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SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386, 590]

Re: Health care mandate is tax, will negatively affect middle, lower class, some say

If you don't obey the law you could pay a penalty. That's not a tax, even if the authority to levy the penalty arises out of the taxing power. This Republican talking point has already outlived its shelf life.

What? Republican talking point? What are you talking about...here is the wording that upheld the law.

"The most straightforward reading of the individual mandate is thatit commands individuals to purchase insurance. But, for the reasons explained, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress that power. It is therefore necessary to turn to the Government’s alternative ar*gument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power to “lay and collect Taxes.

"In pressing its taxing power argument, the Government asks the Court to view the man*date as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product. Be*cause “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality,” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657, the question is whether it is “fairly possible” to interpret the mandate as imposing such a tax, the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax.

Read excerpts from the Supreme Court's majority opinion upholding the Affordable Care Act | Nation/World | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

It is a tax. Period, otherwise it is unconstitutional.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

I see. So because people wont pick up some greasy drifter hitch hiking along the road, all of America is selfish and rotten. Dude, sane people dont pick up hitch hikers. Buy a car and stop free-loading and looking for a free ride. Time to grow up.

Greasy drifter? Why are you jumping to assumptions about my appearance? I hitchhiked to church this morning, and luckily Matthew picked me up, a fine man. I don't have a car as I donated my BMW to a needy Syrian immigrant and my Z has its engine pulled and getting rebuilt in California since I spun all the crank bearings when racing at Summit Point without a baffled oil sump. I thought it would be done while I was travelling the Middle East for 5 weeks, but there was a parts problem (rods, bearings, oil sump, seals).

All I have is subjective experience with hitchhiking around town in the DC metro area. I am positive my experience would be completely different in the NC mountains, where I grew up. One does not discount the generosity of the men of the mountain. My reasonable conclusion is that most suburban Americans are selfish and self absorbed and unwilling to help a fellow American out, when it is exceeding 95 degrees.
 
Re: Health care mandate is tax, will negatively affect middle, lower class, some say

If you lie on your tax return you are subject to tax penalties. Therefore, by Republican logic, there is a tax on telling the truth.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

The thread isn't about cars, trucks and dealers. Again, analogies not necessary. Address the topic itself. It's not all that complex. I showed where the Obama admin argued it was a tax in court (posted the transcript). It's also been shown where, at the same time, the POTUS was telling the public it wasn't a tax.

You - all you have is a weak analogy to prop up your partisan argument.

Well, if you can't even grasp the analogy about the SUV, how could you grasp the same issue in a legal context?

Like the car dealer, Obama is talking about taxation in common parlance. It isn't a tax, it is a penalty for failing to get insurance. They're trying to penalize freeloading, not trying to generate revenue, so that is more like what you think of when you hear "fine" than when you hear "tax". Right?

But the taxation power in the constitution isn't about whether your typical person on the street thinks of something as a tax or a fine. The taxation power gives Congress the ability to do things that you might consider a fine. Like the DMV in my analogy, it is based on technical standards, not just common parlance.

Furthermore, only one of the nine justices thinks it is authorized by the taxation power, but not the commerce power. And even he didn't even make up his mind about that until two years after the law was passed. Four of the nine justices still, rightly, believe that it is covered under the commerce power and four believe it doesn't even qualify as a tax. Are eight of the justices "lying" and just that one "being honest"?

Lets try another analogy. Say that I said that pluto was a planet 20 years ago. Was I "lying" because they decided that it was only a "planetoid" recently?
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

You have a strange understanding of personal responsibility. If that is what you truly advocate, then responsibility for your health lies with you. If you cant afford it, you dont get it. But you dont really believe in personal responsibility at all, do you.

Tell it to Mitt Romney, Dude.

"With regards to the individual mandate, the individual responsibility program that I proposed, I was very pleased that the compromise between the two houses includes the personal responsibility mandate. That is essential for bringing the health care costs down for everyone and getting everyone the health insurance they need," Romney said.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

You just can't see the forest with all of those trees in the way. Under PPACA the added 45 million people's PREMIUMs are paid mostly by the taxpayers (and other SELF-PAYING insured people) and those "poor" people will STILL pay NO out of pocket money, so ALL costs UNDER that (never paid) deductable AND up to the (never paid) max out of pocket limit will STILL be a "public burden".

And yet, somehow I'm OK with it being a public burden to make sure that people don't die due to lack of health insurance. Amazing, huh?

As this "guesstimate" shows it will still cost A MINIMUM of $2,500 to $4,500 for each of the MILLIONS added under PPACA, how that can possibly be seen as REDUCING costs is beyond belief.

Annual health care expenditures in the US are over $7,000 per capita.


Your link would seem to contradict your previous statement.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

And the name it is called is important because?

Because it distinguishes between the president lying and the president telling the truth.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

No, you have the power, not the 'right.' There is a big difference. And why is everything about dying on the side of the road with you guys? That is such a dumb argument and a straw man since no one is saying anything of the kind. Try to deal with what I write and not want you wish I had written and we might actually get somewhere.

LOL The old saying "Might makes right" comes to mind.
Your not saying it, because it makes you look heartless, but that is where your opinion would lead us to. If it quacks like a duck....
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Then let us make this little tax law change, that we will call the "polution fairness act"; instead of a "hybrid car tax credit", let's add a "no hybrid car tax penalty" instead, of say $1,000, so that the 145 million tax returns, filed by those that do NOT own a hybrid car, can be properly punished for not being "green" enough.

Why? We already have the hybrid car tax credit, which does functionally the same thing.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Because it distinguishes between the president lying and the president telling the truth.

A difference of opinion is not lying.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

There is no way you are going to convince me that places like Greece, Morocco, and Columbia have better doctors, better hospitals, better equipment, better results than the US. That is simply not true. The US is the leader in all of those catagories . What we have here is a cost problem, not a care problem. No one in their right mind is going to choose a hospital in Morocco over the Cleveland Clinic.

Well, the World Health Organization seems like a more credible source for that kind of evaluation than some dude on the internet.

What I suspect you're missing is that there is a whole lot more to having high quality health care than how good the best hospitals and doctors and whatnot you have. For example, imagine a country that has the single best doctor, where that doctor has the very best equipment, and the best facilities, but where 99% of the population can't afford him, so they just go to the local medicine man. Does that country have good health care or bad health care?

Accessibility of care is a huge variable in the quality of health care a country has and we get demolished by Morocco on that score. Also, our system is set up to discourage preventative care, which is disastrously stupid of us and has terrible repercussions for the quality of care here overall. Also, think of all the major flaws in our system. The other day I signed up for a doctor's appointment. The earliest appointment they had was FIVE WEEKS from then. Probably like 2/3 of potential reasons somebody would need to visit a doctor wouldn't even last five weeks. Remember house calls? Where the doctor would come to your house when you were sick so you didn't need to like schlep around all over town and or on a bus or subway or whatever feeling like you were about to vomit? We don't have those anymore. We haven't had them for a couple of decades. Same day house calls. Think of what a huge upgrade that would be to the quality of our health care. But in most countries, they still have that.

Living in the US we get used to this notion that everything here is automatically better than anywhere else. Often times, that's true. But it isn't true for health care. Our health care system has been falling apart for decades. It is worse here than it was 25 years ago. Well, countries that were on par with us 25 years ago have continued to progress while we've been sliding backwards, and countries that were 25 years behind us then have now slightly overtaken us.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

Do you have some evidence that Moroccan health care is "on par" with the quality level of Us health care?

Morroco is "on par" with the U.S. for medical care "quality"? Link please...

The World Health Organization ranks every nation's health care system annually. The most recent data that is available (for 2010) ranks Morocco #29 and the United States #37 in terms of quality. In terms of cost, Morocco is #99 and the United States is #1.

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

But just in case you think that the WHO is an evil, illegitimate, world-government-loving organization that hates the US and therefore skews the data, here's what the CIA says. Life expectancy in the United States is 78.5, and life expectancy in Morocco is 76.1. I'd say that's pretty comparable in terms of the results of our health care systems, especially factoring in the income disparity.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
 
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Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

Tell it to Mitt Romney, Dude.
Mtt Romney accepts the basic premises of the left, I am not denying that.

LOL The old saying "Might makes right" comes to mind.
Your not saying it, because it makes you look heartless, but that is where your opinion would lead us to. If it quacks like a duck....
It is you who are advocating might makes right, not me.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Well, if you can't even grasp the analogy about the SUV, how could you grasp the same issue in a legal context?

Like the car dealer, Obama is talking about taxation in common parlance. It isn't a tax, it is a penalty for failing to get insurance. They're trying to penalize freeloading, not trying to generate revenue, so that is more like what you think of when you hear "fine" than when you hear "tax". Right?

But the taxation power in the constitution isn't about whether your typical person on the street thinks of something as a tax or a fine. The taxation power gives Congress the ability to do things that you might consider a fine. Like the DMV in my analogy, it is based on technical standards, not just common parlance.

Again, the analogy is a strawman and that's why you wish to rely upon it here. You can make of it whatever you wish to suit your bias - unlike the facts of the matter which you cannot deny.

And the president is using the same common palance when talking to the people. That makes it a flat out lie.

Furthermore, only one of the nine justices thinks it is authorized by the taxation power, but not the commerce power. And even he didn't even make up his mind about that until two years after the law was passed. Four of the nine justices still, rightly, believe that it is covered under the commerce power and four believe it doesn't even qualify as a tax. Are eight of the justices "lying" and just that one "being honest"?

