Supreme Court and the Individual Mandate

Sloop wrote:However, au contraire ... I take issue with what I highlighted in Red. The "duty" of the Supreme Court is to uphold the Constitution -- period. Nothing else. They specifically should NOT engage in legislation, which IMO is exactly what Roberts just did. He created new meaning to the law, and a very obtuse one at that, with his rendition of "tax" -- that currently NOT ONE WORD exists in the 2000+ pages. David Copperfield would be proud.

I just want to be clear that the red highlighted language represents what I understand the Chief Justice to be saying, not my own words, although I agree with him. I think there is a strong consensus among judges and legal scholars that thwarting the will of the people is a grave act, and that in case of doubt laws should always be construed in ways that reconcile them with the constitution, rather than construing them as in conflict with it and thus invalid.

mikewithe wrote: the end is NOT nigh...

Simple math says otherwise

PST wrote:[

Mikewithe has already pointed out that a law very much like what has now been adopted at the federal level is functioning successfully in Massachusetts with no riots.

Maybe so -- but the slowdown in quality health care is already taking root in Massachusetts. 3 to 4 months to get in to see a Primary Care doctor. I can still get in within one week here in Richmond. Just an example -- there are many more to come.

Back in Jan 2011 a National Physicians Survey revealed stark numbers (3 to 1 margin) that doctors said the quality of health care under this new regime would decline dramatically. Another survey done last month by the Doctor/Patient Medical Association moved the number up to 90%, with 83% claiming they will consider QUITTING over this.

Under this atrocious new ObamaCare, doctors will be paid less while asked to do more.
More regulatory committees telling them what they can and cannot do.
More services that are turned down.
More of a struggle to practice medicine.
Doctors are going to have to dramatically increase their patient load because of 32 million more patients.
Estimations are that there will be 160,000 doctors short by 2025, and that doesn't include the huge percentage that are going to quit out of frustration, or at a minimum backing out of the insurances like Medicade or Medicare.

So -- you need to come to grips with the fact that ObamaCare comes with a price that is actually far greater than just financial - the quality of care is going to decline significantly. To deny this fact and at the same time promote Obamacare as somehow being a good thing is pretty remarkable.

One of the good parts of the new law -- access for pre-existing conditions -- could have just as easily been taken care of by legislation that removed the barriers for insurance policies across state lines. There simply is no competition today. Competition is the mothers-milk of success, and ObamaCare takes us in a 180 direction.

mikewithe wrote:
This is an oversimplification. Read on.

Copied directly from http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/constitutional.aspx

Sorry but you have already in your childish fit called me irrational, narrow-minded, and a fool. I therefore choose not to engage in discussions with you any longer.

Have a good life.



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mikewithe wrote:

Ticman wrote:

Sloop wrote: The "duty" of the Supreme Court is to uphold the Constitution -- period.

That fact seems lost these days. The same goes for Congress and the POTUS.

But it's only lost when the decision is one with which you don't agree. It's the same with practically every decision the Supreme Court makes. Some strict-interpretationist somewhere believes we're all going to hell in a handbasket because this law or that law was or wasn't overturned.


For those who think there will be apocalyptic consequences to this ruling, believe me when I say, the end is NOT nigh...

And if Roberts had not used the "it's a tax" to uphold Obamacare you would be the one saying the duty of the Supreme Court is to uphold the Constitution because you would not agree with it. The only reason is survived is the "TAX". It failed on everything else.

And trying to plead Obama's ignorance of the Constitution is pretty sad. Look up where he went to college and what he did when he was there. You really want to go with Obama didn't know what was in the Bill? He didn't know it was a tax? I guess I think he's much smarter than you do.

I have and have had my reservations about this healthcare law - but was greatly relieved that it passed in that its defeat would have had a disasterous effect on what has become the Republican party - currently screwed up by a bunch of extremists, fanatics and thoroughly predjudiced narrow-minded people convinced they have a divine right to cram their views on gay rights, right to life, right to die, etc. on the rest of us..

PST wrote:Mikewithe has already pointed out that a law very much like what has now been adopted at the federal level is functioning successfully in Massachusetts with no riots. I would like to add Switzerland, Germany, and Singapore. The Swiss and Germans I know like their systems very much, but I am more impressed by the opinions of several friends who are U.S. citizens living and working long term in Switzerland, because they have had the opportunity to compare. They a highly enthusiastic about the Swiss system. Like the PPACA, it combines (1) a mandate that all individuals buy insurance, (2) guaranteed issue (no one excluded for pre-existing conditions), (3) community rating (no price discrimination for pre-existing conditions), and (4) subsidies for low income to put insurance within everyone's reach. What is different in these other countries is that the system hasn't been grafted on top of a system of employer-provided health insurance, but there was a natural, conservative reluctance here to scrap everything that came before and start from scratch. There is no rioting in Switzerland, Germany, or Singapore either. It really does astonish me when anyone takes such an apocalyptic view of the consequences of this little healthcare law.

