• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Federal appeals court appears skeptical of Obamacare, putting future of law in doubt

ludin said:
not at all, i want unconstitutional laws to be declared unconstitutional like they should be. it has nothing to do with people and their healthcare.
the government over stepped it's bounds and the courts should have ruled that way from the beginning.

the bill did nothing but drive up costs.
Click to expand...

No, this has everything to do with people and their health care. FULL STOP
Does the Constitution matter to republicans ONLY when it serves them and other times the Constitution means nothing at all, just trample all over it.
 
ludin said:
no didn't the majority of signs up are on welfare being supported by working people.
the other issue is that it did not reduce costs. medical costs have been skyrocketing more so premiums since
the law was enacted.

so it was an utter failure of government to control healthcare costs.
Click to expand...

Medical costs and prescription drugs have increased more than 1.6% in the last six months, but that didn't stop Trump from tweeting that the cost of prescription drugs dropped, did it? Whose fault are rising medical and prescription costs? I'll tell you, it's Congress's fault for not passing a bill banning ex-members of Congress from becoming lobbyists for big pharma, the AMA and big oil.
 
HumblePi said:
The ACA did accomplish what it intended.

Fact: The number of uninsured non-elderly Americans decreased from over 44 million in 2013 (the year before the major coverage provisions went into effect) to just below 27 million in 2016. However, in 2017, the number of uninsured people increased by nearly 700,000 people, the first increase since implementation of the ACA

What have the republicans had to offer to replace it? Oh that's right -- nothing at all but repealing it and leaving millions without health care.
Click to expand...

No. The intent of the ACA was, as the title suggests, to make healthcare affordable. The insurance mandate and pre-existing condition coverage was only ever a means to that end. The common argument from healthcare providers (often in court) was that prices are so high because they need to recoup losses incurred from treating the uninsured. So the assumption was that more insured patients would result in a market correction in prices. That never happened. That more people have insurance is a moot point in an environment where the cost of what is being covered - and therefore premiums, deductibles, and other out of pocket costs - has not changed for the better and is no more affordable now than it was before the ACA was passed.
 
HumblePi said:
No, this has everything to do with people and their health care. FULL STOP
Does the Constitution matter to republicans ONLY when it serves them and other times the Constitution means nothing at all, just trample all over it.
Click to expand...

The cynic in me says Roberts will save the gop from itself for the 2020 elections. Roberts and mcconnell both have their ‘long games’. Just as Roberts will do next year with Roe v. Wade, if it makes it that far.

In each case, along with others, Roberts will chip away at the law, but leave it in place to help gop turnout. We wouldn’t have a Roberts nor an Alito without Nader, for those thinking of turd party or staying home.
 
Napoleon said:
No. The intent of the ACA was, as the title suggests, to make healthcare affordable. The insurance mandate and pre-existing condition coverage was only ever a means to that end. The common argument from healthcare providers (often in court) was that prices are so high because they need to recoup losses incurred from treating the uninsured. So the assumption was that more insured patients would result in a market correction in prices. That never happened. That more people have insurance is a moot point in an environment where the cost of what is being covered - and therefore premiums, deductibles, and other out of pocket costs - has not changed for the better and is no more affordable now than it was before the ACA was passed.
Click to expand...

....."to make it affordable for the majority"

Tell me, what's going to replace it if it disappeared tomorrow?
 
HumblePi said:
Medical costs and prescription drugs have increased more than 1.6% in the last six months, but that didn't stop Trump from tweeting that the cost of prescription drugs dropped, did it? Whose fault are rising medical and prescription costs? I'll tell you, it's Congress's fault for not passing a bill banning ex-members of Congress from becoming lobbyists for big pharma, the AMA and big oil.
Click to expand...

This is shaping up as twin boogeymen for 2020, mcconnell and trump.
 
HumblePi said:
....."to make it affordable for the majority"

Tell me, what's going to replace it if it disappeared tomorrow?
Click to expand...

Yes, and it has not done that. What needs to replace it is exercise of Federal walk-in rights, direct manufacturing and sale of drugs by the NIH rather than selling licenses to for-profit industry for beads, and direct price regulation.
 
Napoleon said:
Yes, and it has not done that. What needs to replace it is exercise of Federal walk-in rights, direct manufacturing and sale of drugs by the NIH rather than selling licenses to for-profit industry for beads, and direct price regulation.
Click to expand...