Not true, in fact just the reverse. Only one justice (Ginsberg) believes it should have been authorized under the Commerce Clause. Read the decisions and the dissents.

So let's apply your metric to the true condition. Are eight of the justices "lying" and just that one "being honest"?

Lets try another analogy. Say that I said that pluto was a planet 20 years ago. Was I "lying" because they decided that it was only a "planetoid" recently?

Your first strawman was rejected, so now you want to try another one? Okay, I'll bite, but let's make it right. If you're still telling people pluto is a planet, even after you found out it's be reclassed as a planetoid, would you be lying?
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

There is no way you are going to convince me that places like Greece, Morocco, and Columbia have better doctors, better hospitals, better equipment, better results than the US. That is simply not true. The US is the leader in all of those catagories . What we have here is a cost problem, not a care problem. No one in their right mind is going to choose a hospital in Morocco over the Cleveland Clinic.

OK, so on the one hand we have cross-national studies of health care. On the other hand we have your opinion. Somehow you aren't convincing me.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Why? We already have the hybrid car tax credit, which does functionally the same thing.

Exactly, but it does it LEGALLY by rewarding those that DO something, not simply penalizing those that DO NOT. Do you REALLY see NO difference? Fining a company for NOT giving their employees a medical care insurance benefit is FAR different from rewarding those that do, by simply exempting that money from taxation. Surely, even YOU, can see that CLEAR difference. This is a tax on INACTION, a whole new concept, that has NO basis in either federal taxation or commerce powers previously used, or even imagined to exist.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

OK, so on the one hand we have cross-national studies of health care. On the other hand we have your opinion. Somehow you aren't convincing me.

No need to convince you. But hey, let's see those studies you claim that show that "Greece, Morocco, and Columbia have better doctors, better hospitals, better equipment, better results than the US" (what Fletch posted).
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

Well, the World Health Organization seems like a more credible source for that kind of evaluation than some dude on the internet.

What I suspect you're missing is that there is a whole lot more to having high quality health care than how good the best hospitals and doctors and whatnot you have. For example, imagine a country that has the single best doctor, where that doctor has the very best equipment, and the best facilities, but where 99% of the population can't afford him, so they just go to the local medicine man. Does that country have good health care or bad health care?

Accessibility of care is a huge variable in the quality of health care a country has and we get demolished by Morocco on that score. Also, our system is set up to discourage preventative care, which is disastrously stupid of us and has terrible repercussions for the quality of care here overall. Also, think of all the major flaws in our system. The other day I signed up for a doctor's appointment. The earliest appointment they had was FIVE WEEKS from then. Probably like 2/3 of potential reasons somebody would need to visit a doctor wouldn't even last five weeks. Remember house calls? Where the doctor would come to your house when you were sick so you didn't need to like schlep around all over town and or on a bus or subway or whatever feeling like you were about to vomit? We don't have those anymore. We haven't had them for a couple of decades. Same day house calls. Think of what a huge upgrade that would be to the quality of our health care. But in most countries, they still have that.

Living in the US we get used to this notion that everything here is automatically better than anywhere else. Often times, that's true. But it isn't true for health care. Our health care system has been falling apart for decades. It is worse here than it was 25 years ago. Well, countries that were on par with us 25 years ago have continued to progress while we've been sliding backwards, and countries that were 25 years behind us then have now slightly overtaken us.
There is no problem with care in the US. The problem is cost and, thus, coverage.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

IMHO, the following services should be state and locally funded through a combination of the following taxes: income, property, sales, sin, capital gains. The federal government should only require that states support these services for the health of the community.

  • social welfare for the unemployed and homeless
    • food
    • shelter
    • water
    • skills training
  • education through 12 grade, with apprenticeship and vocational training for those unprepared/incapable for college
    • allow vouchers for private education
  • environmental protection and cleanup
  • healthcare for all
    • single payer to the state
    • private enterprise to service, use voucher system
    • all billing between service provider and state/local government. No bills to consumer.
    • electronic medical records
    • no pre-existing condition bull****
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

OK, so on the one hand we have cross-national studies of health care. On the other hand we have your opinion. Somehow you aren't convincing me.
OK then, tell me where a better array of doctors, hospitals, equipment and results can be found than in the US.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Exactly, but it does it LEGALLY by rewarding those that DO something, not simply penalizing those that DO NOT. Do you REALLY see NO difference?

No, they are functionally identical. If you reward someone who does something via the tax code, then you ARE penalizing those that do not. The foregone tax revenue that the government loses by having a tax credit could have been spent on public services, to pay down the debt, or used as an offset to cut taxes in general. Therefore all tax credits are penalizing those who do not receive them.