Massachusetts has only had that for some years, the members of the European Union has had this socialized medicine system for decades and look they're struggling to hold each other up. France has YEARLY riots for months at a time, Greece is getting worse month by month and those are just the first ones. It does NOT work and if you were more forward thinking you'd see that decades down the line this will be the worst decision in the history of the United States.

Slinky wrote:I have and have had my reservations about this healthcare law - but was greatly relieved that it passed in that its defeat would have had a disasterous effect on what has become the Republican party - currently screwed up by a bunch of extremists, fanatics and thoroughly predjudiced narrow-minded people convinced they have a divine right to cram their views on gay rights, right to life, right to die, etc. on the rest of us..

Kind of like what the Democrats have become?

mikewithe wrote:For those who think there will be apocalyptic consequences to this ruling, believe me when I say, the end is NOT nigh...

Do you not understand that with that SINGLE ruling that they have forever fundamentally changed the way the US Government can interfere in our lives? They literally can force you to buy ANYTHING they ever want and just with the 'penalty tax' make it Constitutional.

I've read that the French have the best health care system in the industrialized nations. But it seems to be the Indians who are producing the most and best doctors. They have tremendously good healthcare - for those who can afford it - and masses living in squalor untreated for the simplest of illnesses ....

Nope, percentage-wise the Dems seem to have a decent hold on sanity still. I voted for Mitt Romney in Michigan's Republican primary simply because if we end up w/a Republican president this coming election he was the most reasonable choice, the least extreme.

Kerr wrote:There are riots in the streets due to countries going bankrupt, and it will all occur here if this monstrosity is allowed to continue. Stock up on food, water, and weapons to protect your own.

Good luck everyone.

There are riots in the streets of those countries whose governments there have stupidly done what Herbert Hoover tried to do here which threw the US into the Great Depression - that is, they have attempted to repair a slump in the economic cycle with austerity measures instead of government spending to prime the pump of putting people back to work to earn money which they would then spend to purchase goods and services, getting the economy up off its knees. This stupidity on the part of Herbert Hoover continued until FDR's administration which had people who understood simple college economics as to how to restart a recovery.

The selfish congressional morons here in the GOP have been advocating the same austerity fix here!

Paul Krugman, a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, who received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977 and who has taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford and at MIT was the Ford International Professor of Economics, has written extensively on this topic in a series of columns in The New York Times, one of the more recent of which appears at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/opini ... genda.html

and is entitled:

The Austerity Agenda
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 31, 2012

and which begins as follows:

“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity.” So declared John Maynard Keynes 75 years ago, and he was right. Even if you have a long-run deficit problem — and who doesn’t? — slashing spending while the economy is deeply depressed is a self-defeating strategy, because it just deepens the depression.

To anyone who is truly interested in understanding what has been going on here and abroad and how politicians here and there have exacerbated the recession instead of using the classic methods to create a bounce-back effect, I highly recommend reading and studying Krugman's series on dunce-like decision to employ "austerity" measures to try to fix an economic recession.

Best wishes, Nate

NateS wrote:There are riots in the streets of those countries whose governments there have stupidly done what Herbert Hoover tried to do here which threw the US into the Great Depression - that is, they have attempted to repair a slump in the economic cycle with austerity measures instead of government spending to prime the pump of putting people back to work to earn money which they would then spend to purchase goods and services, getting the economy up off its knees. This stupidity on the part of Herbert Hoover continued until FDR's administration which had people who understood simple college economics as to how to restart a recovery.

You mean like those wonderful 'stimulus packages' that have done nothing more than cost hundreds of thousands of each job 'created or saved'? Tell me something, how does a government that gets it's money through taxation hope to pay back the cost of creating those jobs? A fraction of a percent of that is gained back through taxes. A government grows an economy by getting the fuck out of the way of the economy, not be interfering in it! What happens to those jobs when the money runs out? Oops, people back out of jobs because the government CAN NOT CREATE WEALTH. IT IS A FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH THAT GOVERNMENT CAN NOT CREATE WEALTH. Only people do through the sweat of their work!

