Good!

Oops.

YAY! I was hoping this would happen. Now, hopefully, it gets rewritten without the dumb individual mandate. Or with a public option that would validate the mandate…

Speaking during another hearing last month, he added that it would be “a giant leap” for the courts to encroach on the freedom of citizens to buy or not buy a commercial product.

bingo

now if obama would care to give a medicare buy in or a public option the constitutionality would prevail

on the other hand, with alito and roberts doing the bidding of the corporate world, I suspect they will overturn

now if obama would care to give a medicare buy in or a public option the constitutionality would prevail

Exactly. The mandate is fair, essentially a tax, if there is a public alternative.

on the other hand, with alito and roberts doing the bidding of the corporate world, I suspect they will overturn

I effing hope not.

Great news! Where were these judges during the Patriot Act and Torture programs?

So will they finally pass Medicare for all?

Uh oh.

Guessing med ins corps are busy planning all kinds of expensive trips/meals, etc for SCOTUS.

As a Progressive, I am opposed to the individual mandate. As a progressive with a MEMORY, I know the individual mandate was floated by the Republicans and rejected by the Democrats less than twenty years ago. Medicare for all or single payer are the only options that are likely to reduce the cost of health care and improve the delivery of it.

Oh, and I forgot: Who coulda anticipated.

The monstrosity of corporate fascist “Health Care Reform” that RahmBama foisted on us sustains a big blow.

Hopefully, the higher courts will agree.

Now, let’s get real reform with a public option or Medicare buy in. May have to wait a while longer, thanks to the corrupt Obama crew who set us back years with their scam.

Ah-Men! Sister!

LOL! Nobody could have known.

Sheesh!

Maybe they’ll enlist Dick Cheney to take Antonin Scalia hunting again!

given (via twitter) that Vinson has cited “severability clause”, I’d say the answer to your question is firedog papau :D

We can hope!

Where do you find this stuff? Did you actually remember that comment or did you have it bookmarked?

This is a big f***ing deal.

With the make up of the SCOTUS…almost all Corporatists, this ruling won’t stand.
And that’s exactly where the Corporatist Prez would run to for help.

I actually remembered it (you mean you didn’t ? ;D) and this one from OFG II

link

pretty sure all these firedogs were riffin’ off in house wunderkind Jon Walker

You can’t have universal coverage or coverage despite pre-existing conditions without everybody paying in (with low income discounts as required).

Medicare of all! Public option as a step up to that as a fallback.

He struck down the individual mandate as well as the entire law. Sounds like he killed pre existing conditions and age 26 protections as well. Without the mandate though it would be hard to sustain those provisions, since it would increase the cost of the coverage too much. Oh well, easy come, easy go. I am afraid the public option with a mandate would meet with the same fate. In fact the insurance companies would most definitely attack it then, as being anti american or something.

You are right you can’t have it without everybody paying in. And that is also the problem with a public option. The mandate will be a requirement under any system.

I guess that means I don’t have to purchase car insurance anymore.

Oh I’m sure the lawyers will have a good answer for that one.

Without the health insurance company bill, Obama has zip. Back to taking a victory lap re Lily Ledbetter.

I don’t understand the glee here. You are saying that what we had before HCR is better than what we had after? This is not to defend the law, simply to point out that if the status quo ante was unsustainable, it is still unsustainable. This brings us to the point: the business model of the insurance companies depends on the mandate. They lose the mandate and their current model is bupkus. That point was made abundantly clear in the lead-up to the bill. Obama sold us out because it was what he could get out of the corporations who control the legislative process. If this bill is struck down by the Supremes, two things will happen. Ordinary middle class people will again be without health care, which ought to make it tough for Republicans in the House who have to explain why, and the health insurance companies will be bleeding premiums, as companies drop out to avoid escalating fees. There are a lot of fixed costs in that business because the companies are so incompetent. if they lose premia, their profit lines plummet.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

So does this mean it won’t get funded until the issue is resolved by SCOTUS..which could be years..? Will other parts of it proceed?

