It’s Not Just the Mandate: ObamaCare’s Other Infringements
ObamaCare supporters were hit with more bad news recently when the Congressional Budget Office announced that the health care law would cost nearly twice the original estimates: $1.76 trillion over ten years rather than $940 billion. Of course, such “unexpected” cost overruns are nothing new for government programs. When Medicare was passed in 1965, it was predicted to cost $12 billion by 1990. In reality, it cost a whopping $110 billion, almost 10 times more than predicted.
But the escalating economic costs of ObamaCare will pale in comparison to the escalating losses of freedom.
The infringement of personal freedom receiving the most attention lately has been the “individual mandate” requiring Americans to purchase health insurance. This issue is at the heart of the current legal challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court. But ObamaCare imposes numerous other mandates and controls, including the following:
- Doctors must purchase and use expensive electronic medical record systems.
- Doctors must electronically record certain patient data such as ethnicity, BMI (body mass index), blood pressure, and smoking status — and turn over patient data to the government upon request.
- Doctors treating Medicare patients must practice according to government “quality” guidelines or face economic penalties.
- Insurance companies must offer numerous “free” benefits, including various preventive health services, birth control, and coverage of “children” up to age 26.
- Insurers may not raise their rates to cover these new expenses unless the government agrees those rate increases are “reasonable.”
- An Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) of unelected bureaucrats will set prices for Medicare services that will lead to de facto rationing.
The administrative costs associated with complying with these regulations will accelerate the trend of doctors leaving traditional private practice. Instead, doctors will increasingly work for large Accountable Care Organizations where they’ll practice according to government protocols, with their compliance monitored by the mandatory electronic medical records.
As Dr. Donald Berwick (President Obama’s former head of Medicare) once noted:
The primary function of regulation in health care, especially as it affects the quality of medical care, is to constrain decentralized, individualized decision making.
In other words, restricting physicians’ freedom to practice is not some “unintended consequence” of ObamaCare, but rather an explicitly desired goal.
Simultaneously, ObamaCare will also squeeze private insurers out of business. In a recent Forbes article, Sally Pipes notes:
ObamaCare effectively forces insurers to pay out more generous benefits but limits their ability to raise the revenue needed to do so. Consequently, many firms will go out of business.
The decline has already started. Aetna has pulled out of the individual insurance market in Colorado and Indiana and out of the small-group market in Michigan. The Iowa-based Principal Financial Group stopped selling health insurance entirely, leaving 840,000 people without coverage. And Unicare has stopped selling policies in Virginia.
Once the private insurance market has been destroyed, Americans will be forced to buy their health insurance on government-run “exchanges” where the government decides which health services should or should not be covered.
As I said right here, months before Nancy Pelosi urged signing the law so we know what’s in in, this piece of legislative afterbirth (Obamacare) is dead on arrival. Obama takes a 6th of our economy and screws it up royally. He’s dumber than a buffoon. More devious than a cat burglar. Greedier than a bank robber. More Marxist than Lenin. The faster we get this communist mole out of office, the faster we can get this country back on the right track. Obama’s every decision has been to weaken America. He’s the domestic terrorist that should be led out of the White House in handcuffs with his fat ass frowning wife waddling behind him. Their poison people wherever freedom and liberty wants to flourish. Traitors, one and all.
I clearly remember Bitch Pelosi– right before Obamanationcare was jammed through– saying she loved numbers, especially the distorted ones she fed the CBO and received back. I wonder how she likes numbers now that the CBO is projecting more realistic ones for this freedom-robbing dictatorial “law” from which she immediately exempted herself, her corrupt cronies, and her friends?
Remember that giant gavel she used to symbolically cram this bill down our throats? I’m having Wile E. Coyote cartoonish daydreams. She too should be lead out of Capitol Hill in handcuffs.
These people are so despicable words fail me.