But literally yes, it has done that because there's 20 million Americans that CAN afford insurance whereas prior to 2010, they had none. So yes for those 20 million people, it most certainly was an affordable option. Not only that, but it saved the US government millions if not billions of dollars pay the cost of emergent care that these people were using for their medical needs.
 
Napoleon said:
Yes, and it has not done that. What needs to replace it is exercise of Federal walk-in rights, direct manufacturing and sale of drugs by the NIH rather than selling licenses to for-profit industry for beads, and direct price regulation.
Click to expand...

They need to get these drugs that sit on patent for 10 years off those patents. No pharmaceutical company should have a patent of 10 years then get another for 10 years when that expires. And there should be a open-bid contract for all drugs off patent. These new drugs that pharm companies pay millions of dollars to advertise twenty times a day on TV are those drugs that cost thousands of dollars a month. That's legal robbery. And make a ceiling, one that no drug could ever broach.
 
HumblePi said:
But literally yes, it has done that because there's 20 million Americans that CAN afford insurance whereas prior to 2010, they had non. So yes for those 20 million people, it most certainly was an affordable option. Not only that, but it saved the US government millions if not billions of dollars pay the cost of emergent care that these people were using for their medical needs.
Click to expand...

Again, the purpose of the ACA was not to make insurance affordable for the minority. It was to make healthcare affordable for the majority by reducing the prices of healthcare as a market correction in response to an increase in insured patients. That never happened. It did not make healthcare affordable for anyone. Healthcare is not affordable for those 20 million people either. Only a little less unaffordable. You should know better if for no other reason than the fact that more chose to pay the penalty and remain uninsured than to buy a plan largely because the penalty was still cheaper than the premium.
 
Last edited:
HumblePi said:
[h=1]Federal appeals court appears skeptical of Obamacare, putting future of law in doubt[/h]Federal appeals court appears skeptical of Obamacare, putting future of law in doubt - Los Angeles Times
A panel of federal judges in New Orleans sharply questioned attorneys defending the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday, signaling that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals may throw out at least part of the 2010 law.




That would set the stage for another showdown before the Supreme Court, which has twice in the last decade been called upon to rule on the landmark law, often called Obamacare.




Such a ruling could also prolong uncertainty over the fate of health coverage for tens of millions of Americans who depend on the law for health insurance and other protections, including the ban on insurers denying coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is late-breaking news and it's starting to make me sick to my stomach. Do people understand what this would mean if it goes to the Supreme Court and ruled that provisions in the ACA are unconstitutional?

Healthcare for millions should never be used as political revenge against another political party. This is human life we're talking about here. It would be an end to protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The end of young adults being able to stay on their parents insurance until the age of 26. The end of the regulatory structure of America's health care system that has been built up since the law passed in 2010. Trump has wanted the entire law to be struck down, not just parts of it. The right has been calling 'Medicare for all' as being too radical but the right's intention is something that's more radical in the opposite direction.

The SC has already held up the Constitutionality of the ACA and then Congress went on and tried to appeal it no less than 70 times. The Dept of Justice has a Constitutional duty to defend the law -- the Affordable Care Act. Because they are not doing that, because Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions actually ordered the lawyers at the Dept of Justice to no longer defend the ACA and in fact removed those lawyers from the case. This is a political game, Republicans trying to take away something that was created under Obama. There's 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions and their ability to get insurance in the future will be put at risk.
Click to expand...

Look how Obama screwed this up from day one! It's been a nightmare for so many. Still about 30 million with no insurance.
Many booted off their insurance because of Obamacare. And what happened to if you like your Doctor you can keep your doctor?
If you like your healthcare plan you can keep your health care plan? And the middle class family will save about $2500 a year on
healthcare costs.
 
Napoleon said:
Not exactly and that’s what makes this case so interesting and possibly strategically brilliant on the part of the Republicans. The ACA case taken up by the Supreme Court was specific to the Constitutionality of the individual mandate with the plaintiffs hoping that the entire ACA would be struck down if the individual mandate was judged to be unconstitutional. But what the Supreme Court did was say that the individual mandate falls under the Constitutional authority of Congress to levy taxes and thus the ACA was upheld as Constitutional for that reason alone.