…and they know it. The whole HCR debacle has been uninspiring theater.
“We hate it because they want it, so it must be dictatorial fascism!”
“We hate it because they want it, so it must be dictatorial socialism!”

The only part either group got right was “dictatorial”.

Panuniversal superintelligence forbid that government-run health care, paid for through taxation, is ever mentioned.

Yes, you have to wonder why, in hindsight, he went after anything. Any health care law, medicare for all or public option or this one, can be attacked by conservative activists and judges, on any number of grounds. It seems that we are not ready for this. And there is absolutely no way it will come around again in the next _ years. You fill in the blank. My guess is 20 years.

see David Dayen’s post on this – apparently this Reagan appointed judge disingenuously threw out the whole enchilada

The mandate and punishment by the IRS is unacceptable. Start over and give us single payer…medicare for all…

Stop the wars, stop funding criminal bankers, stop giving pharma the advantage, and stop funding dictators.

I suspect the timing will be engineered so that it will all come to a head near votin’ time next year.

Yes, health care cost is unsustainable and it is so no matter what form of funding you choose to use. Somebody will have to pay for it, whether in taxes or the individual mandate. It is unescapable. So, I take this as a loss, since millions who would have some help, will now have zero. Back to the back door emergency room. Maybe the supremes will rule differently? Nah not with the five wisemen on the panel.

Do you know the following?

The bill is neither universal health care nor universal health insurance.
Per the CBO:
• Total uninsured in 2019 with no bill: 54 million
• Total uninsured in 2019 with Senate bill: 24 million (44%)

2
This bill is almost identical to the plan written by AHIP, the insurance company trade association, in 2009.
The original Senate Finance Committee bill was authored by a former Wellpoint VP. Since Congress released the first of its health care bills on October 30, 2009, health care stocks have risen 28.35%.

“OBAMA could not find a consumer advocate to help write the Health Care, or is Obama a complete sell out, and hates the USA middle class”

3

The bill will not bring down premiums significantly, and certainly not the $2,500/year that the President promised.
Annual premiums in 2016, status quo / with bill:
Small group market, single: $7,800 / $7,800
Small group market, family: $19,3oo / $19,200
Large Group market, single: $7,400 / $7,300
Large group market, family: $21,100 / $21,300
Individual market, single: $5,500 / $5,800*
Individual market, family: $13,100 / $15,200*

4

The bill will impose a financial hardship on middle class Americans who will be forced to buy a product that they can’t afford to use.
A family of four making $66,370 will be forced to pay $8,628 per year for insurance. After basic necessities, this leaves them with $8,307 in discretionary income — out of which they would have to cover clothing, credit card and other debt, child care and education costs, in addition to $5,882 in annual out-of-pocket medical expenses for which families will be responsible.

5

The excise tax will result in employers switching to plans with higher co-pays and fewer covered services.
Older, less healthy employees with employer-based health care will be forced to pay much more in out-of-pocket expenses than they do now.

Remember Jane and her staff have taught us well! :)

so your point is what Knut?

As you say, we are better off without it?

The wonder of a Republican blowing up the insurance reform boondoggle referred to as the mandate. A plan which was almost a Republican corporate poster-child for how to address health costs – until the corporate Democrats ran with it. The mandate was probably the most offensive part of the gift to health insurance companies. Now it appears that only the Republican and Republican-wannabees controlling the SCOTUS will be able to save the day for this mistake posing as reform. Wonder if those FIRE lobbyist will want some of their money back. Probably should have gotten a money-back guarantee.

I suspect that a few of my Obama – love that pragmatic compromiser – friends will be a bit miffed. I’m miffed that the Gruber’s of the world made very good money pushing for this dreck. Squandered opportunities are all we have to look back on in our money driven election system. Real health reform having no natural, high-rolling corporate sponsors is less likely than ever.