The Constitution has been a dead letter ever since FDR packed the Supreme Court with his Marxist minions. Year after year, case after case, we have seen the Court deliver opinion after opinion with a steady stream of “emananations and penumbras” that has made a mockery of the rule of law. We now find ourselves in the position of reading chicken entrails or tea leaves to anticipate what the Court will do. Whether the Constitution as written supports Obamacare isn’t even relevant any longer.
FDR didn’t invent the activist Supreme Court, nor was he in any sense a Marxist. I tried to straighten out the differences between social democrats and communists here: http://clarespark.com/2009/12/16/perceptions-of-the-enemy-the-left-looks-at-the-right-and-vice-versa/. Look to Louis Brandeis and other progressive jurists to have modified the original Constitution in the light of an urban-industrial society and its discontents. These were either patricians or their servants, building big government to stop the momentum of servile revolt.
Since my posting yesterday, I have posted a fine blog and conversation between Dr. James Pagano and Roger Froikin, regarding the problems in current health care. See http://clarespark.com/2012/03/29/james-pagano-m-d-on-affordable-care-act/. The material starts with a distinction between health insurance and Medicaid (the latter is welfare, not insurance), and the dire future of patient access to care given the paucity of primary care physicians and specialists alike.
FDR only continued more publicly an anticonstitutional process begun in earnest by Woodrow Wilson who wanted to replace the constitution entirely, a sentiment expressed by our current president. Wilson was the first of the true progressive politicians who’s aim was to do away entirely with the idea that state governments or for that matter private citizens could control the actions of elected politicians and appointed bureaucrats. His purpose was to produce a technocratic tyranny that would produce socialist utopia based on the concept of perfecting mankind.
Sounds like a laudable ambition doesn’t it? Unfortuantely the process has never accomplished anything more that the deaths of millions of innocents who’s only real fault was their desire to be left alone to pursue prosperity and happiness as best they could. Sound familiar?
“Isn’t half a loaf better than none.” This is the kind of wisdom we expect from Ginsberg and her other leftists on the supreme court. It would be funny if it were not pathetic to see how intellectually bankrupt these liberal judges are compared to the likes of Alito Scalia Roberts Kennedy. No Ms Ginsberg half a crap sandwhich is just a wee bit smaller than the full 2700 page crap sandwhich passed by one of the most egregious power grabs in congressional history. A law is a law to the supremes so for them it doesn’t matter HOW the law was passed. But forgive me as a private citizen watching Peolosi say “we have to pass the law to find out what is in it.” Do you think this moron has read this law now. Perhaps the supremes should say “we will only retain those parts of the law where each member of congress can prove under oath that they have READ.” NO I have no sympathy or the other half of this “half baked” pile of crap or the people who passed it. The whole stinking mess should be flushed and IF there is any member of congress with the guts to try this again “go ahead a make my day.” In case the supremes may not know we are sick and tired of congress and we are sick and tired of this president. We want to be free and left alone. Now if the states do not take this opportunity to start to free up health care insurance and mandates and all the other bull crap that they impose on insurers to increase the private sectors ability to compete, well god help them because this attack is not over and if the libs get power again, make no mistake they will try this crap again. All of the above is of course based on the assumption that the supremes actually strke down the mandate. Duh can we count on that yet?
while I agree w/ the thrust of your statement, SCOTUS does NOT have to read the law:
1. Mandate – constitutional or NOT
2. Severability – there IS NO severability clause and there is no way much of the bill CAN be sustainable w/o it
3. medicaid expansion at the state level – COERCED OR NOT
4. Anti-Injunction Act – hysterically on different days that the mandate IS and IS NOT a tax.
“The Canadian government once proposed compelling newly graduated doctors to work in “underserved” regions of the country before allowing them to live and practice where they wished.”
True..sort of. It only applies to the bigoted racist province of Quebec, not the entire country.
In Canada,Quebec in particular all newly graduating doctors are FORCED to work in the boondocks regardless of where they want to work before they are permitted to practice in the larger cosmopolitan area. Many newly graduated doctors flee the province rather than get forced to relocate which results in doctor shortages that are severe.
A typical trip to any emergency room usually ends up with a patient laying in a gurney in a crowded hospital corridor for anywhere between 24 to 36 hours before being attended to. Hopefully you survive, bring a minder with you.
