SCOTUS agrees to hear challenge to obummercare

[PokerGuy]

Just in.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45287817/ns/politics-more_politics/

Should be interesting, and I don't think anyone at this point really knows the outcome.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Here's the problem I've always had with legal complaints against the health care mandate: The idea is that it will impose a fine on people who don't have health care, essentially a 1% tax. The right seems to believe this is unfairly imposing on state's rights. However, if the law had simply been inverted, raising taxes on everyone 1% but then providing a "tax break" for those with health insurance, there would be no legal complaint. Yet the effect of these two policies is exactly the same. We can debate the wisdom and effectiveness of this policy until we are blue in the face (as we have been), but I don't see the legal challenges succeeding.

 

[DesiPower]

It was a nice move by Obama to jump direct to Supreme Court. He knew if it went to more circuit courts and lost (which it would definitely have as its illegal) it would have been devastating. Supreme Court would have been under increased pressure to deem it illegal too

 

[Ausm]

it's funny how a mandate for Healthcare was originally a Republican idea...

 

[fskimospy]

It was a nice move by Obama to jump direct to Supreme Court. He knew if it went to more circuit courts and lost (which it would definitely have as its illegal) it would have been devastating. Supreme Court would have been under increased pressure to deem it illegal too

I love it when people just make shit up. The ACA has been upheld by two out of the three circuit courts that have ruled on it, yet you think that if it went to more circuit courts it would 'definitely lose'.

 

[DesiPower]

it's funny how a mandate for Healthcare was originally a Republican idea...

Top Ten Democratic Flip Flops

 

[Ausm]

Top Ten Democratic Flip Flops

Splitting hairs imo.

 

[DesiPower]

I love it when people just make shit up. The ACA has been upheld by two out of the three circuit courts that have ruled on it, yet you think that if it went to more circuit courts it would 'definitely lose'.

That's was my opinion/assumption, not a fact. So I did not "make shit up". put the koolaid down

 

[EagleKeeper]

it's funny how a mandate for Healthcare was originally a Republican idea...

Good ideas can be corrupted with poor intentions/implementations

 

[PokerGuy]

The ruling should be in before the election, so the public can take that into account when they vote in 2012. I'd rather see this ruled on sooner rather than later, because the more time goes by the higher the chance obummer will get to replace a justice with another activist.

 

[Ausm]

Good ideas can be corrupted with poor intentions/implementations

I thought that was one of the most contentious issues with the Rightists out there was a mandate on Healthcare?

 

[fskimospy]

That's was my opinion/assumption, not a fact. So I did not "make shit up". put the koolaid down

This is a pretty interesting statement. 'Drinking the kool aid' refers to an unquestioning belief in ideology over facts and reality. I just told you that reality disagreed with your interpretation of the situation by showing you the incontrovertible fact that appeals courts have ruled in favor of the ACA 2-1, and then you accused ME of 'drinking the kool aid'.

Classic ATPN.

 

[DesiPower]

This is a pretty interesting statement. 'Drinking the kool aid' refers to an unquestioning belief in ideology over facts and reality. I just told you that reality disagreed with your interpretation of the situation by showing you the incontrovertible fact that appeals courts have ruled in favor of the ACA 2-1, and then you accused ME of 'drinking the kool aid'.

Classic ATPN.

Yes, you saw a conservative bias and immediately attacked it calling out that I was making falsifying statements. But the reality was I was just expressing my opinion. This is a typical political attack tactic of a lookaid drinker, attack with all guns blazing irrespective of what the person might have actually said.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Good ideas can be corrupted with poor intentions/implementations

I agree, and this is what I think happened with the Affordable Care Act. I think the original kernel was a good idea, but once the drug companies and medical insurers were given too much influence, it drifted into a bit of a boondoggle.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

For farks sake, it was Flavor-Aid NOT Kool-Aid, get your mass suicidal beverage of choice correct.

 

[Ausm]

I agree, and this is what I think happened with the Affordable Care Act. I think the original kernel was a good idea, but once the drug companies and medical insurers were given too much influence, it drifted into a bit of a boondoggle.

Yeah this is very true and Congress had to water it down even more to pacify the bluedog Democrats pseudo Republicans.

 

[fskimospy]

I agree, and this is what I think happened with the Affordable Care Act. I think the original kernel was a good idea, but once the drug companies and medical insurers were given too much influence, it drifted into a bit of a boondoggle.

I agree with you 100% on the whole continuation of the govt.'s inability to bargain for lower rates thing being an awful part to it, but what specific elements are you talking about otherwise? Do you think it would have been preferable to do nothing instead? (and I genuinely do think that was the available choice)

 

[EagleKeeper]

I thought that was one of the most contentious issues with the Rightists out there was a mandate on Healthcare?

The devil is in the details.

If not thought out properly, it becomes a hydra.

Obama Healthcare did not listen to the experts; they listened to the lobbyists.

 

[Thump553]

I agree, and this is what I think happened with the Affordable Care Act. I think the original kernel was a good idea, but once the drug companies and medical insurers were given too much influence, it drifted into a bit of a boondoggle.

Yes but look how hard it was to pass even this incredibly watered down law. Just about every President since Nixon has tried to reform our medical system-something the public overwhelming wants, but very little actually gets acheived.

The GWB/Ted Kennedy effort the resulted in the Rx subsidy for seniors is a poster child for good ideas gone horribly wrong, being mostly an industry subsidy.

Of course when you have media organizations like Faux News campaigning 24/7 against any reform proposal that has a chance of passage, I suppose it's not all that hard to understand.

 

[thraashman]

The ruling should be in before the election, so the public can take that into account when they vote in 2012. I'd rather see this ruled on sooner rather than later, because the more time goes by the higher the chance obummer will get to replace a justice with another activist.

Unless Obama intends to replace a retiring liberal judge with a conservative one, we won't see it as any more activist. Based on the definition of activism as legislating from the bench, the conservative justices rank as more activist than all the more liberal ones. That's just a simple fact.

 

[Moonbeam]

Unless Obama intends to replace a retiring liberal judge with a conservative one, we won't see it as any more activist. Based on the definition of activism as legislating from the bench, the conservative justices rank as more activist than all the more liberal ones. That's just a simple fact.

Judicial activism, if it exists, is as much a product of the left as it is the right. How you see, I think, is a matter of who you are and where you stand. As a person on the left I believe that the right has far more deeply convinced themselves that activism only exist on the right than the other way round. I attribute this to the fact, again in my opinion, that the right is far more brainwashed and far more fanatical in their opinions than the left is. The right is going to talk a lot about Kool-Aid than the left because they are the real drinkers and project their state of mind on others.

I think, also, the fact that a conservative district court justice upheld the legality of the law speaks to the denial we see on the right predicting its defeat in the Supreme court.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I agree with you 100% on the whole continuation of the govt.'s inability to bargain for lower rates thing being an awful part to it, but what specific elements are you talking about otherwise? Do you think it would have been preferable to do nothing instead? (and I genuinely do think that was the available choice)

I think for it to achieve its goals, a single-payer plan would have been far more effective, but the GOP and the insurance lobby put the kibosh on that. I also agree with you that the inability to negotiate lower drug prices is a major structural weakness of the ACA.

 

[fskimospy]

I think for it to achieve its goals, a single-payer plan would have been far more effective, but the GOP and the insurance lobby put the kibosh on that. I also agree with you that the inability to negotiate lower drug prices is a major structural weakness of the ACA.

I agree that single payer is the way to go (and I think it's where we will eventually get to), but I don't believe there were ever 60 votes for single payer. I don't even think there were 50, and it certainly was never part of the plan for the bill. If you want to say that lobbying twisted the ACA, that lobbying happened decades ago.

 

[Moonbeam]

I think for it to achieve its goals, a single-payer plan would have been far more effective, but the GOP and the insurance lobby put the kibosh on that. I also agree with you that the inability to negotiate lower drug prices is a major structural weakness of the ACA.

Almost nothing constructive can be accomplished as long as Republicans can obstruct government action. We have drifted in two directions for decades, to the right and down. If Americans want to continue that trend we are fucked, in my opinion.

 

[woolfe9999]

There weren't even close to enough votes for single payer. The majority of the American people will never support any comprehensive healthcare reform because most of us are insured and we preceive it as someone else's problem. We're going to have to get to a crisis point where huge swaths of the middle class lose their health insurance because their employer dropped it before public attitudes will change.