?

Because health insurance is optional. So, no ones forcing you, you're choosing to.

if health care isnt a right, then why is ok for the government to force providers to provide services to anyone regardless of their ability to pay? shouldnt hospitals be allowed to refuse services if you cant pay?

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Then it's on...we fight for single payer. And we'll win.

Keep telling yourself that, bud. Single payer is even less popular than this piece of shit you guys rammed through. If single payer is so popular then why didn't the Dems pass it when they had a super majority? Because they know they'd have had their asses handed to them even worse than they ultimately did. Single payer is DOA in the foreseeable future.

 

[usmcstinger]

What will CONSERVATIVES do if the AMA is found constitutional?

I'll tell you what they can do.



They can.....




EAT IT!

This has to be one of best nonsensical statements that I have ever seen or heard. You must be part of the Ritalin Generation.

 

[usmcstinger]

Obama Care has no severability clause contained in it. Which means if any part of Obama Care is ruled Unconstitutional, then the entire Law becomes Unconstitutional

 

[Syphon]

Obama Care has no severability clause contained in it. Which means if any part of Obama Care is ruled Unconstitutional, then the entire Law becomes Unconstitutional

the justices have the option to declare only a part or parts of the law unconstitutional. it does not required a severability clause, otherwise every law would need to be written with such a clause in order for all laws to pass the courts instead of sections of laws.

 

[Syphon]

i still wanna know what conservatives are willing to put their money where their mouth is and sign a waiver stating that if they dont purchase health insurance, then if they go to the hospital, that hospital can deny them services unless they show an ability to pay.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

If the Court Overturns Obamacare then What?

Opponents of the law say it would be fine to turn back the clock and start from scratch. In fact, in our polarized political climate, a do-over is unimaginable. What’s more, the law contains many specific provisions that would be painful to lose.

It’s not a matter of if, but when – after today’s pro forma Oral Arguments, the ACA is done.

So your thread is well-considered: when the ACA is struck down, there will be nothing to replace it. It’s not just a matter of a polarized political climate, but a hardcore contingent of radical rightists who not only will stand in the way of any future reform effort, but who see millions of American without healthcare as a ‘good thing,’ as it comports with radical conservative dogma; the incentive of fear compelling all to ‘work hard and go better, least you end up with no insurance.’

The right’s opposition to the ACA was purely partisan, of course, having nothing to do with the facts of Constitutional case law – their desire was merely to hand Obama a major political defeat.

The big elements are obvious: Without the law, insurance companies could keep turning away people with pre-existing conditions or charging them higher premiums. They could maintain annual caps and restore lifetime caps on how much they spend on care for an individual policyholder. They could stop paying the full cost of preventive services such as mammograms, flu shots and well-child visits. And young adults would no longer be guaranteed coverage on their parents’ plan until age 26.

Correct.

All things conservatives want done away with – all part of their Holy War against the ‘entitlement mentality.’

Say what you want about the Act but at least it got us moving in a direction.

True.

It was far from perfect, everyone agreed on that point; but it was at least a ‘foot in the door’ with regard to future progress toward more substantive reform, should sanity ever return to Washington.

If the law is overturned, then healthcare will once again take center stage in congress. However, the chance of actually passing any meaningful legislation is not good. Republicans will resurrect their scale down healthcare proposals such as tort reform and health insurance across state lines.

Which is no ‘reform’ at all.

Civil suits amount to virtually nothing with regard to healthcare costs; and if one can’t afford insurance in his own state, he won’t be able to in another.