At any of the major hospitals in Montreal it typically takes more than 1 year to get an appointment for a colonoscopy. In some institutions the waiting list is 3 years! Stalagmites could grow in your butt before they get around to you.
To cut costs euthanasia (you read “Death Panels”) is on the table. Whatever terms they try to couch it in it’s still an attempt at legalizing murder of sick elderly who cost too much money to maintain.
My own father was a victim.
Is this coming to a hospital near you?
Socialized medicine at it’s best or worst?
But to be fair I have to say the system did save my bacon on more than one occasion despite catching a post-operative infection in the hospital that although the original problem was dealt with successfully it almost killed me.
We are forbidden to seek and pay for alternate services. You can’t use your own money to save your own life unless you leave the country to seek help elsewhere.
And…we pay the highest taxes anywhere in NA to support this system.
Thank you, Arnold. We are usually bombarded on blogs like this by “Canadians” (we know they are Canadians because they claim to be) who say healthcare up there is great, couldn’t be better.
What is worse in terms of personal freedom, in my opinion, is that Obamacare defines a minimum benefits package that every insurance company must offer and every person must buy. No longer will insurance companies be able to tailor products to the unique needs of we as individuals. From where does the federal government get the power to define what we must buy and from whom? We will all be paying for coverage we don’t or won’t need like abortions, sex changes, psychiatric services, chiropractors, etc. that if we retained the right to define our own plans we would omit. This is an outrage and yet another means of wealth transfer. We will be forcefully subsidizing the risk pool for procedures we would never insure ourselves against. This is no longer “insurance”.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your State Insurance Regulators already define the minimum benefits that must be offered and you already subsidize services that you won’t use. Your insurance company can’t optimize your plan for you, except by adding more items. If you want something similar to the old catastrophic insurance plans then the best you can do is have a very high deductible. But, even then, you’re subsiding all the items in your list.
In the arguments before the Supreme Court we learned that the average premium for a single insurance policy would be about $5,800, yet a young, healthy individual targeted by the mandate consumes about $854 in health services each year. The argument was then made that the “subsidy” goes to the insurance company but it doesn’t, it goes to reduce the premiums of those who consume vast amounts of health services. The same holds true with the minimum required coverages in your State, low consumers of health care subsidize high consumers… which causes low consumers to consume more because they want to get what they’re paying for… which causes rates to increase… which causes more regulation… which causes rates to increase… which causes the minimum required coverage to be expanded to reduce the cost to high consumption members… which causes rates to increase… and it’s an infinite cycle that won’t end until it’s admitted that government charity is theft.
Libertarians have made some proposals that would save very large amounts of money in health care. The first is to repeal prescription laws and drug laws in general as Doctor Ron Paul has suggested many times. Prescription laws create a monopoly over the supply of medicine requiring you to obtain a costly doctor’s prescription before you can purchase the medicine you need. In economic terms, prescription laws create “rent seeking” by medical providers. These laws really only serve to increase the incomes of doctors at the expense of their patients. Another Libertarian proposal is to get the government out of medical regulation. Allow the creation of lower cost hospitals adequate for the needs of most patients while reserving the highest level of medical technology to those who actually need it. Another is to create various levels of medical providers so that those patients with simple problems no longer use up the time of doctors who are treating those who need all of their skills. In effect, Libertarians want to restore the free market’s role in health care and remove that of “government”. There are additional proposals, such as allowing health insurance coverage to be offered by banks and credit unions, but these are the major points. Government health care here in the USA is too expensive!
“We will all be paying for coverage we don’t or won’t need like abortions, sex changes, psychiatric services, chiropractors..”
You forgot the new lib favorite: “food coaches.”
