Supreme Court Can t Save Obamacare - Bloomberg View
Liberals' hope is that if the law can just survive this legal challenge and succeed on the merits -- insuring more people at a reasonable cost -- it will eventually gain acceptance, or at least benign indifference. By that view, the low level of public support for the law is either minimally important or beyond fixing.
But if Democrats don’t find a way to address the public distaste, Obamacare will stay vulnerable to the next ploy that comes along to undercut it.
. . .
By focusing on the expansion in coverage, however, the law's defenders are fighting the wrong argument. The opposition doesn't center on the notion that the government shouldn't be trying to cover more people. It revolves around two other claims, neither of which Democrats have done a good job dealing with. And both of those arguments are mostly bogus.
First is the idea that Obamacare imposes mandates on insurance that needlessly drive up the cost of coverage and restrict choice, a core Republican argument. "Republicans understand that what works in Utah is different from what works in Tennessee or Wyoming," a trio of Republican senators wrote Sunday in the Washington Post. Under their alternative, "every state would have the ability to create better markets suited to the needs of their citizens."
What Republicans are arguing against is the law's requirement that insurance cover 10 types of care: outpatient care, emergency room visits, hospitalization, prescription drugs, laboratory services, preventive care, rehabilitative care, pediatric care, maternity care, and mental health and addiction treatment. Which of those is unnecessary in Utah?
Republicans are really saying that people should be free to avoid carrying insurance for problems they don't expect to have (a bout of depression, maybe, or a stroke that requires rehabilitation) or don't want to help pay for (pediatric and maternity care for men with no children, say). The former view shifts costs onto the unlucky; the latter shifts costs onto women and parents. Both undercut the purpose of insurance, which is pooling risk. Neither saves money. Yet in the abstract the argument sounds compelling. And it's going mostly unchallenged.
....
Yet Democrats have focused on touting the number of people who have gained coverage -- which is important, but doesn't feel as personal to most Americans.
...
The broader point remains that even if the most optimistic interpretations of Wednesday's argument are true, liberals can't count on the Supreme Court to save Obamacare. Sure, it would be nice if the justices uphold the tax credits for every state. But King v. Burwell is a symptom of a bigger problem, one that no ruling will fix. Ultimately, the only way to protect Obamacare is to convince more people that it's a good law. On that count, the government is still failing.
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From what I've seen, it cannot be proven either way, if this system covers more people than who are losing benefits or if the costs are going up or down for more people.
What Democrats seem to miss is even proving a more cost effective program does NOT necessarily justify DEPRIVING citizens and states of liberty we didn't all agree to concede to federal govt.
To some people this is NEVER justified, and that argument is being ignored,
as if "proving it to more people" or passing it through more rounds of Courts or Congress is going
to justify overriding someone's inherent beliefs this is not the jurisdiction of federal govt to decide.
Even if you "prove it to more people" that is still by those people's CHOICE to comply with the mandates.
So the person who does not believe in federal mandates should not be affected by someone else's choice.
Similar to religion: just because more Americans CHOOSE to live by Christianity, and find that it improves the quality of life, relations and health, does not justify federal govt MANDATING this for the entire nation,
exempting taxpayers who pay into Christian programs and fining those who want other choices instead.
I find it hard to believe I could be the only liberal prochoice Democrat in America who sees that
this violate concepts of prochoice and separation of church and state.
I talked to a friend yesterday who supports Universal care, and doesn't support anything to do with ACA and corporate insurance; yet sees no purpose in actively contesting the mandates because "Republicans are already fighting it." I tried to explain that if all sides fight it, the sooner it can be replaced, and if we all join forces we could sue and demand the Democrats pay back for the costs of this contested legislation and invest restitution owed to taxpayers into setting up voluntarily run nationalized health services by free choice.
Mandating insurance is not the only choice.
If the Bill had been about mandating that everyone undergo spiritual healing to reduce public costs of health care, liberals would more clearly see this violates separation of church and state. But they don't see it when it comes to their secular beliefs in health care and imposing that on all people regardless of opposing beliefs.
Sadly, spiritual healing would probably save more lives and costs than imposing insurance as a requirement.
Maybe the prolife Christians should come out with their own version of these mandates that requires that!
If one group can impose their beliefs about health care on the entire nation, and require all taxpayers to comply or pay fines into programs they believe provide more coverage, why not allow ALL groups to do the same, and start mandating spiritual healing to cut costs, if those taxpayers are REQUIRED to pay in.
