Republican judges are on their way to killing the health care reform bill.
That didn’t take long, did it?
by DougJ| 108 Comments
This post is in: We Are All Mayans Now
Republican judges are on their way to killing the health care reform bill.
That didn’t take long, did it?
Comments are closed.
Elizabelle
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the Supremes. (Yeah, is a scary proposition.)
GOP stacked the deck with their guys and Obama can’t even get his nominees heard from.
ChrisS
Uh, Harry Reid!
andy
Does this spell the end of Selective Service and FICA and Income taxes too?
ChrisWWW
If only John Cole had used the bully pulpit.
ericblair
Interestingly enough, he struck down the mandate while letting the rest of the law stand, even though there was no severability clause. If this holds up through an appeal, it’s the insurance companies who are going to be crapping their diapers and leaning on the courts to let the mandate stand. I don’t think this is what Koo-Koo-Cuccinelli was going for.
SFAW
They’re only “activist” if their ruling(s) go against right-wing principles. If they’re upholding right-wing principles, then they’re just sticking to the Constitution. (As in, the pre-“Constitution-in-Exile” edition of it.)
EVERYBODY knows that.
The Moar You Know
It’s not “activism” if you’re Defending The White People’s Constitution, or something like that.
In all seriousness, this is great news. The firebaggers and teatards win, and can pay for their hospital bills and insurance premiums in Outrage Bucks.
The rest of us, as the soon-to-be-missed Alan Grayson said so eloquently, can “die quickly.”
beltane
I hate to say it, but this was predicted by the DFHs during the whole nasty health care debate. It seems that everything has unraveled this past week, and it’s only 1:30 pm on a Monday, too early to drink oneself into a stupor.
El Cid
One of the things I don’t understand is why you couldn’t do exactly the same thing as a “mandate” but as a tax for which those enrolling in insurance get tax credit?
Is this a difference in wording from a “mandate” which is significant, a different procedure?
Or would it all be viewed the same?
(Reposted from the War On Christmas thread.)
Elizabelle
Other readers know better, but I’m not sure Henry Hudson is considered that “activist.”
He may just be ruling on what Ken “Crazy Jerk” Cuccinelli threw before him. Cuccinelli is dreadful.
Anybody know?
jharp
Fine. Let the kill the mandate.
I’ll just wait until I get sick to buy insurance.
The “no longer being able to deny coverage due to pre exiting conditions” still stands.
I’m going to buy the same insurance that covers John Boehner, after I get sick.
ChrisWWW
@El Cid:
Because in order to
masturbateget to a good CBO score, that would require raising taxes. Which, as we all know, is unpossible.Brachiator
Golly, gee, partisanship on the part of judges. I particularly found this little nugget from the NYT article illuminating:
The only good thing is that the Administration appears to have anticipated some of these judicial challenges.
The Grand Panjandrum
I guess death panels exist after all. Who knew it was the federal judiciary?
jrg
Good lord, will the GOP “we want free shit” parade ever wake up? Do they not understand that having everyone pay into the system is a requirement for keeping costs under control?
I cannot think of a better mascot for the “conservative” movement than the teabagger that was carrying around a “keep the government out of my Medicare” poster.
We really do deserve to go broke, as a country. There is no other way our idiot populace will catch on to basic concepts like “cost”.
Dave
@ericblair: I’ve seen this mentioned as well. If only the mandate goes down, that would mean the rest stays intact but that people could buy in when they felt like it, right?
BChang
I hope this is not a stupid question…but I have never understood the GOPers/TeaPartiers who say “It’s my freedom not to have health insurance.” What do they plan to do when they (or one of their children) are sick or injured? Go to an emergency room–so everyone else pays the bill?
Seriously, I feel like I’m missing something in this debate..what do these people expect to do for medical care?
Martin
Insurers are going to freak out if this makes it to SCOTUS. Without a mandate, there’s only one outcome, via two paths:
1) Insurers, lacking the ability to drop policyholders due to other ACA requirements that are constitutional, and state requirements against discrimination, raising premiums excessively, etc. will steadily go bankrupt without the requirement that generally healthy people willing to take the risk on their health pay into the system. As the insurers go out of business, states will be forced to implement single-payer systems.
2) If the mandate is ruled unconstitutional and Dems have the Congressional authority to do so, they’ll have to plug the mandate hole with single payer in order to keep Medicare costs in line. If the GOP is in control, they won’t bother and will watch the whole mess spiral out of control until the scenario above plays out.
Either way, single payer is the only outcome. The mandate was the only solution to keeping the insurance industry in business without dumping increasing amounts of taxpayer money into Medicare.
change
Forcing the government to follow the strict letter of the Constitution is not “activism”.
