Obamacare mandate is precedent setting, in a BIG way

[Ravi]

How?

Because taxpayers pay for the uninsured. Therefore there is nothing constitutional against imposing a tax penalty on the uninsured to pay back the taxpayers.

And my other point was just as valid as manifold's. You can choose to go through life without a car and you can choose to go through life without a job. Be a shareholder. Play the market, etc.

I'll need a link to that, because before I had insurance, when I went to the emergency room, the bill came to me...not Uncle Sam.

And it is my understanding...and correct me if I'm wrong...that if I wouldn't have been able to pay it, the hospital would have sued me, got a judgement against me and garnished my wages to pay that judgement.

And it I had no job, or money, they would have charged it off...not sent it to Uncle Sam for payment...and offset those cost by charging higher rates to their other customers.

Just like if an uninsured motorist hits me...my insurance pays, and it offsets those expenses by charging higher rates to it's own customers in the form of uninsured motorist riders.

Using Obamalogic, we should mandate everyone buy car insurance, whether they need it or not, because some people driving without insurance increases the costs for everyone else.

How Do Taxpayers Pay for the Uninsured? | eHow.com

 

[Ravi]

I thought this was obvious, but some apparently don't realize that a federal mandate requiring individuals to purchase health insurance is not only precedent setting, but completely blows out of the water the long established precedent that only state and local governments have that type of authority. You might think that it's no big deal to give this authority to the federal government too, but that's because you're stupid.

If you don't get it, you pay a tax penalty.

Last time I checked tax penalties were legal.

Are you aware that the one thing that every judge that has ruled on the mandate agrees on is that the penalty is not a tax? Given that simple agreement even among the judges that say the mandate is Constitutional why do you insist on basing your defense of the mandate on the one argument that is flat out wrong?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...e/173434-individual-mandate-is-not-a-tax.html

lol. If you pay it to the IRS, it is a tax.

 

[Ravi]

My bad, Manifold, it isn't tied to employment, it's tied to income. If you earn above the poverty line and can find minimum insurance that doesn't cost more than 8% of your monthly income, you are required to have it. Or pay a tax penalty.

 

[dblack]

Are you aware that the one thing that every judge that has ruled on the mandate agrees on is that the penalty is not a tax? Given that simple agreement even among the judges that say the mandate is Constitutional why do you insist on basing your defense of the mandate on the one argument that is flat out wrong?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...e/173434-individual-mandate-is-not-a-tax.html

lol. If you pay it to the IRS, it is a tax.

The net effect is the same as a tax, granted, but it wasn't voted on as a tax, it wasn't justified via the government's power to tax, and it was loudly and repeatedly declared not to be a tax by the president.

Mostly that technicality only matters when it comes to the pending court case, but it does matter a great deal. Obama went with a fairly dangerous gambit there. He sacrificed solid constitutional footing, in exchange for political expedience, by forming ACA around the mandate instead of an actual tax increase. He seemed to assume that our distaste for taxes would outweigh our aversion to being ordered around.

The Obama administration's lawyers now want to argue that the mandate is a tax because it will make it constitutional. But if we are now going to call it a tax, then the entire bill was a fraud and should be struck down on those grounds alone.

 

[manifold]

My bad, Manifold, it isn't tied to employment, it's tied to income. If you earn above the poverty line and can find minimum insurance that doesn't cost more than 8% of your monthly income, you are required to have it. Or pay a tax penalty.

And you're ok with this?

Personally, I'd find a public option far less egregious.

 

[Ravi]

My bad, Manifold, it isn't tied to employment, it's tied to income. If you earn above the poverty line and can find minimum insurance that doesn't cost more than 8% of your monthly income, you are required to have it. Or pay a tax penalty.

And you're ok with this?

Personally, I'd find a public option far less egregious.

No, I always wanted the public option. This is just better than nothing.

 

[Ravi]

Are you aware that the one thing that every judge that has ruled on the mandate agrees on is that the penalty is not a tax? Given that simple agreement even among the judges that say the mandate is Constitutional why do you insist on basing your defense of the mandate on the one argument that is flat out wrong?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...e/173434-individual-mandate-is-not-a-tax.html

lol. If you pay it to the IRS, it is a tax.