And do you mean to tell me that you wouldn't be having a tantrum about the individual mandate if it was written as a tax credit for those who DO have insurance (and this was paid for by a general tax increase)? Somehow I doubt it.

Fining a company for NOT giving their employees a medical care insurance benefit is FAR different from rewarding those that do, by simply exempting that money from taxation.

Except it's not. At all. The functional result is exactly the same either way...the taxpayers, the government, the participants, and the non-participants all end with exactly the same amount of money in either scenario.

Surely, even YOU, can see that CLEAR difference. This is a tax on INACTION, a whole new concept, that has NO basis in either federal taxation or commerce powers previously used, or even imagined to exist.

The Supreme Court disagrees with you. :2wave:
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

IMHO, the following services should be state and locally funded through a combination of the following taxes: income, property, sales, sin, capital gains. The federal government should only require that states support these services for the health of the community.

  • social welfare for the unemployed and homeless
    • food
    • shelter
    • water
    • skills training
  • education through 12 grade, with apprenticeship and vocational training for those unprepared/incapable for college
    • allow vouchers for private education
  • environmental protection and cleanup
  • healthcare for all
    • single payer to the state
    • private enterprise to service, use voucher system
    • all billing between service provider and state/local government. No bills to consumer.
    • electronic medical records
    • no pre-existing condition bull****

The principle in play is local/state collective funding for the basic well being of the community.
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2[W:1, 183, 386]

Well, the World Health Organization seems like a more credible source for that kind of evaluation than some dude on the internet.

What I suspect you're missing is that there is a whole lot more to having high quality health care than how good the best hospitals and doctors and whatnot you have. For example, imagine a country that has the single best doctor, where that doctor has the very best equipment, and the best facilities, but where 99% of the population can't afford him, so they just go to the local medicine man. Does that country have good health care or bad health care?

Accessibility of care is a huge variable in the quality of health care a country has and we get demolished by Morocco on that score. Also, our system is set up to discourage preventative care, which is disastrously stupid of us and has terrible repercussions for the quality of care here overall. Also, think of all the major flaws in our system. The other day I signed up for a doctor's appointment. The earliest appointment they had was FIVE WEEKS from then. Probably like 2/3 of potential reasons somebody would need to visit a doctor wouldn't even last five weeks. Remember house calls? Where the doctor would come to your house when you were sick so you didn't need to like schlep around all over town and or on a bus or subway or whatever feeling like you were about to vomit? We don't have those anymore. We haven't had them for a couple of decades. Same day house calls. Think of what a huge upgrade that would be to the quality of our health care. But in most countries, they still have that.

Living in the US we get used to this notion that everything here is automatically better than anywhere else. Often times, that's true. But it isn't true for health care. Our health care system has been falling apart for decades. It is worse here than it was 25 years ago. Well, countries that were on par with us 25 years ago have continued to progress while we've been sliding backwards, and countries that were 25 years behind us then have now slightly overtaken us.

By the same "logic", if a country has 2 doctors for every 1,000,000 people, yet all may queue up to see their doctor for free, then they have "superior" equality and "access" to that medical care. ;-)
 
Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Again, the analogy is a strawman and that's why you wish to rely upon it here. You can make of it whatever you wish to suit your bias - unlike the facts of the matter which you cannot deny.

Look man. I'm trying to simplify it down for you because you seem to be struggling. No need to get snarky if I didn't simplify it down far enough for you to be able to understand it. I guess I overestimated you. Analogies are too tough for you. So, shoot me.

I'll try to dumb it down even more, but frankly, there aren't a lot of levels left that are simpler than analogies to everyday things.

And the president is using the same common palance when talking to the people. That makes it a flat out lie.

Really try to focus hard on this. Obama is using common parlance. The court is not. You follow?

Not true, in fact just the reverse. Only one justice (Ginsberg) believes it should have been authorized under the Commerce Clause. Read the decisions and the dissents.

No, you don't understand. Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan joined Ginsberg's opinion.

So let's apply your metric to the true condition. Are eight of the justices "lying" and just that one "being honest"?

Wow. Ok, you still aren't getting it. It isn't like one answer to the question "does the commerce clause authorize X?" is "true" and the others are "lies"... It's so hard to explain this simply enough that you might understand it without an analogy... That would be like saying that if two olympic figure skating judges gave a particular skater different scores, one of them must be lying....

Your first strawman was rejected, so now you want to try another one? Okay, I'll bite, but let's make it right. If you're still telling people pluto is a planet, even after you found out it's be reclassed as a planetoid, would you be lying?

No I would not be lying. It still is what people think of as a planet. If you referred to the "planet Pluto" nobody would say you were a liar obviously. They might note that you aren't using the term in the astronomically correct way maybe, but certainly nobody would say you were a "liar" lol.
 
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