Any fair-minded person can see that the mandate is clearly uconstitutional.
Southern Beale
I haven’t read the opinion and I’m not a lawyer so I’m not gonna say doing so would do much good but it seems to me, legally speaking, that it is indeed unconstitutional to mandate that citizens buy a product from private companies. And that perhaps having a public option would have provided the legal basis needed to establish the mandate’s constitutionality.
Just my .02.
Violet
I heard an interesting commercial on the radio today. It was an ad for some kind of senior Medicare-related health insurance. What did the nice senior-sounding lady in the commercial say to her radio-voiced-husband? She said, “The new health care law has closed the doughnut hole for brand-name prescription medications!”
What radio station was this heard on? The station that plays Glenn Beck followed by Rush Limbaugh. Yep. They were aiming at those wingnut IGMFY seniors who haaaaaaate the new health care law until it helps them.
If this judge succeeds in overturning the new law, it sure would be nice if somehow the Democrats could let people know it’s the Republicans who screwed them over. Of course pigs will fly first, etc.
kay
@Elizabelle:
I haven’t read it, I don’t have time to now, I have to work, but I will say the Times article DougJ linked to is excellent, IMO
Just the facts, along with the political motivations of each side. It’s a great little primer on the legal issues and the (basic) political maneuvering.
I like the prominent mention of how the AG in Virginia is blatantly politicking, because, ya know, it’s true.
change
A single-payer system is also clearly unconstitutional.
Lolis
Well Scalia has already laughed at Republicans over this, saying the individual mandate is legal. We have nothing to worry about.
Kryptik
My nightmare scenario coming from all this: the mandate remains struck down, insurance companies go code blue and lobby the new Congress, and we get emergency sessions to strike out most everything out of the ACA while giving plum subsidies to the insurance companies, all to ensure that ‘we still have health care’ while conveniently cutting out the ‘leeches’ like those with pre-existing conditions or the poor. Hell, maybe use this opportunity to dismantle the sacred cows of Medicare and Medicaid, since obviously they’re all to blame as well. And we end up worse off than where we started, but that’s ok, because the Constitution (and Tea Partiers) PREVAILS!!!
Then again, I’m an optimistic fucking ball of sunshine these days.
Peter
@change:
@change:
Wow, you’re a blast from the troll past.
kay
@change:
Nah. It’s activism. Conservatives have been gunning for the Commerce Clause for a long time. It’s the basis of nearly all federal regulation, not to mention civil rights. Without the reach of the commerce clause, we’re all Mississippi. Yay! It’s a race to the bottom, which is what they want.
This is a bigger battle than health care.
beltane
@Kryptik: The teabaggers will finally take the government out of their Medicare. Maybe someone will come along to repossess their scooters.
cintibud
@Martin:
#3 – Congress hears the outraged cries of
big insurancethe people and repeals the law which is signed by President Palin.Lev
Insurance companies have nobody to blame but themselves for this. They funded Republicans 7-to-1 in this past election when they were all running on this crap. I guess they figured that they would own all these Tea Party idiots and get them to pipe down. Serves those cynical assholes right.
I’m not terribly worried about this. I remember reading an Ezra Klein post about how there’s a bunch of other things they can put in there instead of a mandate.
SP
“the ruling is likely to create confusion among the public”
Clearly Congressional Republicans will oppose this ruling because it creates Uncertainty, the evil bane of the economy.
The Grand Panjandrum
@El Cid: Actually that is the way the law was written so I imagine this ruling won’t go far. I’m not an attorney so I could very well be mistaken. Maybe Kay (or any of the attorneys in the commentariat) could weigh in and give us an opinion.
Martin
@El Cid:
The problem with that is nobody will legislatively go for a tax with no defined destination. The only possible destination now would be Medicare, which would be fine, but the GOP will do a massive freak-out over that solution because once you have the tax/credit situation in place, you have everything you need for single payer with a private option (basically Medicare for all with Part C for all). Once the Dems get a tax/credit on the books, it’s game over for the private insurance market.
Alex
@change:
A mandate is as unconstitutional as the federal government forcing private businesses to serve customers without regards to race.
It’s at around the same level and tied in with the same clauses and rulings.
4tehlulz
@Alex: I doubt that change would think that’s a problem.
Martin
@change: Like Medicare has been for the last 45 years.
Idiot.
Kryptik
@beltane:
And they’ll still blame the evil evil gubmint when it happens, and wonders when Wellpoint, in all their grace and mercy, will rescue them.