The net effect is the same as a tax, granted, but it wasn't voted on as a tax, it wasn't justified via the government's power to tax, and it was loudly and repeatedly declared not to be a tax by the president.

Mostly that technicality only matters when it comes to the pending court case, but it does matter a great deal. Obama went with a fairly dangerous gambit there. He sacrificed solid constitutional footing, in exchange for political expedience, by forming ACA around the mandate instead of an actual tax increase. He seemed to assume that our distaste for taxes would outweigh our aversion to being ordered around.

The Obama administration's lawyers now want to argue that the mandate is a tax because it will make it constitutional. But if we are now going to call it a tax, then the entire bill was a fraud and should be struck down on those grounds alone.

And it was loudly and repeatedly declared a tax by Republicans.

 

[dblack]

[And it was loudly and repeatedly declared a tax by Republicans.

Not sure what your point is.

 

[NYcarbineer]

You are correct that a civil rights violation is a violation at any government level. But for some strange reason you refuse to consider other grounds upon which the mandate may be deemed unconstitutional, i.e. Congress does not have the constitutional authority to enact such a mandate.

Maybe I've been swayed by the fact that ever since it passed every rightwing Obama hater on the planet has been screaming that it's a violation of their civil rights.

It looks like a tax to me. It looks the government is imposing a healthcare tax, but allowing an exemption for those with their own qualifying healthcare. I know it's not worded that way,

but de facto that's what it looks like to me.

The funny thing about laws is that no one cares what they look like to some random person in NY, what they care about is what they actually say. That explains why, since the law is specifically written to make the penalty not a tax, it is not a tax.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...e/173434-individual-mandate-is-not-a-tax.html

So all the people who've been calling this a violation of their civil rights are full of shit?

 

[Full-Auto]

Maybe I've been swayed by the fact that ever since it passed every rightwing Obama hater on the planet has been screaming that it's a violation of their civil rights.

It looks like a tax to me. It looks the government is imposing a healthcare tax, but allowing an exemption for those with their own qualifying healthcare. I know it's not worded that way,

but de facto that's what it looks like to me.

The funny thing about laws is that no one cares what they look like to some random person in NY, what they care about is what they actually say. That explains why, since the law is specifically written to make the penalty not a tax, it is not a tax.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...e/173434-individual-mandate-is-not-a-tax.html

So all the people who've been calling this a violation of their civil rights are full of shit?

Here is the only point that needs to be made against the monstrosity of over reaching.

Government - Interest Expense on the Debt Outstanding



Interest Expense Fiscal Year 2011
July $26,645,554,967.44
June $110,536,850,221.63
May $30,858,726,707.77
April $28,895,123,159.28
March $24,460,282,823.69
February $21,759,253,957.26
January $21,122,729,715.18
December $104,700,174,845.03
November $19,396,316,137.56
October $24,142,491,931.22
Fiscal Year Total $412,517,504,466.06

 

[Greenbeard]

But the standard low-deductible, high-premium insurance plan isn't the only way to deal with health care costs. In fact, it's proven to be an extraordinarily bad way. The last thing we need is to have it cemented in place by state mandate.

So when they call the health plans attached to HSAs "high deductible health plans," you think that's some sort of misnomer? The out-of-pocket limits on HDHPs are too low for your tastes?

 

[dblack]

So when they call the health plans attached to HSAs "high deductible health plans," you think that's some sort of misnomer? The out-of-pocket limits on HDHPs are too low for your tastes?

Not sure what you mean.

 

[daveman]

On another note, I always find it completely laughable when someone says the mandate is just another evil way by Liberals to try and control everything.

History of the Individual Health Insurance Mandate, 1989-2010 - Health Care Reform - ProCon.org

The concept of the individual health insurance mandate originated in 1989 at the conservative Heritage Foundation. In 1993, Republicans twice introduced health care bills that contained an individual health insurance mandate. Advocates for those bills included prominent Republicans who today oppose the mandate including Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Charles Grassley (R-IA), Robert Bennett (R-UT), and Christopher Bond (R-MO). In 2007, Democrats and Republicans introduced a bi-partisan bill containing the mandate.