Dear Dr. Bones,
Our old pal Her Son the Millionaire is not to be relied on for mere facts, but what interests me here
is not exactly factual. By Sonny’s own account, our MA’s boys have not voted it yet. Considering how overrun we are with quacks and quack-based profitarianism, I doubt it ever will be. General Coakley has noticed the two-tier payment plan, whereby Mass General gets reimbursed at the Sonny Hsieh or platinum-plated level, and our own humble joint down the street gets only about half as much (I believe it is) for exactly the same procedures. Or possibly for “exactly the same procedures.” Galen knows best.
In any case, if a comparatively small number of Krankenhäuser cannot be kept in line, the chances of ever actually enforcing the above proposed outrage against the True Freedumb of thousands of free-lance (or Petty Biz) M. D.’s are slight. Dr. Poujade is safe enough, I betcha, especially if his bills are as unintelligible as the ones we just opened four of this morning. ¡O happy day!
On the philosophical or critical front, one wonders a little why Sonny does not go the whole hog an’ propose that quackery be dislicensed altogether. ¡Surely Caveat Emptor is a far more reliable blue shield an’ buckler than anything Massachusetts could ever offer! So then, ¿Why not a strict Jeffersonian Wall of Separation of Hospital and State?
Not a hard question, probably. Sonny likes the idea that Gen. Coakley and the gang keep his clients’ competition down to a reasonable level. Like most other Chambermaids of Commerce, Sonny’s devotion to the AEIdeology is a hit-or-miss affair. Though deregulation is indeed fort mauvais compared to demand-side regulation, steps taken by The Wicked State to assist unworthy consumer scum, yet SUPPLY-side regulation–steps, that is, prudently taken to ensure that “highly-trained [pill]cast specialists” are properly recognized an’ incentivatified–is better than either.
Pretty obvious once you think of thinking of it, that one is.
Happy daze.
Damn, looks like the government mandated proctologist got into the wrong end of the Stolen Teleprompter. Again.
Poor thing, first the White House staff feeds it shit, then the proctologist is finding such matter in all the wrong places.
The Stolen Teleprompter is having some distress, as you can see, as its intellectual abilities are being hindered by the good doctor’s instruments.
My own father who is 69 years old and uses the VA Hospital as is his right for serving his country has been told they will not give him an operation he needs because he is 69 years old. Problem is he has been active all his life and just now has had an issue. If the VA will not help a vet, Obamacare will not do anyone of age any better.
Same thing happened to my dad when he was on Medicare. His age at the time of the denial? 66. Yep, he’d been on Medicare less than a year.
to blackelspeaks:
Certainly, our liberties have been in retreat largely in response to FDR’s time as president, but he never packed the Supreme Court. He did, however, threaten to pass legislation which would have increased the nine member court to some other odd number. I think fifteen members was to be the goal. Of course, he would have chosen the six additional justices. This proposed legislation was called “court packing” legislation.
As a result of this threat, the existing Supreme Court, which had repeatedly previously thwarted FDR’s legislative schemes, came around to supporting FDR’s legislative schemes. Playing upon an old knitting saying, “A stitch in time saves nine” someone pointed out that with respect to the newly compliant court, “A switch in time saved nine.”
“Once the private insurance market has been destroyed, Americans will be forced to buy their health insurance on government-run “exchanges” where the government decides which health services should or should not be covered.”
And this is where the death panels will come in. Once people are on the government-run “exchanges,” it will be the government who will determine who will live and who will die, what medication they can get, what operation they can get, what doctors they can see. And THIS is the main issue that should be debated this fall, whether you want the government to control whether you live or die, or if YOU want to maintain some say in that decision. Vote Republican, please, and end this madness.
I agree in large part with Dr. Hsieh. There are, however, some bits & pieces of ObamaCare worth saving, such as the part giving the feds more power to go after Medicare & Medicaid fraud.
James Carville had an interesting point this week. If Obamacare goes down, then the burden of figuring out how to deal with 40 million uninsured; and the burden given to the taxpayer of dealing with those uninsured who have catastrophic illnesses; will fall to the Republicans.
Dr. Hiseh wrote, very well: “As a patient, do you want your doctor to be free to practice according to his best independent judgement for your best medical interests or compelled to practice by government guidelines……..”
I think we all want the first option. Unfortunately, there are those in our society, possessing strong religious views, who would impose, and are imposing, government guidelines upon women seeking abortions. And preventing doctors from practicing in the best interests of their patients.
James Carville had an interesting point this week. If Obamacare goes down, then the burden of figuring out how to deal with 40 million uninsured; and the burden given to the taxpayer of dealing with those uninsured who have catastrophic illnesses; will fall to the Republicans.
That doesn’t sound like an “interesting point”, it sounds like lefty boilerplate. And your punctuation is bizarre.
If the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, this will not magically make it the “burden” of Republicans to solve everyone’s problems. It will simply mean that the Democrats passed an unconstitutional law.
“Lefty boilerplate?” Not hardly. And glad you liked my punctuation. I was hoping you’d notice.
Re JED’s comment about 40 million uninsured, they’re out there (disclosure: I spent 25 years working in a government social services program—which is how I know that Medicaid could safely be cut by at least 25%)
Who are these mythological 40 million people to whom we are repeatedly fed the news that are in desperate need of medical attention? Are their names on a list? Have any of them voluntarily decided not to invest in health insurance? Is this a genuine crisis or just a political need to have enforced charity?
Jed…I love that question…because nobody can answer it…it also changes depending on who is telling the tale….my theory is that if there are 40 million with no insurance 1/2 of them are illegals. The rest are probably in between jobs or the very poor who deserve help. This whole deal is about government intrusion…they will have all your health and financial records in one place and can tell your doctors what care you deserve….it is about social engineering doing as you are told by the government, no salt no sugar, restricted calories, forced gym memberships. If your kids are too fat the gov. will step in and take them to a fat camp…it just goes on and on…OBAMA MUST GO
Well as poll after poll shows. There are lots of individual pieces of the legislation that on there own were popular. But Obama/Pelosi/Reid et al. lumped everything into this hug monstrosity of legislation that no one wants to read and if they did would leave them too confused to know what’s the point of it all. Best thing is to trash the whole thing and direct Congress to go back in there and make concise and specific proposals to take on individual issues one at a time.
Josh, that is way too sane to ever be considered!
Yes, some portions of the bill are worthy and should be enacted as stand alone legislation that can be proposed in a clear and concise manner.
“It’s not just the mandate.”
the whole thing is unconstitutional. Furthermore, even if it is not struck down—which seems almost certain—it must be repealed.
SEIU protesters outside the Supreme Court were paid enough to “do lunch”
(There was an Occupier guy on camera in San Francisco who wasn’t sure why he was there, just knew he’d been paid to show up.)
Tip of the corruption iceberg.
Whether it’s OWS demanding “free” blankets & food or the SEIU handing out “lunch money,” paying protestors is the only way the left can get them to show up.
“There are, however, some bits & pieces of ObamaCare worth saving, such as the part giving the feds more power to go after Medicare & Medicaid fraud.”
Do you really think they are interested in enforcing that part of the law? That there is a snowball’s chance in a hot place that Medicaid will be under any scrutiny? (I bet Medicare would). I guess the DOJ in all its “wisdom” can decide which parts to enforce and whom to prosecute.
It has been estimated that 10% of all payments made by Medicare are for fraud. Part of the reason for this is that there is a great deal of political pressure by lobbyists paid by the AMA not to pay close attention to these sort of things. The same problem, likely even worse, applies to Medicaid.
The solution to this problem is to “encourage” Medicare and Medicaid patients to report incidents of fraud to the proper authorities such as the FBI. Of course this is not likely to be very popular with medical providers simply because the way the laws are set up, it is very “easy” for providers to “pad” the bill and get away with it. Even the private insurance industry has problems with medical fraud, so it isn’t limited to just Medicare and Medicaid.
I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more comment on how Obamacare represents only one arm of what liberals hope will be a political Cannae that will deliver them absolute mastery over all aspects of private life. For all you euchre players, “Health Care” is the right bower complimenting lthe left bower of enviromentalism. Put simply, health care legisltation seeks to control people “internally” by enabling government to micromanage their health dcisions and require them to do things mandated by government under penalty of law. Environmentalism (and “pro-environment legislation”) seeks to control people “externally” by dictating that virtually all private property must be controlled in the name of Mother Earth.
