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What Will SCOTUS Decide About Obamacare?

What in a nutshell will SCOTUS' decision be?


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Why would those be the only choices?

If the healthcare provision calling for "fines" for not having private insurance is ruled unConstitutional, then the plan could be tweaked that, if one doesn't want to buy private insurance, they would have to buy a public policy.

If the SC rules that people can't be required to buy health insurance at all, and cannot be "taxed" for not doing so, then the plan is gutted, in my opinion.

I am against obama care and I am sure the supremes will invalidate it but I will give the Dem's credit for making health care an issue. The cost of health care is absolutely through the roof and the insurance premiums reflect this. Reps need to present an alternative plan that will stop and even reverse the skyrocketing cost of wellness in this country, I haven't see one yet that does anything but nibble around the edges.

The only ONLY way to get a handle on healthcare costs is to establish a $250-$500 minimum deductible for everybody and penalize those who choose to use our emergency rooms as their primary care physician.
 
If the healthcare provision calling for "fines" for not having private insurance is ruled unConstitutional, then the plan could be tweaked that, if one doesn't want to buy private insurance, they would have to buy a public policy.

If the SC rules that people can't be required to buy health insurance at all, and cannot be "taxed" for not doing so, then the plan is gutted, in my opinion.

OK, then it's gutted.

It doesn't pave the way to more government control over health care, though.



The only ONLY way to get a handle on healthcare costs is to establish a $250-$500 minimum deductible for everybody and penalize those who choose to use our emergency rooms as their primary care physician.

There are other ways, like stopping the separation of payment between the customer and the provider.
 
or have a system of government administered national health care insurance removing the private insurance companies from the mix thereby removing the hated right wing objection to being forced to buy a private companies goods.
I favor this, but the end result should be about the same.
I also think that our government can do this with greater efficiency than the profit driven insurance companies.
 
There are other ways, like stopping the separation of payment between the customer and the provider.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. If you're saying that the customer should SEE the bill before insurance pays it, I ask, "What good would that do?" If people don't have skin in the game, they couldn't care less what's being charged.

If it cost a mom $250 to take her child to the emergency room for a cold, that'd stop. If it cost someone $250 to call an ambulance, that'd stop. If it cost someone $250 to have a butterfly bandage put on, that'd stop...three stitches? That'd stop. I could go on . . .
 
or have a system of government administered national health care insurance removing the private insurance companies from the mix thereby removing the hated right wing objection to being forced to buy a private companies goods.
It's not as simple as you make it out to be, the objection is to the federal government being able to force private insurance companies to alter their product line and/or coverage at the governments whim. Forcibly removing the option for a citizen to choose the private option he feels best meets his needs is another step in the wrong direction.
 
I don't know how it will go ... but i'm leaning towards at least the mandate being stricken down in a 5-4 decision.

it will take some major constitutional gymnastics for the mandate to be found constitutional... but it's not like we havent seen those types of gymnastics all throughout SCOTUS's history
 
One place we could start is getting illegals out of our country, they sop up alot of health care dollars. Add to this the fact that the kid they have in our hospitals gets citizenship and are a further cost and the problem is exacerbated. These people are not capable of mandate insurance, they have no money to contribute and are nothing but a huge cost to the rest of us "citizens".
 
earthworm said:
True health care reform must originate from an apolitical group of concerned citizens...a group of doctors, nurses, citizens

Impossible. You cannot be apolitical by nature when policies are being done or undone based on your opinions. Since the medical field has the most dogs in the race, the chance of them remaining neutral on the subject approaches zero.

Or we could go the easy route and copy the Canadian or Australian plan....

Pass. I have an issue with waiting 3-4 months to see a doctor. If I want to see a doctor, I'm going to see a doctor. Waitlists can kiss my ass.
 
Why do you think "private product" and "government product" is a constitutional distinction? That one's pulled from whole cloth.

That is the justification for the plaintiffs arguing to overturn the individual mandate (that, and the assertion that it's not a tax). If it was just an individual mandate for a PUBLIC option, then it would be no different from lots of other things that the government already forces people to participate in, such as social security or selective service or federal income taxes. And since the Supreme Court seems unlikely to completely overturn the last 80 years of legal tradition in this country, the plaintiffs decided to focus on a much narrower case and draw the distinction between forcing people to participate in a public vs private system.
 
Why would those be the only choices?