Liberals' hope is that if the law can just survive this legal challenge and succeed on the merits -- insuring more people at a reasonable cost -- it will eventually gain acceptance, or at least benign indifference. By that view, the low level of public support for the law is either minimally important or beyond fixing.
But if Democrats don’t find a way to address the public distaste, Obamacare will stay vulnerable to the next ploy that comes along to undercut it.
. . .
By focusing on the expansion in coverage, however, the law's defenders are fighting the wrong argument. The opposition doesn't center on the notion that the government shouldn't be trying to cover more people. It revolves around two other claims, neither of which Democrats have done a good job dealing with. And both of those arguments are mostly bogus.
First is the idea that Obamacare imposes mandates on insurance that needlessly drive up the cost of coverage and restrict choice, a core Republican argument. "Republicans understand that what works in Utah is different from what works in Tennessee or Wyoming," a trio of Republican senators wrote Sunday in the Washington Post. Under their alternative, "every state would have the ability to create better markets suited to the needs of their citizens."
What Republicans are arguing against is the law's requirement that insurance cover 10 types of care: outpatient care, emergency room visits, hospitalization, prescription drugs, laboratory services, preventive care, rehabilitative care, pediatric care, maternity care, and mental health and addiction treatment. Which of those is unnecessary in Utah?
Republicans are really saying that people should be free to avoid carrying insurance for problems they don't expect to have (a bout of depression, maybe, or a stroke that requires rehabilitation) or don't want to help pay for (pediatric and maternity care for men with no children, say). The former view shifts costs onto the unlucky; the latter shifts costs onto women and parents. Both undercut the purpose of insurance, which is pooling risk. Neither saves money. Yet in the abstract the argument sounds compelling. And it's going mostly unchallenged.
....
Yet Democrats have focused on touting the number of people who have gained coverage -- which is important, but doesn't feel as personal to most Americans.
...
The broader point remains that even if the most optimistic interpretations of Wednesday's argument are true, liberals can't count on the Supreme Court to save Obamacare. Sure, it would be nice if the justices uphold the tax credits for every state. But King v. Burwell is a symptom of a bigger problem, one that no ruling will fix. Ultimately, the only way to protect Obamacare is to convince more people that it's a good law. On that count, the government is still failing.
====================
From what I've seen, it cannot be proven either way, if this system covers more people than who are losing benefits or if the costs are going up or down for more people.
What Democrats seem to miss is even proving a more cost effective program does NOT necessarily justify DEPRIVING citizens and states of liberty we didn't all agree to concede to federal govt.
To some people this is NEVER justified, and that argument is being ignored,
as if "proving it to more people" or passing it through more rounds of Courts or Congress is going
to justify overriding someone's inherent beliefs this is not the jurisdiction of federal govt to decide.
Even if you "prove it to more people" that is still by those people's CHOICE to comply with the mandates.
So the person who does not believe in federal mandates should not be affected by someone else's choice.
Similar to religion: just because more Americans CHOOSE to live by Christianity, and find that it improves the quality of life, relations and health, does not justify federal govt MANDATING this for the entire nation,
exempting taxpayers who pay into Christian programs and fining those who want other choices instead.
I find it hard to believe I could be the only liberal prochoice Democrat in America who sees that
this violate concepts of prochoice and separation of church and state.
I talked to a friend yesterday who supports Universal care, and doesn't support anything to do with ACA and corporate insurance; yet sees no purpose in actively contesting the mandates because "Republicans are already fighting it." I tried to explain that if all sides fight it, the sooner it can be replaced, and if we all join forces we could sue and demand the Democrats pay back for the costs of this contested legislation and invest restitution owed to taxpayers into setting up voluntarily run nationalized health services by free choice.
Mandating insurance is not the only choice.
If the Bill had been about mandating that everyone undergo spiritual healing to reduce public costs of health care, liberals would more clearly see this violates separation of church and state. But they don't see it when it comes to their secular beliefs in health care and imposing that on all people regardless of opposing beliefs.
Sadly, spiritual healing would probably save more lives and costs than imposing insurance as a requirement.
Maybe the prolife Christians should come out with their own version of these mandates that requires that!
If one group can impose their beliefs about health care on the entire nation, and require all taxpayers to comply or pay fines into programs they believe provide more coverage, why not allow ALL groups to do the same, and start mandating spiritual healing to cut costs, if those taxpayers are REQUIRED to pay in.