Ask yourself – Is there anything in the world (or at least in the U.S.) that is not “touched” by either health care concerns or issues involving “the environment?” If the Commerce Clause gives govenment the power to force people to engage in unwanted actions in the name of health care then what limitations exist in other areas of life?
This is the great leftist dream – The total and absolute control over…..everything! Of course their motivation is completely pure since they are (as they always tell us) the “best people on earth.” They are therefore obligated to impose their view of life on the rest of us. It is the concept of the “benevolent despot” writ large. It presumes that a benificent elite should make decisions for the rest of us who will then act and think like a well-oiled machine. This is the ultimate leftist Utopia – An elevated class managing a world of sheep.
As I’ve written too many times, the Angelo Codevilla essay in the American Spectator (the ruling class v. the country class) makes the point that the only point of this legislation (or legislation in general, for that matter) is who gets the control.
That’s why nobody needed to read the 2700 page monstrosity. Working details were irrelevant.
Congress needs to consider repeal of the Commerce clause by Constitutional Amendment. Abuse of the commerce clause goes back to FDR and a Supreme Court that “wimped out” when FDR abused the commerce clause back in the 1930′s.
The Battle of Athens was an armed rebellion led by WWII veterans and citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the tyrannical local government in August 1946.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5ut6yPrObw
The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act is merging with Medicare at this time. An emerging stastic which I would like to see is how many medical facilities are no longer accepting Medicare. Who would blame them for not wanting price controls, the regulatory burden (paper work), yielding confidential information to the gov.-net, and having a political appointee in charge of decision making.
First, Dr. Hsieh, I look forward to your articles, which are thought-provoking, informative and on target.
Second, while this article and the commentary focus on the healthcare aspects of ObamaCare, the issue is much more fundamental.
ObamaCare is an unconstitutional power grab that puts the federal government in a position to dictate and control every aspect of our lives.
“Commerce” is being redefined as “coerce.”
Government can and will force every citizen and industry to purchase particular services and goods. At the same time, it can/will force private industry to provide services and goods at prices determined by government, some examples of which are highlighted in the article.
As the birth control brouhaha demonstrates, our government has indicated beyond a shadow of a doubt it is willing to coerce private industry to provide specific products at NO cost to the actual consumer, but at great cost to taxpayers and the rest of the consumer pool.
ObamaCare effectively delivers a death blow to the Constitution, state’s rights, market competiton, capitalism, consent of the governed and individual rights – all in one package.
Very informative article and much appreciated. people tend to see what floats at the top not understanding what is hidden below the law that is of dire consequences as well! Under this bill , many of our freedoms will be taken away from us. Already the IRS is hiring thousands of people in order to go after those who do not follow the rules already laid down under Obamacare! No longer will our privacy be had as far as our medical records go either! the most intrusive bill ever to passed Congress and I pray every day it will be killed by the supreme Court. Much too intrusive!
During the Great Depression, most people had no money. My grandmother had 3 children and paid her doctor in fresh eggs and chickens on account. And the family got by and the doctor got by, and took care of his patients. Medicare started in the 1960s to “fix the problem” of people relying on themselves and each other in a personal way. The governement wants to be the agency of last resort — and to do that, they have to drive you to the last resort. Well, with regards to health care delivery, Obamacare is going to be the last resort: what the medical group will be allowed to charge you and how they will be allowed to treat you will be increasingly controlled by people far removed from the individual, the family and the doctor.
And most people think that government intervention in healthcare is either “Necessary Regulation” or “A Godsend” and that we are all better off. Freedom, in the words of the Washington elite, is outdated.
Unfortunately for all of us, this country is going to get exactly what it deserves.
Personally, I think it is better to assume that Obamacare is a pure tax and not expect to get any benefit from it whatsoever. It means you have to be prepared to pay your doctor directly for medical services you need. I guess until they make paying your doctor for medical services directly a crime.