In 2008, then presidential candidate Barack Obama was opposed to the individual mandate. He stated the following in a Feb. 28, 2008 interview on the Ellen DeGeneres show about his divergent views with Hillary Clinton:

"Both of us want to provide health care to all Americans. There’s a slight difference, and her plan is a good one. But, she mandates that everybody buy health care. She’d have the government force every individual to buy insurance and I don’t have such a mandate because I don’t think the problem is that people don’t want health insurance, it’s that they can’t afford it. So, I focus more on lowering costs. This is a modest difference. But, it’s one that she’s tried to elevate, arguing that because I don’t force people to buy health care that I’m not insuring everybody. Well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t."

While the new healthcare bill does some good things (getting rid of pre-existing conditions for starters), the ones who are probably most happy with the bill at the end of the day are the Health insurance companies.

Does the fact that Republicans had the idea at one point somehow prove that it is not an evil attempt on the part government to take control of people's lives?

We're supposed to say, "Oh, the GOP wanted it? Well, that's okay, then."

 

[daveman]

Guess what? Even if the mandate is found unconstutional by the most bought off court ever, the palan will go ahead, and strangely everyone with a brain will want it anyway. This is total Pub dupe BS. You have NO CLUE.

So Obama can ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court?

I know you desperately want him to be king, but he's subject to the law, just like everyone else.

Idiot.

 

[Greenbeard]

So when they call the health plans attached to HSAs "high deductible health plans," you think that's some sort of misnomer? The out-of-pocket limits on HDHPs are too low for your tastes?

Not sure what you mean.

The ACA specifically pegs out-of-pocket limits to the limits already established in law for HDHPs connected to HSAs. You seem to think that's not good enough and that higher out-of-pocket charges are needed. Since the cost-sharing limits set for all health plans are the exact same standards already in effect for HDHPs attached to HSAs and you're lamenting this as a reliance on "low-deductible, high-premium insurance plans," I'm wondering what it is you're looking for. I thought you had praised HSAs (which are not eliminated under the ACA) somewhere above in this thread.

 

[dblack]

The ACA specifically pegs out-of-pocket limits to the limits already established in law for HDHPs connected to HSAs. You seem to think that's not good enough and that higher out-of-pocket charges are needed. Since the cost-sharing limits set for all health plans are the exact same standards already in effect for HDHPs attached to HSAs and you're lamenting this as a reliance on "low-deductible, high-premium insurance plans," I'm wondering what it is you're looking for. I thought you had praised HSAs (which are not eliminated under the ACA) somewhere above in this thread.

Ahh.. ok. Yeah, the high-deductible plans are a step in the right direction, but that's not my point at all. The problem with the ACA's approach is that it dictates what will be 'acceptable' insurance - and then mandates that we all buy it. This kills consumer choice (the choice to say 'no' always being the most important one a consumer can make) and blocks innovation. It creates a centralized 'authority' which will forever be the target of well-heeled lobbying interests.

As far as what it is I'm looking for, it's pretty simple: the freedom to decide for myself how to pay for my health care.

 

[bripat9643]

And it was loudly and repeatedly declared a tax by Republicans.

Which Republicans said it was a tax? I don't recall any.

 

[Greenbeard]

The problem with the ACA's approach is that it dictates what will be 'acceptable' insurance - and then mandates that we all buy it.

What do you mean here by "'acceptable' insurance"?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I'd like to know how some of you people think medical services are paid for for people with no health insurance. Anybody that feels bad enough will go to an emergency room to be treated. Treatment often includes surgery, drugs, xrays, radiology, blood, doctors, nurses, room and board, and so on. Do you know who pays for it???

I'd like to know why you think that is germane to the discussion.

Because I think Obama did a good thing to mandate that everybody has health insurance.

You think it is a good idea that Obama is forcing you to help pay for everyone's healthcare, but you have some objection to paying for emergency rooms?

I must admit I am confused, but I rarely expect mindless progressives to think rationally, so I am not surprised.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

You are making it sound as though the non-insured have nothing to worry about.

That's certainly not my intent. But the standard low-deductible, high-premium insurance plan isn't the only way to deal with health care costs. In fact, it's proven to be an extraordinarily bad way. The last thing we need is to have it cemented in place by state mandate.

Or federal mandate.