Obama's Healthcare Bill; Are We Doomed?

[Faloestin]

The problem with the healthcare law is that the Federal Government is forcing you to do business with a Private entity because you are alive. They are trying to do this under their ability to govern interstate commerce. It's not actually about whether you should or shouldn't have health insurance its about whether they can force you to buy a product from a private industry.

If this is found constitutional they could then force you to buy other products from other private entities because it is good for interstate commerce. For instance the one that normally gets brought up is the broccoli mandate. Broccoli is good for you and if you purchase it your participating in commerce probably interstate commerce depending on where the farmer grows it. So why cant Congress under the commerce clause force us to buy Broccoli because it is good for us and the purchase helps a farmer which in turns helps commerce to happen.

Before someone brings up Car insurance because that's the example a lot of people use. There are 2 points on it. First point having to buy car insurance is regulated by the States not by the Federal Government and second you aren't forced to have Car insurance (if your state requires it) if you don't own a car. You choose to buy a car and therefor you are then required to have Car insurance.

TLDR: The argument isn't actually about health insurance itself but about Congress' ability to regulate commerce.

Please. Congress' ability to regulate commerce is practically unlimited, unless the Supreme Court decides they're tired of the past 100 years of federalism and completely rethinks their interpretation of the commerce clause in the Constitution.

The way the system is supposed to work is that if Congress does something excessively stupid (like your broccoli consumption mandate), we vote them out of office. The Constitution was never intended to provide clear protection against specific stupidity, which is why you can't find "broccoli" anywhere in the document.

[Duronos]

Well, I'm just sick of Americans complaining about how they think it's wrong for the government to "take" their money which by the way is called taxes yet Americans do not understand the simple fact that they have it well off. If you have ever seen how demanding Americans are it is the most horrific sight ever...

I live down in NC and the amount of conservative people that never think, "Well maybe he might be right", are so abundant. The amount of pride there is in Americans, I honestly think it should be more around if you want to go through a system like the NHS in the UK you can, but if you have insurance and want to pay instead you get that option, GENIUS!!! But you just don't understand how much of a joke America has become since the time it became an actual country and onwards... Bloody Constitution.

[Riidii]

Please. Congress' ability to regulate commerce is practically unlimited, unless the Supreme Court decides they're tired of the past 100 years of federalism and completely rethinks their interpretation of the commerce clause in the Constitution.

The way the system is supposed to work is that if Congress does something excessively stupid (like your broccoli consumption mandate), we vote them out of office. The Constitution was never intended to provide clear protection against specific stupidity, which is why you can't find "broccoli" anywhere in the document.

This bill is creating commerce though, not regulating it. The Supreme Court will strike it down just because of this fact.

[Deleted]

You can have all the incentive you want, and it makes not a bit of difference (unless you'd like to make me a nice offer). But if we have an incentive in somebody's house (we'd like to build a road through it, for example), then we seize the property through eminent domain, boot the owners, pay them what the property's worth, and then build our road.

So when the majority wants to confiscate from the minority, it's okay. Got it.

[Deleted]

People posting from countries other than the US, it is difficult to understand all of the details of this plan but I urge you to consider two things. 1) "Free" public health care is great in theory, but what is being proposed in our country isn't necessarily the same thing already in place in yours. 2) The reason USA has thrived is capitalism and free market, and medicine is one of those markets, what's good for your country may not be good for ours.

I have family members that still live Europe, they come here (US) for medical and dental care. Another friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer, and permanently moved here for treatment. It's my opinion that free market competition has pushed our medicine to greater heights, and will not continue to do so under the policy that Obama is pushing. I would say for every 1 thing I agree with, there are another 3 that i do not.

In short, the bill as it stands is ridiculous and people don't fully understands it (other than politicians and lobbyists), and as many have pointed out has items in it that directly conflict with our nation's constitution (something foreigners seem to think they know more about than our own citizens...).

I'm sorry to hear that u dont want foreigners to contribute to the discussion. Afterall we dont care what happens in the US. Its not like US economy has any effect on the rest of the world. Its not like those people who get a surgery without an insurance is fucking up the US economy, which in turn becomes our economy. Actually we are just stupid foreigners trying to discuss ur current system.
*sarcasm off*

Now I aint saying that this insurance plan is gonna fix the worlds problems, not at all. Cuz it wont. But its a step in the right direction.

Also. Lets say u r in an accident. Wouldnt u rather have the doctors patch u up and then fix the payment after??

[Masark]

The fact of the matter is that drug research is expensive and these drug companies deserve their profits.

Not anywhere near as expensive as you think. Go examine pharmaceutical company income statements sometime. Their marketing budgets dwarf their R&D budgets.