1. Defeat and over throw Obamacare
2. No free emergency room care for uninsured:
a. Charge them exactly what they charge everyone else
b. setup a payment plan and make pay their own way enen if it’s just $10 a month.
Youre welcome.
Yes, Mr. Hsieh, YES! This is one of the best concatenations of Obamacare Obaminations any of us has ever seen. There is not, and never has been, a single, primary error with B.O.-care. It is an enormous panoply of illegality and economic carnage to come, not merely a “problem” with a mandate to purchase.
Readers interested in many (many) more citations of such illegality and economic carnage are invited to visit Another Slow News Day’s many topically-arranged blog pages devoted to The Horror.
http://anotherslownewsday.wordpress.com/obamacare/
The various sub-topical sites are accessible as branches from ASND’s Update Topics / Barack Obama / Obamacare menu tree.
Unfortunately, the bullet points 1-5 are already a fact and reality in many states. Our nation has and is already moved to accommodate this legislation. I am a healthcare Provider and electronic health records are a reality in most cities and towns wherever Federal dollars are received in any form for the operation of that healthcare facility. Insurance groups have and are already rationing..
What ever happened to our constitutional right to privacy? When liberals wanted women to have free and unfettered access to abortions, they insisted that the constitution guaranteed that medical procedures were “between a woman and her doctor.” Now suddenly my BMI is supposed to be a part of the public record? Over my dead body! I demand my constitutional rights!
I really wish they would expedite their decision on this case. There’s so much as stake, and a lot of things can happen in 2 or 3 months. I wouldn’t be surprised at anything this administration might try. Do Supreme Court Justices have a security detail assigned to each of them?
A couple of thoughts:
1. What is this law’s Achilles heel? The non-elected bureaucrats who run it. A Republican president can replace these and thus alter the implementation of the law. If this law stands, the constant manipulation of the system in this fashion will lead to social and economic chaos. Obama set a very bad precedent with his czars and out of session appointments. I think a constitutional amendment is in order to address this issue. It essentially allows non-elected bureaucrats to create laws via regulation.
2. If Obama care is struck down, I believe we will since a sudden drop in unemployment and an upswing in the economy. This despite high fuel costs. Why? Suddenly 1/6 of the economy will no longer be under threat and uncertainty. Plus small business will also no longer be under threat of future unanticipated costs and regulation. It’ll be interesting how the Dems would try to spin that. I suspect it’ll be too much of a coincidence for even the dullest to ignore. The ACA helped suppress the economy for at least two additional years. If this does indeed happen, I only hope the Republicans are sharp enough to point this out.
Not just Obamacare, but only if Obama and friends are defeated and ousted in November—as well as if the Dems do not gain seats (and hopefully lose) in the House and lose control of the Senate, then we will see an upswing in hiring and the economy.
I do worry about Romney and his dedication to his so-called conservatism, though – and this from an admitted center person- I will step a little left sometimes, but my belief is he is significantly further left. I’m also concerned about the statement that he would replace Obamacare with his version—or what we call Romneycare.
“I do worry about Romney and his dedication to his so-called conservatism, though – and this from an admitted center person- I will step a little left sometimes, but my belief is he is significantly further left. I’m also concerned about the statement that he would replace Obamacare with his version—or what we call Romneycare.”
I don’t THINK so, WaC! I believe once Romney gets into office, his plate will be so full – the economy, high gas prices, Iran, Israel, immigration, ET. Al. – that he won’t have TIME to think about “fixing” health care. It will fall off the immediate radar.
Which begs the question; WHY was aitch so obsessed with getting this passed (When HE didn’t even know what was in it!) over the above issues? See what I’m getting at? The economy was in WORSE shape, OBL was still at large, Iran was thought to be even closer to constructing the bomb and the borders were as porous as ever! Yet, he spent 2 years doing nothing more than politicking obamacare.