Because you cannot have a health care system where 1) people aren't required to buy health insurance, 2) insurers aren't allowed to discriminate based on preexisting conditions or genetic conditions, and 3) costs don't spiral out of control. At most, you can have two of the three. The reason costs would spiral out of control under such a system is that healthy people will buy less health insurance and unhealthy people will buy more. This will cause insurance costs to increase, which will lead to a further exodus of healthy people from the market. In the end, only the sickest of the sick would be insured, and insurance would be unaffordable for nearly everyone.

The only ways to prevent this are either to require everyone to buy health insurance, or to allow insurers to discriminate based on preexisting/genetic conditions. The latter option is politically untenable since it would now involve actively CHANGING the law to allow that (as opposed to the pre-ACA system where simple inertia kept it around). So that leaves us with requiring everyone to buy insurance. And if the Supreme Court were to rule that you can't do that for private insurers, the only remaining policy solution is to do it for a public insurer.
 
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Because you cannot have a health care system where 1) people aren't required to buy health insurance, 2) insurers aren't allowed to discriminate based on preexisting conditions or genetic conditions, and 3) costs don't spiral out of control.

Sure you can. We had one for quite a long time.

If you eliminate third-party payers (including a government single-payer) for all but catastrophic care, costs will drop.

There's nothing written in stone that there MUST be health insurance.
 
Sure you can. We had one for quite a long time.

Not really. We chose to forgo Options #2 and #3 for a long time. Insurers WERE allowed to discriminate based on preexisting conditions (prior to the ACA) and genetic conditions (prior to 1998), which kept sick people out of the market. Furthermore, our costs WERE spiraling out of control, that's why Americans pay more than twice as much per capita as anyone else in the world for their health care.

If you eliminate third-party payers (including a government single-payer) for all but catastrophic care, costs will drop.

I would support transitioning to a more catastrophic coverage system. But many of the same people who are now arguing that the individual mandate is unconstitutional would be screaming bloody murder if the government tried to eliminate the entire non-catastrophic health insurance industry.

There's nothing written in stone that there MUST be health insurance.

There at least needs to be catastrophic health insurance for everyone, or else a lot of the same problems with our current system will still exist.
 
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It's not as simple as you make it out to be, the objection is to the federal government being able to force private insurance companies to alter their product line and/or coverage at the governments whim. Forcibly removing the option for a citizen to choose the private option he feels best meets his needs is another step in the wrong direction.

You cannot have it both ways and have a system of health insurance that works for the entire nation.

Get rid of the private companies who add a profit percentage without providing anything in return in terms of service of product.
 
You cannot have it both ways and have a system of health insurance that works for the entire nation.

Get rid of the private companies who add a profit percentage without providing anything in return in terms of service of product.

The sad part is a company can do something and make a profit at a lower cost and higher efficiency level than government can do and lose money in the process.
 
You cannot have it both ways and have a system of health insurance that works for the entire nation.

Get rid of the private companies who add a profit percentage without providing anything in return in terms of service of product.


no thanks, I don't want socialism
 
I would hope, that they will strike it down in whole, but that's unlikely to happen.
The Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land, if it were, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The health care law is poorly designed, gives to much power to the executive branch and plainly, shouldn't exist.
 
I am against obama care and I am sure the supremes will invalidate it but I will give the Dem's credit for making health care an issue. The cost of health care is absolutely through the roof and the insurance premiums reflect this. Reps need to present an alternative plan that will stop and even reverse the skyrocketing cost of wellness in this country, I haven't see one yet that does anything but nibble around the edges.

By Introducing Market Based Reforms, Republican Governor Mitch Daniels LOWERED Costs By 11%

By Introducing Market Based Reform, Medicare Part D Has Come In 42% Under Projected Costs Due To Holding Down Price Inflation

capretta_piece_graphic.jpg


Ryan's proposed Medicare reform bill basically puts the entire program on a similar basis.
 

I don't know much about Mitch Daniels' reforms, but Medicare Part D has come in below projected costs due to one factor: A dearth of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry for the last few years. The projected costs were made based on assumptions that new-and-improved drugs were in the pipeline to replace drugs whose patents would soon expire. That didn't turn out to be the case...a lot of the new-and-improved drugs turned out to be flops, and the patents for older drugs expired. Medicare Part D came in below costs primarily because patients started using generic drugs to a much greater degree than was originally projected.

Although the slowdown in pharmaceutical innovation in the last few years isn't the fault of Medicare Part D, it's not necessarily something to celebrate.
 
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