The bill will not bring down premiums significantly, and certainly not the $2,500/year that the President promised.

it will raise premiums it will not bring them down one iota

the only way the mandate could bring prices down would be if they mandated competition along with mandating enrollment

they have left out the competition part and that means prices MUST rise

absolutely must

funny we’re talking about this today, we just had a meeting with our insurers today, after one year ago they raised prices 25 percent, today they get raised 30 percent, that’s not addative it’s more then 55 percent in the time the mandate became the foreseeable law

Hold It…..Don’t Celebrate Yet. Throwing out this bill does not mean we will get the Public Option or Medicare for all. It just means we will go back to having nothing with the insurance companies at the helm on calling all of the shots….the uninsured visiting free clinics and people losing there houses to medical debts they cannot pay for.

The Repubs are not going to support a public option, medicare or a single payer system of any kind.

Will we now be able to file suit for being forced to have auto insurance????

Hurrah! I’m hoping that mandate goes by the wayside… a public option, however, is another matter. I doubt that it’s really too late to incorporate it into the law.

let’s see, if I raise 100 dollars by 25 percent that’s 125 dollars, if I raise that again by 30 percent that’s about 169 dollars

back to the top, that’s a 69 percent increase in the space of one year’s time

MANDATE!!!!

YAYYYYYYYYY

Obama/Bobdole Care is not worth crap!

This bill does not bring down costs and leaves out nearly every key cost control measure, including:
• Public Option ($25-$110 billion)
• Medicare buy-in
• Drug reimportation ($19 billion)
• Medicare drug price negotiation ($300 billion)
• Shorter pathway to generic biologics ($71 billion)

The bill ignored proven ways to cut health care costs and still leaves 24 million people uninsured, all while slightly raising total annual costs by $234 million in 2019.
“Bends the cost curve” is a misleading and trivial claim, as the US would still spend far more for care than other advanced countries.

Win The Future = WTF, when you understand ObamaCare

MANDATE MANDATE MANDATE!!!!!

YAYYYYYYYY

the only mandate we need is when someone wants to go out with a man

If they can, they will find a way to tax every penny from every citizen for a whole bunch of reasons until there will be zero income no matter what category you fall into, unless you are wealthy. We are taxed up the yin yang now and they spend it on things that are bad for this country. Both parties do this.

If they can, they will find a way to tax every penny from every citizen who is not wealthy

fixed that for ya

in fact we are at the lowest over all tax rate in generations, the real problem is the middle and lower class are paying the bills of the wealthy

in fact we need to raise taxes, on those who have taken middle class assets (the wealthy) and lower the burden that’s been transfered to the middle class

but no, we don’t need to “lower taxes” we need to raise them over all and begin rebuilding this country with those funds, public sector jobs that put wage pressure on private industry so they are forced to use their record profits paying their staff rather then using it to give to their kids

Of course it will not bring down cost, at least not initially. The public option would have helped but there is no magic in that either. The question is, and always has been, do we want to get all or nearly all of our people on some sort of health care or just let them appear at the emergency room when they need it, since it is likely a little less expensive that way? We are now in the same position as before HCR and no hope of getting any, if this is upheld. Sounds great.

There has always been judicial precedent for gov’t doing horrendous backwards things like slavery, separate but equal, redlining and so on. It’s just that gov’t power requiring something good is so unexpected and unusual the Court doesn’t understand.

If gov’t power requiring us to buy things is out, then auto insurance & seatbelts & brakes & windshields, child-proof caps on drugs, clothing for our naked bodies and many other things would be out the window. Gov’t has been used to force action in many ways for ever.

Ought to be interesting arguments for both sides.

Thanks…I fixed it too!

And who, pray tell, will pay for it?