Nearest I can figure is, he didn’t know HOW to fix these other things. His community-organizing intellect (Or, lack thereof.) had him working only on those issues he could throw money at. Hence the bailouts, stimulus, AHA etc.
Back to it. Most of the points in this thread have merit. But the paramount issue is that we MUST get rid of this man. On that, I think we can all agree!
Once the private insurance market has been destroyed, Americans will be forced to buy their health insurance on government-run “exchanges” where the government decides which health services should or should not be covered.~~~~
I’m glad to see this in actual print from a source that matters. I said this from the very beginning. There is no doubt what the final goal is in Obamacare, and never was. All anyone had to do was connect the dots.
All of you are missing the forest for the trees. Obamacare is unconstitutional because it violates the 13th(!) Amendment. Never heard of it? It reads like this:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The “individual mandate” is involuntary servitude, plain and simple. It is the first step to turning you, me and all of us into government-owned slaves. It is unconstitutional, totalitarian and evil. I will not live “under” such a tyrannical government. I DEMAND freedom!
What is rarely acknowledged in this debate is the coming tsunami of elderly boomers taking advantage of the ever improving ability of medical sciences to save and extend life. The costs are going to be enormous. All those elderly with assets to spare ought to be left to expend them in their attempts to live better and longer as they see fit. But under Obamacare, these monstrous costs will fall to taxpayers or gov’t borrowing or both and this will depress the economy and opportunities for future generations. Eventually all the boomer heirs will enjoy the unspent assets of their deceased parents. In this bizarre way, Obamacare maintains the status quo, allowing well off families to stay wealthy and the rest of us to stay poor.
The Jurists Are Out On Obamacare
Speculation is ripe on how the United States Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, the ultimate title of what most Americans know as Obamacare.
Signed by President Barack Hussein Obama on June 25th, 2010 after extensive late-night machinations, bribes, and add-ons, the bill was originally titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by the Democrat Senate. It was apparently changed in view of the fact there were few patient protections in the 2700 page monstrosity.
Obamacare is not affordable by either patients or the nation but they had to call it something palatable. It’s not known whether any Dems ever read it before they passed it.
Anyway, nine individuals–six men and three women, (six Roman Catholics, three Jews, no Protestants)–are now empowered to secretly decide the fate of a law which applies to almost everyone in a nation of 313,274,338 souls, comprised of 51% protestants, 25% Catholics, 1.7% Mormons, 1.2% Jews, and 21% of other persuasions including Muslims and atheists.
Without suggesting that either the personal faith or gender of the justices will dictate their decision, the religion of the justices is cited here in light of the legislation’s already-obvious impact on religious beliefs of Catholics and other Christians and the widespread discussion of a presidential candidate’s religion for the first time since 1960.
Gender is relevant because the statistical reality is that far more women seek health care than do men and the new law will directly impact the practice of abortion in the country.
Not all of us are affected by Obamacare, however. It won’t be fully implemented until 2014, by design, long after this year’s election. Millions of “exemptions” have been doled out to favored special interests groups, labor unions etc., which didn’t like the legislation anymore than the rest of us but had the political pull to opt out.
Federal government employees, including the president, his family, and Congress, are also exempted, a fact which says a great deal about Obamacare, none of it good. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=20091.)
A quote from Von Mises. So rare to see the Anti-Christ appear in print. If you quote him, you should join him – in Hell where he was born.
On a personal level, I did not have to have the bill passed to find out what was in it. It’s called reading and I have been bitterly opposed to everything in that peice of …legislation ever since.
I will not comply. I will not be forced to have insurance, I will not willingly allow my privacy to be violated by the inclusion of MY PERSONAL health records in a nation-wide database, and were I a medical student or a doctor I would not comply with the enforced slavery in this… thing.
If that means I will be dragged kicking and screaming into jail, so be it.
My rights are unalienable. That means that neither the Congress nor the executive nor the SCOTUS may force me to give them up. It’s time for We the People to remind those to whom we granted limited authority of that fact.
Quoted from and linked to here:
http://marezilla.com/2012/04/medical-freedom-lyme-disease-and-obamacare/