Sentient Puddle
@kay:
Huh, that’s actually news to me. Does sort of make sense, but the individual mandate is the only thing in my memory where they tried to fight the scope of the clause.
Doesn’t make their attempts any less moronic, of course.
Davis X. Machina
@El Cid:Let’s play Jeopardy
A. A purchase that Congress finds worth encouraging, and that gains its purchaser a tax advantage, a tax advantage withheld from those who do not make such a purchase….
Q. What is a thirty-year fixed mortgage from Wells Fargo?
Q. What is an ACA-compliant health insurance policy from Aetna, or Anthem/Wellpoint?
Martin
@cintibud: Yeah, that’ll lead to the same outcome. I’d say there’s a better than 50% chance that California will adopt single-payer in the next 2 years. Not because of ACA or anything else, but ultimately it’s the only path to getting costs contained, and health care costs are a big part of the state budget problem – and CA has the most robust competition for health insurance in the nation. Competition hasn’t helped.
Legalize
@change:
Oh dear. You mean Medicare is unconstitutional, and has been since its inception. You and your Teabagging Patriots comrades must rectify this wrong and scream from the hill tops about this.
Legalize
@Sentient Puddle:
They’ve been fighting the scope of the CC since the 50s. Most effectively under the Rhenquist Court.
Peter
That’s exactly how they did do it.
Which means the home mortgage deduction has also been declared unconstitutional.
martha
@Martin: Ah, I love the smell of blowback in the morning…be careful what you ask for little republican activists! From your keyboard to our collective (gasp!) pocketbooks…
DougJ
@change:
Win. Anything with the words “any fair-minded…” is pure parody win.
Napoleon
@El Cid:
That is what they did – read the summary of what the judge held. He twist himself in knots denying it really is a tax.
WyldPirate
My prediction. HCR never goes fully into effect. What has gone into effect so far will be repealed when the Rethugs take over both the Senate and the White House in 2012.
SFAW
That bunch of liberals? What do they know about the Constitution? With Nino calling the shots, the right-thinking Roberts Court will fix things, you betcha!
Martin
@Sentient Puddle: Commerce clause is the single greatest threat to ‘states rights’ arguments, and federal courts have consistently expanded its reach. It was used to extend the power to regulate drugs, which the GOP likes, but the GOP knows that the very same argument would apply to firearm sales – with loose regulation in Virginia creating problems in NY.
The whole high-speed rail is going to eventually come to a head in the commerce clause if states like CA or IL can get rail to the state border but not beyond. Fighting the commerce clause in an era of global trade is fucking moronic, and yet, there the GOP is, dutifully protecting the south from northern healthcare aggression once again…
Ross Hershberger
I used to work in health insurance rating. Our rates had to be ratified individually by all of the states were we did business. If a state decided that the rates weren’t high enough to cover expected claims plus administration, they would kick them back and not approve.
I doubt that insurance companies would be allowed to go out of business. A few that couldn’t bring in enough new business with the high rates they would have to charge from all of the sick people stuck on their books would be eased into a merger or takeover by a healthier company.
Insurance companies going bankrupt would be a fatal shock to the industry, and would not be allowed to happen.
martha
@Martin:
Um, the GOP is fucking moronic. Or at least their “base,” which is about 78% of the party. ;)
Valdivia--phone
Have a friend who teaches Con Law at Ann Arbor and is always solid prognosticating this stuff. I asked his thoughts on ghe ruling and the implications. Will post when I get an answer.
jwb
@ericblair: Yup, and even if the whole thing gets gutted that puts us back where we were before HCR, with companies shedding their employee health care plans and no one able to afford insurance on their own, which will end up fucking over both the insurance industry and the health care industry. I really don’t think either industry fully gets just how vulnerable they are to the collapse of the benefits system. Of course, we, the people are going to get fucked even harder as more and more of us will be going without health care insurance until enough of us pay attention to get congress to solve the problem—maybe in fifty years time…
Ross Hershberger
I just spoke to a friend from Blue Cross/Bule Shield MI.
They don’t care. For them, HCR was a net win. They’re the insurer of last resort in MI, allowed to pretty much run their own business but they cannot deny anyone coverage. This put them at a disadvantage in terms of rating because of adverse selection. The HCR laws leveled the playing field for them.
WyldPirate
@Martin:
This argument falls apart if a Rethug House, Senate and President repeal the other parts of HCR. That’s their stated goal.
Martin
@Ross Hershberger: I agree, but I think you’re a bit behind the action here. The insurance companies are already losing their customer base. They’re in the death spiral – forced to extract more revenue from a declining customer base. They’re going out of business now – and collectively have been for several years (the merger action reinforces this). They’ve been relying on favorable tax policy for employers and adequate income for individuals to hang on, but the recession and deficit have killed the future of both of those.
The mandate *is* the ‘they can’t be allowed to go out of business’ mechanism. How else do they keep the insurers alive? Government has no other tools at their disposal, and the GOP is taking that last remaining tool away.
That’s why the insurers were willing to give up so much to Obama early on. In exchange for help lowering health care costs which is killing the government entitlement plans, he would structure a plan that would allow the insurers to survive with lower profitability. This is the survival plan. Without it or some national regulation on care providers to bring costs in line – something that Congress could never make happen, the insurers are dead. They can hold on for some time, but none of them can escape what their balance sheets are showing. Kill the mandate, and the insurers are certain to die off. The states have neither the money nor the authority to save them. All they can do is switch to single payer when the situation in-state becomes untenable for the public.
Edward G. Talbot
quick follow-up based on some of the comments at the GOS – one thing SCOTUS could do is decide that this judge’s ruling on severability was wrong and because the bill doesn’t contain a severability clause, SCOTUS will assume congress wouldn’t have passed this bill with one and thus will decide that it is not severable.
I don’t have any idea how much SCOTUS generally considers this kind of thing when they consider severability. Which might send the whole thing down the toilet. And of course it’s just a coincidence that the House version was severable but the Senate wasn’t.
Good times, good times.
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: Why yes, any legislation ends if a new legislature repeals it and a new president signs the law repealing it.
Hawes
I’m still confused about the severality issue. I’ve heard he did and did not sever the mandate from the rest of the bill.
And that’s really the kicker. As Atul Gawande has pointed out, there’s a TON of really interesting stuff in HCR that has the potential to contain costs and improve care. Pilot programs, seed money, clinic funding. I REALLY don’t want to lose that stuff.
The mandate doesn’t mean shit to me, because I have insurance and probably will always have it, given my employer. The subsidies for low income purchasers are great, too.
But the mandate? That’s for the insurance companies.
It will be interesting watching the corporatist wing of the GOP try and talk the Confederate wing of the GOP out of killing the mandate. (If we presume the Confederate wing is really all about original intent and state’s rights.)
I would imagine a lot of lobbyists have heated up their speed dials.
Hmm, what a conflict for Clarence Thomas… His hatred of government or his love of big business.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
According to Steve Benen’s current top post (washington monthly), the history this year appears to be that of a law that will be upheld.
In any case, it certainly should be, since the idea of people “opting out” from health insurance is no less irresponsible than opting out from car insurance, or from Social Security. It’s just semantics they are fighting over. And no, the comparison to car insurance only being necessary if you want to drive a car is not apt…. everyone has to get healthcare, or else become a ward of the state, or else die and leave their obligations to the rest of us. The whole idea of opting out is just bullshit.
As for repeal, that is clearly not even a remote possibility. Congress will not pass repeal, and the president will not sign it if they do. By three years from now, it would be nearly impossible to unravel the law from the system and undesirable even if it were feasable. The Republicans know that talk of repeal is just empty rhetoric.
Ross Hershberger
@Martin:
I should have been more clear. People have been talking about the weaker insurers getting into trouble and failing. Insurance companies have always ‘failed’ but the regulators manage to engineer continued coverage for the customers and to cover up the company’s problems while it’s eased into a takeover so as not to alarm people. If it ever got to the point that insurance companies had to just stop paying claims and unplug their phones there would be a major panic. We’re now closer to that point than ever before, and it’s just going to get worse.
jwb
@WyldPirate: But people will hate repeal of HCR, too. That’s the one universal about HCR: it sucks, as it is the very definition of a bad set of choices, meaning that any change will adversely affect a significant number of people. And the old system was broken and nearing the point of collapse: it’s the unsustainability of the benefits system that is going to bring everything to a head if there is any backtracking on HCR. I really think there’s no going back, and, if we didn’t have to suffer through the next fifty years as this gets worked out, it would be amusing watching the goopers tie themselves into knots over this.
Hawes
@Martin: Ooooooooh Eleven Dimensional Chess!
Obama passed a HCR bill that will secretly drive the health insurance business into oblivion and pave the way for universal single payer!
Someone tell Jane Hamsher!
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
@WyldPirate:
They have a lot of stated goals that depend largely on magical thinking. I think another of their stated goals is to be raptured, leaving the liberal malefactors behind to their eternal doom. I suppose you are calculating the odds of that , too?
Martin
@WyldPirate: Doesn’t change the situation at all, it actually speeds it up. The more out-of-whack the healthcare market gets, the more pressure falls on states to go the route of MA and HI.
California has twice passed single-payer, and twice it was vetoed by Arnold. With more Dems in the legislature now and a Dem governor, there’s a strong chance it’ll pass. Brown is fairly unpredictable with things like this, but a huge part of our state structural budget deficit is health care related.
ACA probably would have the same effect, and waiting for it to work would be a sound policy for the state, but if its uncertain whether it’ll become law, then I suspect single-payer here will sail through. With 1/8th of the nation taken out of the insurance rolls, it just makes the situation for the remaining national carriers that much worse. They need to lose the small states and keep the big ones, not the other way around.
Joseph Nobles
@Lolis: Adam Serwer points to language by Hudson that purports to give Scalia an out:
harokin
It can’t be stressed enough what a dream-come-true this decision is for the Federalist Society that wants to see the commerce clause returned to pre-1935 levels. Long-term, even the fate of ACA pales compared to what will happen when the Supreme Court adopts/extends this opinion.
This is a major part of their long game. Ezra’s dependably mockable silver-lining posts are missing the big picture.
Ailuridae
@Martin:
I’d say much better than a 50% chance.
NR
@Martin:
Which raises the question of why Obama and the Democrats fought so hard for it.
Joseph Nobles
@Hawes: Naw, she just tweeted that the lame duck still has time to allow health insurance companies to charge back premiums for not buying health insurance when you’re well, something even more regressive than individual mandates.
Martin
@Hawes: No, just plain 2 dimensional chess. Seriously, this shit isn’t that complicated. The health care market can be divided into two groups: payers and providers. Insurers are in the payer category (HMOs are generally in both).
From the government’s perspective, they selfishly don’t really give much of a fuck about insurers. They care about their own bills, which is Medicare/Medicaid, and they’re getting fucked on those costs. That’s what they’re trying to fix first and foremost.
So, the plan was to get the payers all working together – that’s Medicare + the insurers + the market effect from regular consumers. Since the insurers are struggling, getting them on board was fairly easy (until the death panels combined with the left losing their shit). If the mandate + reform worked, the insurers survive within a reasonable regulatory structure and costs come down also saving Medicare. If the mandate + reform doesn’t work, the insurers will still blow up and a single-payer or single-payer by way of public option gets introduced to take the place of the lost insurers.
Since the insurers are NOT exacerbating the entitlement cost problem, and because they can actually help it through the mandate by shifting costs out of Medicare, it’s a perfectly reasonable and progressive solution. If it fails, it degrades into other progressive solutions. The GOP is trying to kill off the most market-friendly of the progressive solutions out of the same sort of idiotic ideological purity that caused the left to try and kill it off.
The Moar You Know
@WyldPirate: I’ve generally been in agreement with you here over Obama’s less-than-stellar performance and the dismal performance of Democrats in general, but now you’re just blatantly trolling to no good purpose.
A bridge too far, my man. A good troll knows when to dial it back. Lurk moar.
kay
@Sentient Puddle:
Conservatives want to limit the scope of the commerce clause because the commerce clause makes the modern welfare-regulatory state possible.
It’s why I want to bash my head against my desk when I hear liberals echoing the argument, on federal law they don’t happen to like.
Oppose this federal law (the mandate) if you want. But for God’s sake don’t join conservatives and libertarians in attacking the authority for federal law, because that’s what they want.
That’s incredibly and tragically counterproductive. You’d be getting played.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It will be interesting if parts of the ACA stop after they have started. Everyone at my job is enjoying the no cost for things like well checks and the fact that you can keep your kids on until 26; this include the Republicans here. I don’t think reversing those is going to go over very well.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
It’s amazing how an obscure usage of a word gets integrated so fast in this day and age.
Severality implementation without being written expressly into a law seems to make about as much sense as signing statements, which is to say that it doesn’t. I don’t care for the mandate as it is, but overturning sections of a law doesn’t sit right with me.
Suck It Up!
@beltane:
predicted what? 2 other judges said the mandate was constitutional.
please, enough with the dfh was right crap.
kay
@Legalize:
Oh, they’ve been figgting lot longer than that. Since 1905.
Listen to Rand Paul. He’s too stupid to hide the ball, and he inadvertently reveals wingnut legal hopes and dreams.
They’d like to take it all the way back.
Think: “a loose confederation of states”. Like that. Dramatically limit federal reach.
Martin
@Ailuridae: Brown really is a wildcard. Single-payer is expensive to set up, and we don’t have the money. It’s going to come down to whether we can afford the short-term costs to get the long term savings, and whether Brown can support that politically. Considering that we’re in a pretty damn deep short-term budget hole, the credit card simply may not have a high enough limit to allow us to do it.
My guess is it’ll depend on what other short-term spending or tax concessions can be negotiated along with it. If you want to see how Brown makes headway against the state unions, it’s right here. If Dems want single payer (even if Brown wants it himself), he’s going to make the legislature pay every penny before giving it to them.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Doesn’t this ruling mean that privatizing Social Security is also unconstitutional? The Republicans will either have to keep it as is or scrap it entirely.
Suck It Up!
I’d also like to add that the dfh need not get excited and start thinking that if hcr is struck down then single payer is next. very bizarre thinking.
kay
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
It’s actually a really good question, because 25% of Medicare is privatized. Medicare Advantage.
ericblair
@harokin:
Seems to me this is a bit of a trap for them, since to my mind they’ve been a huge net beneficiary of the current system. At the federal level and especially in the Senate, the Repubs are getting what they want by relying on the total disproportionate power of small states to force their agenda on everyone else. You’ve got places like North Dakota that are almost rotten boroughs from British history, where they are small enough to be captured lock stock and barrel by business interests and have the power to force their views on the rest of the states.
If you start seriously weakening the power of the feds, and letting California, New York, Illinois and others go their own ways and form compacts to get what they want done while telling ND and friends to piss up a rope. So far, the Repubs have been for states’ rights only when convenient (health care! states’ rights! med marijuana! um, no states’ rights!) but if they really get into gutting federal power there may be no turning back.
harokin
@kay: A law school classmate/Federalist Society member’s facebook status: “It’s on like Donkey Kong.”
They are in heaven right now. They feel like the ringbearer and his fellowship are setting out for Mordor. The end is in sight.
kay
@Suck It Up!:
Just relax a little, because this is one out of three federal judges who went this way.
The other two went the other way.
It’s not like conservative judges trump, automatically, although that’s how it’s presented :)
kay
@harokin:
Maybe it’s good. This battle is long overdue. Like, since 1905. If it wasn’t this, it’d be something else.
I read Roberts is going after the whole (federal) administrative-agency structure, too. I think that’s why Obama appointed Kagan. That’s her area. It occurred to me when I was reading about the attack. “Aha! That’s the reason for Kagan!”
I hope I’m right.
Martin
@NR: They fought for it because there’s value in it. For one, it employs a shitload of people. Keep in mind, more people in this country are employed in the name of inefficiency than any other reason. Killing the private health insurance market would be ballpark of 2 million jobs gone. Some states like Iowa and Nebraska (hmm, did their elected officials play any role here?) would lose 5% of their jobs.
Ultimately, the health insurance market will likely fail just as the flood insurance market did and earthquake and hurricane insurance markets seems always about to, but there’s really no reason to rush things. If you seek to kill the market off, then you need to build a replacement for it, and that’s both hard, full of pitfalls, and expensive – and at a time we need jobs created, who the fuck is going to hire people into a market that’s going to die? And when the problem is that Medicare is paying out way the fuck too much relative to what its bringing in, why volunteer to expand a money-losing system if you have an alternative. Instead, the Fed can still get what it wants (lower costs) and shift all the cost and hard work to the insurers. Kick the cost problem down the road a while and if Medicare costs come in line as expected, then we can talk about the benefits of expanding it, and we’ll have the money to do it.
So, consider keeping the insurance market alive for now a form of stimulus – and it’s a decent one. Jobs are here in the US and widely distributed across the states, they’re difficult to outsource, difficult to automate in many cases, and the regulatory effect on the market is certain to add enough stress to the system to force hiring. If you are in support of other infrastructure building, this is little different.
kay
@harokin:
Read this on the conservative attack on administrative/agency law, and see if you don’t think that’s why they appointed Kagan. That was my “aha!” moment.
Warning: it’s incredibly long and dense, for Toobin, anyway.
Martin
@kay: Except that these are ways to (sort of) opt out of a tax, whereas the mandate isn’t a defined tax but a way to (sort of) opt in to it as a tax. They’re almost opposites in how they work.
Part C is effectively a ‘private option’ to single-payer. Privatizing SS (depending on which scheme we’re talking about here) is the same. That is, the tax provides a defined benefit which you are replacing with a comparable benefit. In the case of ACA, it doesn’t work that way. No benefit is provided if you pay. It’s purely punitive. That distinction can’t be irrelevant.
I’m not arguing that it’s unconstitutional, just that I don’t see how the two situations are tied legally.