And those problems still exist and now there is no vehicle to attack them, unless you have the votes needed to do it, do you?

pay for a public option?

the people buying into it will pay for it that’s who

and the rate will be exponentially lower then private industry

that’s the very purpose of a public option, an option that takes the profit model out of the equation and forces private industry to actually compete

Yes, I anxiously await the reasoning of those 5 wise men on the supreme court.

If the federal government required that everyone who earned above a specific amount, whether they drove or not, be forced to buy full-coverage insurance and used the IRS to enforce the rules then it seems reasonable to assume that law would get thrown out as well. I do agree that the Rs will not be supporting anything that might actually fix the problem of rising costs.

And you know this, how exactly?

Yes, the Corporatist court and Gov’t couldn’t care less about “individuals” tr their so called rights. The BIG PEOPLE known as Corps. rule so let’s not get our little people hopes up cause I can almost guarantee u that both wings of the court will find the mandate Constitutional under the Commerce clause.

what is the question?

the public option is an option, you buy into it or you buy from a private source, the rate is configured according to the costs with all overheads figured into the price

that IS the public option so I have no idea what you are asking

How about forced participation in Social Security? Is that in question?

forced participation into social security is a public service not a private service, just like forcing people to go to court when they break the law, forcing society to take care of it’s elderly is clearly constitutional, “to provide for the general welfare…etc” and all that

the court is saying you can’t force people into participating into a private company and this blog has always maintained the same

you don’t have to drive a car, the license is a privilege and you can opt out, it’s an entirely different thing then the health insurance mandate

You are acting like Obama now

Since fall of 2008, the only issue in the USA has been Jobs! Period

No one on the left, right, center, was screaming at DC to pass a Mitt Romney/Bob Dole health care bill.

you do know that Mitt Romney and Bob Dole are republicans? not democrats

Since the Bill is so great, how many Dem senators up for re-election in 2012 are going to talk about how great Obamacare is? none

Obamacare is TOXIC to Dems,

the GOP is LOL right now

the GOP wants to make OBAMACARE the issue of 2012 (the GOP is going to force Dems to fight for a GOP bill)

during the depression, did FDR say “let us make americans buy health insurance?” no

A mandate with a tax attached isn’t the same at all. SSI has a mandate as does Medicare both have taxes attached. The Prez and Congress though have tried to have it both ways here by forcing people to pay up to private Corps. and they’ve definitely over stepped. Unfortunately, my guess is the Corporatist ct. will think other wise.

too many trolls… send in the clowns

answer this simple question what is the most important issue in the USA?

a jobs
b Jobs
c JOBS
d OBAMACARE

the correct answers are a,b,c no one cares or gives a damn about OBAMACARE

Oh yay! The Insurance companies will now roll back their premiums to 2008 levels!!!

In 3…2…1… ( ) Nothing? No rollback?

But, they said…HCR….Increased costs….Obamacare…..

gone for the day and can’t field any more questions, see all later

It is an individual mandate just like now. A public option will likely be less expensive but perhaps not for years. And it will be attacked as much or more than this plan. The idea in the plan (which I do not like by the way) was that the increased volume of people buying insurance and the competition among companies, and the help to lower income families (up to 80k)and the requirement in the law to spend a minimum of every dollar on defined cost would lower overall cost. A law on the books is also easier to amend than none at all, I would also suggest. Also, note that paying for preexisting conditions and children until age 26 is pretty expensive stuff.

????

I agree that jobs are the bigger issue. But you would think we could walk and chew gum at the same time. Guess not.

bluedot is your real name David Axelrod or David Plouffe

if OBAMACARE is an issue in 2012, DEMS WILL LOSE BIG TIME!

the only issue in the USA is Jobs

Remember this simple fact troll

The number of American families that were booted out of their homes and into the streets set a new all-time record in 2010.

do you still think OBAMACARE matters?

why are you trying to defend a piece of garbage like OBAMACARE is beyond me!

how do insurance companies in the USA make money?

it is very simple, the more people insurance companies deny coverage the more money they make, and you think it is smart to force people to buy a product like this? WOW

Win The Future? more like WTF

The “but the bill does SOME good” argument is essentially arguing that there is or should be no limit or restraint as to what can be done to the vast majority of the entire population, as long as SOME good comes to a tiny fraction of the population. And not only is that argument false when accepted at face value (it violates the “greatest good for the greatest number” premise of pragmatism), it’s a false dichotomy; there are more humane solutions that involve neither robbing the majority of the population, nor leaving the poorest of the poor to die on the streets.