This is the type of fear that the insurance companies love to make money off of. You better increase those limits of liability up to 300k/100k, you could run into someone's $90k BMW!

Increase to 100k? The basic plate insurance here gives $1 million liability and i'd take a decent guess I'm paying less than you are.

[Catta]

So when the majority wants to confiscate from the minority, it's okay. Got it.

Ought to be - or you wont get any highways...

[Faloestin]

This bill is creating commerce though, not regulating it. The Supreme Court will strike it down just because of this fact.

I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction. If by "creating commerce" you mean "affect the healthcare market," then that's a necessary product of every regulation, by definition. In fact, the only reason to regulate is to affect the market - in this case, try to make healthcare more affordable & accessible.

On the other hand, if by "creating commerce" you mean some variant of the nutball libertarian idea that the government shouldn't enter markets as a buyer or seller when private entities could make money conducting the same transaction, then sorry, but the Constitution doesn't include the word "profit" and the Founders would have found the principle of restricting State participation in markets pretty funny.

[Stanton Biston]

The PPACA isn't a tax, it's compulsory commerce with a private business.

It can be, but it can be other things too. All of my examples were different forms of 'taxation' even though strictly speaking not all of them are funded by taxes in the strictest sense of the word.

But the compulsory relationship started when you were born or brought to the US. Without the PPACA, there's still a relationship between every man, woman and child regardless of citizenship and every ER. And it's statutory.

They're creating nothing. Just regulating the existing one.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 10:04 AM ----------

So when the majority wants to confiscate from the minority, it's okay. Got it.

That's how eminent domain works.

[mvaliz]

Obamacare is only the beginning to free healthcare for all americans. You must realize that that the voters would never accept the tax raise free healthcare would cost and thats why it doesn't go "further".

Yeah... goverment-based helthcare will doom America just like it doomed Canada, England, Holland, France, Poland, Germany and Costa Rica.

...oh...wait...

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 05:18 PM ----------

Rubbish - the Open Market gave us the GFC, Government interfered to save the world from it.

The legal system is why you have stopped thriving, every process in the US is seized up with fear of civil suit, or the process of civil suit.

I know someone who has been trying to get an invention to market for a decade now, and he is still tied up in the legal system after countless hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just look at how much money the big players are spending on it.

I find this appropriate coming from a guy who's avatar is a mock-up Ferengi. :P

[Tinykong]

It can be, but it can be other things too. All of my examples were different forms of 'taxation' even though strictly speaking not all of them are funded by taxes in the strictest sense of the word.

But the compulsory relationship started when you were born or brought to the US. Without the PPACA, there's still a relationship between every man, woman and child regardless of citizenship and every ER. And it's statutory.

Not every ER is an DSH facility, don't misinform people. Some hospitals can receive partial government assistance to cover some of their incurred losses, but this is by no means mandatory of or afforded to all hospitals. If I go to the hospital right down the street from where I live, the government does not step in and pay on my behalf, not even in partial amount, I have to pay those bills in full or face the consequences.

The bottom line, is that it is my opinion, as well as the opinion of many others, that the Federal government does not have the authority to compel me to do business with a private organization or face a penalty, and we will have to wait for the ruling from the Supreme Court to say who is right, and who is wrong.

[Stanton Biston]

Not every ER is an DSH facility, don't misinform people. Some hospitals can receive partial government assistance to cover some of their incurred losses, but this is by no means mandatory of or afforded to all hospitals. If I go to the hospital right down the street from where I live, the government does not step in and pay on my behalf, not even in partial amount, I have to pay those bills in full or face the consequences.

The bottom line, is that it is my opinion, as well as the opinion of many others, that the Federal government does not have the authority to compel me to do business with a private organization or face a penalty, and we will have to wait for the ruling from the Supreme Court to say who is right, and who is wrong.

But they can't refuse you emergent services. That's the point, I'm not misinforming anyone about that.

[LurkerOnly]

There's a lot of rhetoric in this thread about "getting insurance for your poor little boy/girl", and I'm certain that it's very applicable to a lot of people.

However, what reason does a 30 year old man in excellent physical condition with no chronic illness or injury, no family history of hereditary illness, and a strong, athletic body, have to purchase insurance? On the off-chance that something expensive might happen? The blatant statistical truth is that you're extremely unlikely to ever spend any money on it, except in the case of an accident. That's how insurance firms make money: people don't actually need insurance the vast, overwhelming majority of the time. It's _insurance_, just in case.