WyldPirate
@jwb:
The people seemed to hate the tax cut extension for the wealthy, too. That didn’t seem the stop the Congress from voting otherwise.
I think you are wrong on the HCR repeal. Most people think that they have to great private insurance–until they have a real health care crisis and find out how inadequate it is. They are not going to get up in arms because a few people are denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions again or the small group of people that have kids that get kicked of of parents policies at 18 or 22 instead of 26.
SFAW
What, does she get 2.5 votes in decisions? Or are you expecting her to persuade Kennedy to vote against Nino, Sock Puppet, and the rest of the Radicals?
WyldPirate
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:
So you’re saying that the Rethugs won’t try something like repealing HCR after the shit they pulled over Terry Schiavo?
I have a bridge in this little borough of NYC that I happen to have for sale that you might be interested in, Mr. Potato Head.
WyldPirate
@Hawes:
That plan was so fucking crafty, too! I mean the brilliance of requiring 40+ million people to become new customers of the insurance industry!
DW
Gawker: “Henry E. Hudson, the federal judge in Virginia who just ruled health care reform unconstitutional, owns between $15,000 and $50,000 in a GOP political consulting firm that worked against health care reform.”
http://gawker.com/5713041/judge-who-ruled-health-care-reform-unconstitutional-owns-piece-of-gop-cons
Flugelhorn
@Martin: Martin. You are the idiot. Medicare is not a single payer system. Moron.
kay
@SFAW:
I wasn’t talking about health care there, I was talking about the broader (legal) conservative agenda, and to see that, you have to read the Toobin article I linked to. You need a good hour.
But yes, in answer to your question, I do expect that. I think she has a background in administrative law, and they appointed her to defend the constitutional basis for that structure, and persuade Kennedy to stop Roberts.
That’s my theory. Yup. I think there are bigger things at work here than health care. Conservatives will deny it, but I don’t believe them. I’ve been reading them for a long time.
Keith G
@Flugelhorn: Sorry dude but you are wrong unless you use the strictest of the several formal definitions of single payer. And on that basis, I think the fact that you attacked Martin as a moron does even less to demonstrate that you know what you are typing about.
SFAW
kay –
Amazingly enough, I was able to deduce that HCR wasn’t your focus.
I don’t have the hour to read Toobin. And probably wouldn’t understand it anyway, it there’s too much legalese in it.
But I have a tough time believing that Kagan could convince Kennedy to step away from the Dark Side. From what I understand, Kennedy has not generally been susceptible to well-reasoned arguments, unless those arguments include such sweet nothings as “And we’ll let you write the Opinion, baby!” And I doubt Kagan would use her feminine wiles to entice him.
But, as you probably already figured out, I’m not a legal scholar, so who knows? And you know what, they just might teach that damn horse to talk!
Ailuridae
@Flugelhorn:
Medicare is indeed a single payer system conservatroll.
kay
@SFAW:
Oh, it might be a bunch of horseshit. It’s My Pet Theory. Take it as seriously as you want. I am a simple county court lawyer:)
I’m the legal equivalent of a plumber. I’m not the water system engineer.
Look, the alternative is to just give up, right? The conservatives own the Supreme Court, and we must surrender. I can’t bear how sad that makes me. No, Kagan will have to work miracles. That’s just what has to happen.
Triassic Sands
@BChang:
BChang, they live in a world where they don’t ever expect to be unable to afford health insurance or get it through their employer. And they don’t believe they’ll ever be turned down because of a pre-existing condition or dropped when (in the incredibly unlikely event) they get seriously ill.
Most people escape the implications of such childish thinking, but sometimes Wingers get caught in their own trap. In my experience, at that point the majority have a miraculous conversion to believing whatever they need to believe at the moment.
Lots of Wingers are on unemployment now and those who used to oppose it are probably almost as busy rationalizing their current status as they are looking for a job. I heard a bunch of them last week on NPR. It was pretty sad. One guy, whose wife is collecting unemployment is still firmly against unemployment benefits, but then he still has his job and her unemployment benefits leave them firmly situated in safe financial territory. Should he lose his job and his family be threatened with bankruptcy or homelessness, rest assured he’ll collect and have some damn good reasons why he’s entitled to it (by dint of all his hard work) while others are just lazy parasites who don’t really want to work.
It’s all just part of being a Republican in the US in 2010.
Mysticdog
To be honest, I think having a legal mandate for americans to pay commercial entities in order to live in america probably should be unconstitutional.
I know you can point to the requirement to have car insurance to drive, but car ownership is a priviledge, not a right. I know you need a bank account to do a lot of things regarding acquiring shelter, but few of those things are imposed by the federal government, and you still can acquire shelter without a bank account if you find someone willing to take cash or even a homeless shelter.