By allowing that argument to remain unrefuted (or worse, by being shamed by this slight twist on the “what about the children?” argument), we liberals who were opposed to the HCR bill lose our opportunity to discuss workable, humane, just alternatives (like socialized medicine, single payer, or even the public option).

[Edited to remove bogus percentages.]

Here is the very definition of partisan antics from the bench; the epitome of the “judicial activism” that the right is so quick to call when they disagree with judge’s rulings. Vinson is a right-wing partisan that has completely overreached.

Vinson is obviously trying to gain status as some tea party folk hero as the man that “killed” health care. American government is truly broken when these kind of partisan thugs can take away medical care from ordinary Americans.
http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ssablog

thank you!

great post

Stop driving then. That’s easy compared with stopping living.

“The 70-year-old appointee of President Ronald Reagan even noted that he himself had been uninsured, paying out of pocket when the first of his five children was born.”

So how old is his oldest child? I would guess about 40 and health insurance wasn’t the norm 40 years ago. It didn’t cost nearly as much to have a baby then. Maybe he should look into the costs of then vs now before he makes that kind of out of touch comment….

OBAMACARE is worth about as much as OBAMAHOPE, OBAMACHANGE, OBAMAFINANCE-REFORM, OBAMASUPREME-COURT-APPOINTMENTS, and OBAMA-TRANSPARENCY – Diddly freeking squat.

There are so many levels to this. Big Health Insurance surely loved the mandate? Captive serf customers whom they could charge infinite amounts of money too with no way out? So how does this decision stack up? If there is no mandate, people are free to keep their money and die without health insurance. This is genuinely anti-corporate fascism. If there is a mandate on the other hand, people will be forced to pay for corporate welfare and still receive no health care and die anyway.

Where is this decision coming from? Who has bought this judge exactly? Who has payed for this ruling? It makes no sense in the US corporate bribery paradigm.

It is an individual mandate just like now. A public option will likely be less expensive but perhaps not for years.

the savings will be immediate, one obvious method is a medicare buy in where we already know the individual costs, we charge that plus a 10 percent premium, this is win win, it lowers the deficit, costs absolutely nothing and lowers the cost of health care, immediate savngs, not “years”

in addition the insurance companies will be lowering their prices just to prove “the public option costs more”

And it will be attacked as much or more than this plan.

on that point you are correct, obama lost his window of oportunity and because of it lost the dem majority, so we agree there

The idea in the plan (which I do not like by the way) was that the increased volume of people buying insurance and the competition among companies

that was never the plan it was the pitch, they never intended on increasing competition, they bargained that tool away long before they went public

Also, note that paying for preexisting conditions and children until age 26 is pretty expensive stuff.

the cost is ballanced becuase of the mandate don’t forget, they get far more volume then pre-existing conditions cost

btw, we do it with Medicare already

off to the next thread

I’ve got news for you – the federal government has never required that you buy car insurance!

bingo and I will certainly be using that response in the future

4 judges have ruled -

but this is the first to toss the whole law.

Medicare for all was more certain – sigh ……

so your point is what Knut?

My points are two: the first is that what we got out of HCR was better than nothing, I didn’t claim it was a lot better. The second point was perhaps too elliptic. The bottom line for private health insurance requires them to knock off people who get sick but who have paid their insurance up to the time they get sick. That is the business model. There are no competitive pressures out there to provide any incentive to attract customers by giving better service. The problem with this model is that it requires firms and individuals to keep believing that the insurance will be there when they need it, which is not the case. So people and firms self-insure to the degree they can. This cuts the premia for health insurers. Their administrative costs are effectively fixed, which means they have to spread them over a diminishing revenue base. This means they have to raise their rates. This in turn causes more firms and people to drop out.