Justice Ginsburg, laying the problem out in simple A,B,Cs for those content with the ways things are now:

The large number of individuals without health insurance, Congress found, heavily burdens the national health-care market.
See 42 U. S. C. §18091(2). As just noted, the cost of emergency care or
treatment for a seri­ ous illness generally exceeds what an individual
can afford to pay on her own. Unlike markets for most products, however,
the inability to pay for care does not mean that an uninsured individual
will receive no care. Federal and state law, as well as professional
obligations and embedded social norms, require hospitals and physicians to
provide care when it is most needed, regardless of the patient’s ability to pay.

As a consequence, medical-care providers deliver significant amounts
of care to the uninsured for which the providers receive no payment. In
2008, for example, hospitals, physicians, and other health-care professionals
received no compensation for $43 billion worth of the $116 billion in
care they administered to those without insur­ ance. 42 U. S. C.
§18091(2)(F) (2006 ed., Supp. IV).

Health-care providers do not absorb these bad debts. Instead, they raise
their prices, passing along the cost of uncompensated care to those who do pay reliably: the
government and private insurance companies. In response, private
insurers increase their premiums, shifting the cost of the elevated
bills from providers onto those who carry insurance. The net result:
Those with health insurance subsidize the medical care of those
without it. As economists would describe what happens, the uninsured
“free ride” on those who pay for health insurance.

Kerr wrote:

NateS wrote:There are riots in the streets of those countries whose governments there have stupidly done what Herbert Hoover tried to do here which threw the US into the Great Depression - that is, they have attempted to repair a slump in the economic cycle with austerity measures instead of government spending to prime the pump of putting people back to work to earn money which they would then spend to purchase goods and services, getting the economy up off its knees. This stupidity on the part of Herbert Hoover continued until FDR's administration which had people who understood simple college economics as to how to restart a recovery.

You mean like those wonderful 'stimulus packages' that have done nothing more than cost hundreds of thousands of each job 'created or saved'? Tell me something, how does a government that gets it's money through taxation hope to pay back the cost of creating those jobs? A fraction of a percent of that is gained back through taxes. A government grows an economy by getting the fuck out of the way of the economy, not be interfering in it! What happens to those jobs when the money runs out? Oops, people back out of jobs because the government CAN NOT CREATE WEALTH. IT IS A FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH THAT GOVERNMENT CAN NOT CREATE WEALTH. Only people do through the sweat of their work!

You're missing the point. Krugman is talking about public sector jobs.

You do believe in public sector jobs, like police officers, firefighters, public school teachers, etc. etc. don't you?

How about road and infrastructure maintenance and repair? and so on.

I don't believe you read the recommended Krugman articles before replying.

Respectfully, Nate

Paul Krugman, a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, who received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977 and who has taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford and at MIT was the Ford International Professor of Economics, has written extensively on this topic in a series of columns in The New York Times, one of the more recent of which appears at

NateS wrote:
I don't believe you read the recommended Krugman articles before replying.

So you read Krugman and you are convinced that anyone who reads his work will be transformed into a believer?

I have read Krugman for about 20 years and as time goes on and events unfold it can be seen that he is very wrong about many things. Krugman did some decent work on international trade with good explanations about why certain countries excel in production of some products. However, his views on macroeconomics and fiscal policy are refuted by both history and events unfolding today.

You speak of austerity measures not working in Europe. Check out the actual government spending numbers of every western European country. Not a one of them has reduced spending - a few have only reduced the growth rate of spending and that gets called "austerity" by Krugman and most of the media. Of course it is not austerity - the size of their governments is not being reduced. Austerity has not been "tried".

Maybe you are also a fan of Roosevelt - Krugman certainly is. Have you read any economic history to know that Roosevelt only made the depression more severe and longer? If you read the history you will see that the U.S. economy was in bad shape through 1945 and only began to recover in 1946. All the spending that Roosevelt directed and all the spending on the war did not revive the economy. During WWII the country was still in deep recession - very few new houses were built, very few people traveled on vacation, very few new cars were sold, key consumer items were in short supply, and on and on - depression conditions continued through 1945. Government spending and running up debt only prolonged the depression.

What ended the depression? The supply side of the private economy ended the recession, specifically the labor part of the supply side. Labor came home from the war and labor left the factories making products for the war. Once this labor was freed from producing for government, it began to produce for the private side and the economy began a very long period of growth. This is a prime historical example refuting Krugman's theories.

You want people to read Krugman and you think they will then believe what you believe. May I suggest you read some of the plethora of rational criticism of Krugman?