Since then; the Republicans have changed the tax penalty to $0 which effectively eliminates the individual mandate from the equation and will potentially force the Supreme Court to consider other factors in the ACA. The mechanism that lent an air of constitutionality and sat at the core of how the ACA was supposed to work may also prove to be its undoing.
Click to expand...

BINGO..... Game over!
 
Common Sense 1 said:
Look how Obama screwed this up from day one! It's been a nightmare for so many. Still about 30 million with no insurance.
Many booted off their insurance because of Obamacare. And what happened to if you like your Doctor you can keep your doctor?
If you like your healthcare plan you can keep your health care plan? And the middle class family will save about $2500 a year on
healthcare costs.
Click to expand...

Why.... in 9 years... haven't the republicans "fixed it" or come up with their own plan?
 
HumblePi said:
That's entirely irrelevant when speaking of the lives of millions of Americans.
Click to expand...

Lifespans have slightly shortened since ObamaCare.
 
HumblePi said:
Thank God he got all the care he needed. I can't even imagine how many kids born just like him will just have to die for lack of health care. Sure, they will be seen in an emergency room during acute situations but that's not how people should have to live. 'Health care is a right'
Click to expand...

An Emergency Room can only stabilize a person like him. He will not get a transplant from the ER.
He's working his way toward being an eligible candidate. He has to lose another forty or fifty pounds, and he's trying his best.

In December he wound up in the Cardiac Intensive Care at UCLA Hospital for a month.
$186,000 on the invoice. His insurance covered all but a thousand bucks.

He got all the care he needed thanks to the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP)

But his current care and treatment is through an ACA health insurance policy.
It's not cheap but it's a lot cheaper than paying 186 thousand bucks, which we do not have.
 
Napoleon said:
No. The intent of the ACA was, as the title suggests, to make healthcare affordable. The insurance mandate and pre-existing condition coverage was only ever a means to that end. The common argument from healthcare providers (often in court) was that prices are so high because they need to recoup losses incurred from treating the uninsured. So the assumption was that more insured patients would result in a market correction in prices. That never happened.
Click to expand...

That's partly because TWENTY-FOUR STATES flat out REFUSED to participate in Federal Medicaid expansion required by the ACA, and therefore the risk pool never became large enough to drive down costs as much as it would have with nationwide state Medicaid expansion.

The larger the risk pool the lower the costs. Shrink the risk pool and costs don't go down. Cut the risk pool ALMOST IN HALF and costs go up. What a surprise.
Eliminate the public option and the ACA becomes handicapped.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
That's partly because TWENTY-FOUR STATES flat out REFUSED to participate in Federal Medicaid expansion required by the ACA, and therefore the risk pool never became large enough to drive down costs as much as it would have with nationwide state Medicaid expansion.

The larger the risk pool the lower the costs. Shrink the risk pool and costs don't go down. Cut the risk pool ALMOST IN HALF and costs go up. What a surprise.
Eliminate the public option and the ACA becomes handicapped.
Click to expand...

The blue sentence is in my opinion the real problem.

If there is a strong public option, CA should not have a problem if other states decide to participate or not in Federal Medicare Expansion (with some caveats I can explain later). CA's population is larger than the population of most western European countries which have much cheaper healthcare. If Finland can have a much smaller risk pool and cheaper healthcare, the same can happen in principle with CA regardless of how other states act. Now, if we create a situation where residents from states which refuse to participate in a medicaid expansion come in droves to a states like CA to exploit a decision to participate in a Federal Medicaid Expansion there, then I can see how such development can actually harm the states which take the initiative to participate in a Federal Medicare Expansion.
 
pamak said:
The blue sentence is in my opinion the real problem.

If there is a strong public option, CA should not have a problem if other states decide to participate or not in Federal Medicare Expansion (with some caveats I can explain later). CA's population is larger than the population of most western European countries which have much cheaper healthcare. If Finland can have a much smaller risk pool and cheaper healthcare, the same can happen in principle with CA regardless of how other states act. Now, if we create a situation where residents from states which refuse to participate in a medicaid expansion come in droves to a states like CA to exploit a decision to participate in a Federal Medicaid Expansion there, then I can see how such development can actually harm the states which take the initiative to participate in a Federal Medicare Expansion.
Click to expand...

Agreed, which is WHY California recently did the OPPOSITE of what red states are doing. WE STRENGTHENED Medi-Cal (California's name for the state Medicaid program) and we're working on possible ways to implement universal health care.
So there is a slight chance my son will be able to use Medi-Cal if he loses his ACA coverage.