I think this is the only law that forces americans to pay money to private companies. If it were allowed to stand, it would set a very bad precedent for other laws, especially with Republicans coming into ascendency.
It is another reason why single payer was necessary. The government clearly has the authority to tax. It should not have the authority to force americans to give money to private entities in order to just be alive.
Mike M
It’s unfortunate that Judge Hudson’s decision will get more play in the media and on the web than any of the previous decisions upholding the constitutionality of the HCR act. It fits nicely with the narrative of the ascendancy of the Tea Party and the return to power of the Republican party. Still, after reading the judge’s decision, I’m not willing to give it much of a chance on appeal. Hudson’s narrow reading of the commerce clause might be appealing to the minds of certain conservative thinkers, but it appears to fly in the face of decades of precedent that conclude that economic decisions, and not just economic transactions, are subject to federal regulation.
The populist argument is that the federal government cannot require an individual to purchase a commercial product and they consider the tax on individuals who fail to acquire health insurance to be a penalty rather than a tax. But excise taxes are often passed to encourage or discourage specific economic decisions, and the amount of the levy may be modified by credit, deductions, surcharges, and penalties in keeping with Congress’s goal. As a result, your annual tax bill will be higher or lower based on what decisions you make (e.g., did you have a mortgage? did your child go to college? did you take care of a disabled adult? etc.)
One wonders how the insurance industry will react now. They face the prospect of being forced to accept any individual regardless of pre-existing conditions, but without the requirement that all people either acquire insurance or pay a tax. Judge Hudson left the other provisions of the HCR stand.
kay
@Mike M:
I am madly in love with this argument because it should send an icey chill down any random wealthy conservative’s back.
I want conservative judges to rule that the federal government can’t use the tax code to reward or discourage some very popular (and lucrative!) behavior.
Mysticdog
But excise taxes are often passed to encourage or discourage specific economic decisions, and the amount of the levy may be modified by credit, deductions, surcharges, and penalties in keeping with Congress’s goal. As a result, your annual tax bill will be higher or lower based on what decisions you make (e.g., did you have a mortgage? did your child go to college? did you take care of a disabled adult? etc.)
That still isn’t the same thing, though. There is a big difference between encouraging or discouraging, and mandating a purchase in order to legally live as an American citizen.
I am very concerned, I think legitimate so, that if this went through it would open the door to mandating every American have a bank account or credit card, or send their children to a private school or day-care, or purchase a gun, or any of the many stupid ideas the right wing can come up with to force people to give their money to corporate America.
I’m sure this Judge made his ruling on bullshit grounds, but I think there is a real case to be made about what the government can be allowed to force its citizens to do. It may work out be no different than “we will tax you and give the money to corporate america”, but I think the spirit of the money transfer is critical in this case.
brianr
@El Cid: Well it means that those that already don’t pay taxes get no benefit, and thus doesn’t make insurance any more affordable. Granted the provision isn’t directly related to making it affordable as much as increasing the risk, which has the side effect of distributing costs amongst more payers.
mclaren
As I predicted.
No one can explain a single policy difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. Palin would torture people, Obama tortures people; Palin would kidnap U.S. citizens without charges and throw ’em into a dungeon forever without a trial, Obama kidnaps U.S. citizens without charges and throws ’em into a dungeon forever without charges. Palin would attack leakers like Wikileaks with the full power of the U.S. government, Obama is attacking leakers like Wikileaks with the full power of the U.S. government. Palin would continue Bush’s pointless unwinnable wars overseas, Obama is already continuing Bush’s pointless unwinnable wars overseas. Palin would give tax cuts to the rich, Obama is giving tax cuts to the rich. Palin would try to repeal the HCR bill but it doesn’t matter because the federal courts will repeal it as unconstitutional anyway, so what’s the difference? Palin would want to attack Iran and Syria but the military will tell her what they told Bush — it’s not physically possible, we don’t have the troops or the tanks or the bombs or the planes because the entire U.S. military is already completely engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and there’s nothing left over. So what’s the difference?
Okay. So what is the difference between Palin and Obama?
Nothing.
Obama gives eloquent speeches, whereas Palin would spew out word salad. That’s the only difference.
priscianus jr
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:
Chuck Butcher
I’m one of those who’d have been a gold mine for ins cos had they not priced me out of the market. I’m 57 and I’ve never had a medical issue that I couldn’t cover at the time or with a couple payments. Essentially I’d have been money in the bank for ins cos. I’m the person that saves their bacon under a mandate (well, not so much at this age now)