Now, let's say I spend the next 10 years paying a $500 premium per month. At 120 months, that's $60,000. Then, I get struck by a bus (why isn't the guy who drove the bus paying? Oh, because of a loophole that makes it so his insurance company doesn't have to, such as "Why was he in the street to begin with?" making it take 7 years for the hearings to finish processing: believe it, this happens) and break both legs, ends up costing $40,000 or so uninsured. So, I pay my $5,000 surgical deductible for the year (about average in my experience with such a cheap plan, unless you're lucky) bringing my total expenses so far to $65,000. I pay out a deductible of about $250 for prescription drugs before copays kick in. So now, $65,750 accounts paid. I end up taking percs for 3 months, $10 copay on that (yay generic), so $65,780. What about my hospital stay? Well, copays for that can vary. As an example, when my wife was stricken with cholecystitis her copay (after deductibles) for the 2 hours procedure and one night of hospital stay was about $4k. So, using that as an example (just for the copay part) I'll round it down to half that just to keep the figures lower. So now we're up to $69,750 paid out. There's probably other little expenses in there as well, but let's just leave it at that. So, I'll have paid an insurance company $60,000 and the hospital $9,000 to pay for a $40,000 procedure. That's a loss of, oh, $29,000. Assuming I can make the $500 premium, if the hospital was willing to talk finance with me, at the same $500, I could pay the procedure off in 80 months. But, they won't. If I don't pay in a short time-frame (30-90 days, often) they just send it to collections, which screws up my credit (nice to be punished for getting hit by an idiot in a bus), which costs me money in interest payments. So, I lose money either way. Not to mention that as soon as I actually use my insurance, my premiums go up while coverage stays the same.

So, yeah, I've had the privilege of paying someone 60 grand so that they can give me back 40 grand. Maybe. If I get hit by a bus.

What I'm saying is, all the rhetoric about keeping your family safe and whatnot, doesn't apply to a lot of people. My wife and I won't be having children, and my work is done from home anyway, so why would I give someone a ton of money just so they can maybe give it back later? It makes no sense, and no amount of "WHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENS" will cause it to make sense. I've run the numbers for myself, and it turns out that if, in the next 25 years, I have less than $200,000 in medical expenses, it will cost us less to just pay it ourselves (including credit screwjobs from collections) than to insure me for those 25 years. And, the statistical odds (generated using formulas that are given as examples of how insurance companies determine these things) are that I won't have medical bills even close to that.

Which makes insurance, for a person like me, a good way to pay someone else a lot of money with no guarantee of seeing a dime of it ever again. I'm all for people getting life/health insurance when they have families, but not everyone has one, and a lot of that stuff doesn't apply to those people.

[Tinykong]

But they can't refuse you emergent services. That's the point, I'm not misinforming anyone about that.

Sure, but that doesn't automatically mean the government steps in to pay on your behalf, which is what you implied by referring to an already existing compulsory relationship. Furthermore, unless my injuries are life threatening, the hospital can and will turn me away for failure to pay, some of them are even starting to require cash up front before you can even be seen. Nothing about the existing situation is compulsory, except in a few very limited DSH facility situations.

[Brodeo]

The simple fact of the matter is, EVERYONE gets sick or injured eventually. Without exception. Fact.

Not everyone pays for the medical service they receive in the current system.

[LurkerOnly]

The simple fact of the matter is, EVERYONE gets sick or injured eventually. Without exception. Fact.

Not everyone pays for the medical service they receive in the current system.

You're right. What, do you think that money just never gets to the hospitals? Dream on. They go to the feds, the feds pay for it. A lot of it. Not all of it, of course, some of it is absorbed by the private sector. But the feds actually absorb a lot of it.

Combine the amount the fed already absorbs with medicaid and medicare, and you'll find the feds are already footing the bill for a substantial portion of the healthcare industry. Just let them pay for all of it, and tax us to pay for it. I bet the tax will be less than the insurance premiums, and you can always vote for someone that might try to repeal it instead of having to do whatever some corporation decided you have to do and over which you have little control.

Of course, I just typed the word "tax" which seems to translate not into "money the government uses to keep doing stuff like build roads, subsidize public transportation, clean city streets, subsidize public education, etc." but into "THEY STEALZ MY MONEY" so I don't actually expect anyone to change their mind about it.

If people just thought of the U.S. government as a corporation just like any other, but whose CEO's and middle management have to be elected, there'd be a lot less of this confused knee-jerking in this nation.

[Uwibami]

As much as I dislike paying 38% of my pay in taxes, I'd still prefer that over a couple of hundred grand for surgery that I'll most likely need/have at some point in life.

But since I'm a european, my view may be biased as I grew up knowing I'd pay that much.