That's part of what we pay higher taxes for and I am more than happy to do it if it means I don't have to bury my son.
If Trump succeeds in privatizing the VA, or doing it enough that the VA begins to fall apart, instead I'll be prematurely burying my wife, because Medi-Cal isn't going to be able to do for disabled veterans what the VA does.
She spent five years running around with the private sector healthcare industry and never got an official diagnosis for any of her problems. The VA had a firm diagnosis for her in six months.

And they have literally SAVED HER LIFE SEVEN TIMES since we've been together.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Agreed, which is WHY California recently did the OPPOSITE of what red states are doing. WE STRENGTHENED Medi-Cal (California's name for the state Medicaid program) and we're working on possible ways to implement universal health care.
So there is a slight chance my son will be able to use Medi-Cal if he loses his ACA coverage.

That's part of what we pay higher taxes for and I am more than happy to do it if it means I don't have to bury my son.
If Trump succeeds in privatizing the VA, or doing it enough that the VA begins to fall apart, instead I'll be prematurely burying my wife, because Medi-Cal isn't going to be able to do for disabled veterans what the VA does.
She spent five years running around with the private sector healthcare industry and never got an official diagnosis for any of her problems. The VA had a firm diagnosis for her in six months.

And they have literally SAVED HER LIFE SEVEN TIMES since we've been together.
Click to expand...

I avoid political predictions since I am not into reading the relevant information required to predict outcomes, but my feeling is that if ACA goes down, it will be temporary since such decision is not going to be based on constitutional grounds (SCOTUS has already decided that ACA is not violating constitutional principles) but will be based on a specific modification of the law which can be easily reversed with the next administration. If ACA becomes an issue in the next election, I think Trump and the republicans will harm themselves seriously. They do not have the capital to endure such cost. I hope things go well with your family.
 
Last edited:
ludin said:
no didn't the majority of signs up are on welfare being supported by working people.
the other issue is that it did not reduce costs. medical costs have been skyrocketing more so premiums since
the law was enacted.

so it was an utter failure of government to control healthcare costs.
Click to expand...
Medical costs were skyrocketing more so before the ACA.

The ACA has or had caps that prevented the insurance companies from raising rates too high and funding for research to lower costs.

I don't see how Republicans think that getting rid of protection for pre-existing conditions is a winning ticket for them.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
That's partly because TWENTY-FOUR STATES flat out REFUSED to participate in Federal Medicaid expansion required by the ACA, and therefore the risk pool never became large enough to drive down costs as much as it would have with nationwide state Medicaid expansion.

The larger the risk pool the lower the costs. Shrink the risk pool and costs don't go down. Cut the risk pool ALMOST IN HALF and costs go up. What a surprise.
Eliminate the public option and the ACA becomes handicapped.
Click to expand...

What you are talking about is the cost of premiums and it’s more nuanced than that. Increasing the size of the pool only works if the majority of new policy holders are healthy and don’t require regular medical care. Especially when nothing is done to directly address the cost of what is being covered. We can surmise that they weren’t when 20 million people were added to the pool, premiums did not drop like a stone, and the excuses and hemming and hawing began that future generations would see the benefits as the population became healthier over time. But again, merely increasing access to a healthcare system that was and still is unaffordable was never the end goal of the ACA.

The logic behind cost reduction through greater population coverage was sound given the excuses provided by the price gougers, but it never took the greed of unregulated capitalism into account. The healthcare and pharmaceutical industry are not going to freely abandon practices that yield obscene profit margins just because some economic theory says it’s the right thing to do.
 
Last edited:
BlueTex said:
The timing is almost perfect for Nov 2020....
Click to expand...

Agree.
And, though this may end up taking out ACA, it might not have the long-term intended outcome that the right hope for. It may just light a fire under the Medicare for all, or single payer.
I don't think people will be jazzed about losing their coverage, and anything new without a pre-existing conditions clause is doomed to failure.
My popcorn is ready.
 
joko104 said:
What percentage of people on ObamaCare vote Republican in your estimation?
Click to expand...

More than in your estimation.
They may not know they are on Obamacare, but that doesn't change the fact.
You have hordes of people out there that think Obamacare and the ACA are two completely different animals.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom