ACA (a.k.a. Obamacare) Upheld

[Conscript]

Those short-sighted aren't seeing the double whammy for Obama and the dems here.

1. Romney couldn't energize a room full of methamphetamine addicts doing step aerobics. But this law, that a very large majority of independents and republicans are against, as well as the overall US population, will be the rallying cry used to get those people motivated out at the polls in November. In essence the ruling is irrelevant, since the result will occur regardless. But because of this ruling...

2. Never, ever, ever, have you seen a democratically elected justice in the last 25 years rule against party lines on such a major issue. This will be noted for years to come on how the GOP and their elected justices are able to objectively look at issues. Don't discount this...because the next major ruling the SC has, you bet your bottom dollar that Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will have it in the back of their minds how Roberts showed them up as the non partisan justice.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

1. Romney couldn't energize a room full of methamphetamine addicts doing step aerobics. But this law, that a very large majority of independents and republicans are against, as well as the overall US population, will be the rallying cry used to get those people motivated out at the polls in November. In essence the ruling is irrelevant, since the result will occur regardless. But because of this ruling...

Yes, this seems to be the prevailing sour-grapes wishful thinking from the right today.

Except everyone who hates ACA as much as you think they do was already voting for Romney anyway.

That's the problem when you spend five years demonizing someone -- diminishing returns.

PS The very bestest part of this whole thing is listening to the far right throw Roberts under the bus, and then pretend the ruling doesn't matter. Hannity's opening monologue was a laugh-riot.

 

[fskimospy]

Yea the only difference between the USA and the rest of those countries is UHC, don't bother trying to account for anything to do with actual health or lifestyle of the individuals that make up the country.

I'm interested to hear where you are getting this, as research shows that fat, slovenly people actually cost LESS money to the health care system than fit people. (they die much sooner)

Take a country that only has doctors who rub some dirt on it, and is completely private, their costs would be very low compared to a country with UHC but uses cutting edge technology to treat the smallest scratch.

A number of those countries have health outcomes on par with or superior to the United States in a number of important metrics such as cancer survival rates, etc. (although to be fair it varies by specific malady)

Other countries' health systems are simply more efficient than ours. Health care is a fairly unique market in which the free market does not work well due to information asymmetry, supplied induced demand, and of course the differences in motivation. (the doctor might want to stay in business, but not nearly as badly as you want to stay alive)

 

[fskimospy]

Yes, this seems to be the prevailing sour-grapes wishful thinking from the right today.

Except everyone who hates ACA as much as you think they do was already voting for Romney anyway.

That's the problem when you spend five years demonizing someone -- diminishing returns.

PS The very bestest part of this whole thing is listening to the far right throw Roberts under the bus, and then pretend the ruling doesn't matter. Hannity's opening monologue was a laugh-riot.

Not to mention that a significant portion of the opposition to the ACA comes from liberals who don't think it goes far enough. If you include them in the pro camp, which I don't think is unreasonable, you tend to get an even split or a majority in favor.

 

[Axon]

Those short-sighted aren't seeing the double whammy for Obama and the dems here.

1. Romney couldn't energize a room full of methamphetamine addicts doing step aerobics. But this law, that a very large majority of independents and republicans are against, as well as the overall US population, will be the rallying cry used to get those people motivated out at the polls in November. In essence the ruling is irrelevant, since the result will occur regardless. But because of this ruling...

Eh, I feel like the people who already despise Obama will just despise him more because of this. Romney is going to have a hard time critiquing Obama on this, since he passed similar legislation on a state level. But we'll see, I'm sure they'll have a nice "OBAMATAX" ad up in a few days.

2. Never, ever, ever, have you seen a democratically elected justice in the last 25 years rule against party lines on such a major issue. This will be noted for years to come on how the GOP and their elected justices are able to objectively look at issues. Don't discount this...because the next major ruling the SC has, you bet your bottom dollar that Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will have it in the back of their minds how Roberts showed them up as the non partisan justice.

Well, the Court itself has been slowly losing respect since the Bush v. Gore decision. But it may embolden more Justices to avoid partisanship, yes, I agree. Good for Roberts.

 

[Conscript]

Except everyone who hates ACA as much as you think they do was already voting for Romney anyway.

I wasn't...I don't really feel Romney will be a better overall president than Obama, I think they're both inept, and I probably would have been just as content leaving in the devil I know (though I did live in MA when Romney was governor...so I know him too I suppose). But now I'll use the election purely as a referendum on Obamacare.

 

[fskimospy]

I wonder if 'ol Mittens is going to take down the part of his website where it says he will nominate justices in the mold of Roberts.

lol.

I have a weakness for schadenfreude but the sheer amount of insanity pouring out of the right today is making even me start to feel bad.

 

[fskimospy]

I wasn't...I don't really feel Romney will be a better overall president than Obama, I think they're both inept. But now I'll use the election as a referendum on Obamacare.

While it's impossible to know another person's mind, it seems odd to me that you would use the Supreme Court's ruling on Obama's initiative as a reason to vote against him but would not previously have chosen to use Obama's creation, promotion, and passage of that initiative as a reason to vote against him.

 

[jhu]

Yea the only difference between the USA and the rest of those countries is UHC, don't bother trying to account for anything to do with actual health or lifestyle of the individuals that make up the country.

That is pretty much the major difference. Look, obesity is a major driver of health spending. We're currently at 30%. The UK is at 23%. Yet the UK spends $4k less per capita than we do for similar outcomes. Meanwhile, the Swedes have about a 10% obesity rate and their healthcare expenditures are similar to the UK's.

Take a country that only has doctors who rub some dirt on it, and is completely private, their costs would be very low compared to a country with UHC but uses cutting edge technology to treat the smallest scratch.

And what country would those be exactly. I won't hold may breath waiting for your answer because you're
not going to find an example of a country with the former with comparable outcomes, and you're not going to find an example of the latter.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

I wasn't...I don't really feel Romney will be a better overall president than Obama, I think they're both inept, and I probably would have been just as content leaving in the devil I know (though I did live in MA when Romney was governor...so I know him too I suppose). But now I'll use the election purely as a referendum on Obamacare.

Only you really know what's in your heart. But you did write this just a few months ago, which doesn't exactly suggest any likelihood that you would ever have voted for Obama.

Jimmy Carter is still the worst of my lifetime, but if somehow Obama is re-elected, he'll be making run at the title.

 

[momeNt]

I'm interested to hear where you are getting this, as research shows that fat, slovenly people actually cost LESS money to the health care system than fit people. (they die much sooner)



A number of those countries have health outcomes on par with or superior to the United States in a number of important metrics such as cancer survival rates, etc. (although to be fair it varies by specific malady)

Other countries' health systems are simply more efficient than ours. Health care is a fairly unique market in which the free market does not work well due to information asymmetry, supplied induced demand, and of course the differences in motivation. (the doctor might want to stay in business, but not nearly as badly as you want to stay alive)

Mostly diabetes research, we nearly match the rest of the world in diabetes expenditures. Maybe yearly checkups years 60-80 cost more than diabetes years 40-60, but I doubt it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20171754



Medical care before ACA was very anti-market though, creating HMOs as a method of price controls and then blaming the debacle on the free market is faulty logic.

So if you call the living longer worldwide vs USA sickliness a wash, you then have the difference in cost based simply on efficiency of a single payer UHC system. So a "perfect" system of price controls in UHC, would lower the cost solely due to the efficiency in the billing and accounts receivables being streamlined? I'm skeptical of that.

 

[Dominato3r]

It means that Joe Average might actually have to learn what the law actually is instead of relying on a bunch of rhetoric, and then might come to appreciate it in a few years if he loses his job and finds that he miraculously still has access to healthcare.

So if this is true, why are people upset? Sounds like a good thing.

 

[trenchfoot]

And the big winners in all of this is still the health insurance companies. They got their concerns addressed when the Act was passed, or else they'd be screaming at the top of their lungs for a repeal right this minute.

So as far as Roberts is concerned, he didn't have to worry a bit about that, along with the fact that he's got a job for life so long as he doesn't break a law himself.

Methinks Roberts was more concerned about his legacy when he voted on the side of the "enemy", as it were.

The big monied interests are still making the profits they want out of healthcare and Roberts gets to look not so much the ultra-conservative activist that he is. Win-win for him and the folks who own him.

 

[fskimospy]

That is pretty much the major difference. Look, obesity is a major driver of health spending. We're currently at 30%. The UK is at 23%. Yet the UK spends $4k less per capita than we do for similar outcomes.

An interesting article for you:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...-than-the-healthy-who-live-longer-report.html

 

[Conscript]

While it's impossible to know another person's mind, it seems odd to me that you would use the Supreme Court's ruling on Obama's initiative as a reason to vote against him but would not previously have chosen to use Obama's creation, promotion, and passage of that initiative as a reason to vote against him.

Well frankly I didn't think there'd be anyway the SC didn't find the individual mandate constitutional and it would be a none issue as far as the next election went, and was planning on using my right of not voting in the next election. Furthermore, take the Healthcare bill out, and while I wouldn't say I'm impressed with Obama, I'm certainly not against him any more than I am most of our elected official on both sides being inept. I guess another way to put it...i don't think the last 4 years would have been much different with Romney. Hell, I could have envisioned Romney putting together the Healthcare bill, but would have dropped it the moment 51% of the votiign pop said they didn't like it, as he does on all of his opinions and stances.

So in short, it's not that I approve of the last 4 years of governing. I just think 4 years of Romney wouldn't have been much different, and won't be if he's elected. EXCEPT, his overwhelming popularity rides on him repealing Obamacare the moment he takes office, which I am fundamentally against. I haven't felt this strongly about a law in my lifetime, and I'd probably have to go back 3 lifetimes again to say prohibition would have been the last law I would have purely voted on to have removed, regardless of candidate.

anyway, I really don't think I'm alone on this. Cause let me tell you a little secret among most of us conservatives....we're really not that high on Romney, but would elect a chimp if it could repeal obamacare.

 

[lopri]

So if this is true, why are people upset? Sounds like a good thing.

See my post #418

So if you are truly concerned about federal government's overreach or some other Orwellian scenarios, then you can be assured that this decision will not be a spring of slippery snakes (or slopes). However, as I suspect, if what some of you really wanted was not a health care reform, a limited government, individual liberty, but a political defeat of Obama - then congratulations, you are defeated

 

[fskimospy]

Mostly diabetes research, we nearly match the rest of the world in diabetes expenditures. Maybe yearly checkups years 60-80 cost more than diabetes years 40-60, but I doubt it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20171754

Medical care before ACA was very anti-market though, creating HMOs as a method of price controls and then blaming the debacle on the free market is faulty logic.

So if you call the living longer worldwide vs USA sickliness a wash, you then have the difference in cost based simply on efficiency of a single payer UHC system. So a "perfect" system of price controls in UHC, would lower the cost solely due to the efficiency in the billing and accounts receivables being streamlined? I'm skeptical of that.

I was describing free market health care in its entirety as a failure, not just the US system. There are structural problems with it that I mentioned above. The US system suffers from a number of problems, but one of them is the continuing attempts to keep everything free market-ier.

 

[momeNt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

just so it's a click away as it has been referenced in a few posts.

 

[Conscript]

Only you really know what's in your heart. But you did write this just a few months ago, which doesn't exactly suggest any likelihood that you would ever have voted for Obama.

I didn't say I planned on voting for Obama... see that's that binary thinking that you need to try to avoid. I wouldn't have wasted my time and gas to go out to vote period, as I think regardless who wins there's still going to be a 4 year dark cloud over this nation. Honestly, I'd give anything to be able to vote Clinton back in, and this is from someone who probably didn't appreciate him as much then as I do in hindsight.

 

[fskimospy]

Well frankly I didn't think there'd be anyway the SC didn't find the individual mandate constitutional and it would be a none issue as far as the next election went, and was planning on using my right of not voting in the next election. Furthermore, take the Healthcare bill out, and while I wouldn't say I'm impressed with Obama, I'm certainly not against him any more than I am most of our elected official on both sides being inept. I guess another way to put it...i don't think the last 4 years would have been much different with Romney. Hell, I could have envisioned Romney putting together the Healthcare bill, but would have dropped it the moment 51% of the votiign pop said they didn't like it, as he does on all of his opinions and stances.

So in short, it's not that I approve of the last 4 years of governing. I just think 4 years of Romney wouldn't have been much different, and won't be if he's elected. EXCEPT, his overwhelming popularity rides on him repealing Obamacare the moment he takes office, which I am fundamentally against. I haven't felt this strongly about a law in my lifetime, and I'd probably have to go back 3 lifetimes again to say prohibition would have been the last law I would have purely voted on to have removed, regardless of candidate.

anyway, I really don't think I'm alone on this. Cause let me tell you a little secret among most of us conservatives....we're really not that high on Romney, but would elect a chimp if it could repeal obamacare.

Well, like Charles pointed out a few posts up you claimed Obama was running for the worst president in your entire life. This does not point to you being particularly amenable to voting for him even before the decision.

I can say that personally there has never been a single federal law that has come close to equaling the direct, positive contribution to my life that the ACA will. I'm someone who was diagnosed with cancer at 28 and has constantly had to base my job plans around making sure that I retain group health insurance at all times. Soon, I won't have to do that anymore. This is an amazing thing.

 

[fskimospy]

I didn't say I planned on voting for Obama... see that's that binary thinking that you need to try to avoid. I wouldn't have wasted my time and gas to go out to vote period, as I think regardless who wins there's still going to be a 4 year dark cloud over this nation. Honestly, I'd give anything to be able to vote Clinton back in, and this is from someone who probably didn't appreciate him as much then as I do in hindsight.

Conservatives generally like Democratic Presidents much better after they have left office than when they are in office. It's amazing that some of the very same people who thought Bill Clinton was a murderer, etc, etc now wax nostalgic for his presidency.

 

[Jadow]

well, the American people get what they deserve. Keep putting these liberals in office, and they will keep increasing the scope of government.

You must buy healthcare and enrich the bottom lines of the HMOs that donate to us
You CAN NOT buy a soda over 16 ounces

1984 is coming, and it's the left that is taking us there.

 

[sactoking]

And the big winners in all of this is still the health insurance companies. They got their concerns addressed when the Act was passed, or else they'd be screaming at the top of their lungs for a repeal right this minute.

Speaking from first-hand experience, health insurers really didn't care too much if it was kept or tossed, they just didn't want it to be kept in part and overturned in part.

 

[chucky2]

They obviously don't believe that half the people in the US are stupid.

But sadly they are. If, the healthcare insurance exchanges lower the cost of insurance. Why piss away $1250 a year($50k in income) when you can spend a little more and get insurance. Instead of blowing $1250 on a fine and then in the future having medical problems and getting socked with 10s or 100s of thousands in bills.

Oh, for sure there are tons of stupid people in the US. And if there are no consequences to just paying the fine (see below), then that's what they're going to do. That's not stupid, that's a new stereo, set of rims, trip to Vegas, etc.

Unfortunately, like I said people are stupid and would likely pay the fine and the if something happens be stuck with huge amount of debt and probably eventually bankruptcy. Some may call that smart and gaming the system, but life ain't so rosey in that situation.

Well, that's what I'm wondering. Is there really that consequence with the ACA and paying the fine? I thought the whole point was the hospitals had to cover you regardless now. How are they going to have any of those consequences if you've paid the fine and they're eating it?

 

[Infohawk]

I'm curious, how much do people think health insurance is going to cost for the average taxpayer once Obama's system is implemented?