The only way out of this trap, which is well understood by the industry, was the individual mandate. The deal between Obama and the corps was that if theyi did not oppose the other parts of the reform, he would give them the right to tax individuals.

I’m not saying this is preferable to public financing, which is a whole lot cheaper. I live in a country where we have it, and believe me, it’s great.

But read posts and try to understand them ~~~Edited by Moderator. Disagree without being disagreeable~~~

If he is a Reagan appointee, he was probably already a pretty rich lawyer able to ensure himself.

I guess I don’t see how this is a good thing either–at least not for several years and only if we are lucky enough to escape Conservative & T-party hegemony.

I prefer single payer. But how can this be seriously considered given the political math of Congress? Public Option is just as dead. And yes, the Dems now have less-than-nothing to show for their work before the conservative sweep. So where does that leave us? It leaves us in the hands of corporate insurers and state regulators (more of whom are now Republican). It means it will be worse than status quo ante unless the Supreme Court is drawn into this and by some miracle rules mandated insurance is lawful. Why would the the current Supreme Court even deign to take such a case?

I did not/ do not like the mandate, but I fail to see how this is a better situation.

–and all that Pelosian talk about how this mandate is a building block that can be adjusted and improved upon in successive legislation—the Tweaking of Hope—is shown for the baloney it always was.

A quick note concerning the various analogies with Social Security. FDR’s Administration wrestled with the problem of trying to provide security for people in their old age. The Supreme Court was hostile to govt -private pension initiatives. But it became clear that if a program was set up using the federal tax system, it would likely pass Constitutional muster with the Supreme Court. And it did.

We have a very similar situation now, although it is a completely different group of justices on the court (obviously) and the modern court seems to care little for precedent.

I think we should start taking bets on how the court will rule. Just a wild guess, but my hunch is that it will rule in favor of Obamacare but not necessarily with the usual 5-4 split. There will be some justices crossing sides on this one.

Please tells us the moment that passing the Bob Dole and Mitt Romney health care bill became Job One in the Obama WH? we all would like to know.

Knut It is funny how non-americans think OBAMACARE is wonderful
Knut said this
“I’m not saying this is preferable to public financing, which is a whole lot cheaper. I live in a country where we have it, and believe me, it’s great.”

Knut since you are not from the USA, below are issues in the USA more important than health care

1st Today, millions of American families are digging deep into their savings and investments in a desperate attempt to stay afloat. Over the past two years, U.S. consumers have withdrawn $311 billion more from savings and investment accounts than they have put into them.

#2 15 billion dollars: the total amount of compensation that Goldman Sachs paid out to its employees for 2010. (Obama froze fed workers Pay)

#3 The number of American families that were booted out of their homes and into the streets set a new all-time record in 2010.

4 Americans now owe more than $884 billion on student loans, which is a new all-time record. (we have the most educated un-employed people on earth)

#5 One Canadian company is making a ton of money shipping “millions and millions of dollars” worth of manufacturing equipment from factories that are being shut down in the United States over to new factories that are being set up in China. (are you from CHina Knut? )

6 The more Americans that are on food stamps the more profits that JP Morgan makes. Today, an all-time record of 43.2 million Americans are on food stamps, and JP Morgan is making a lot of money processing millions of those benefit payments. (Obama just made a Banker his new Chief of Staff)

7 Only 35 percent of Americans now have enough “emergency savings” to be able to cover three months of living expenses. (how are americans going to pay for OBAMACARE?)

I can continue Knut, as you can see, the USA does not need a Health Care bill that make Insurance companies Rich,

Please go back to your nation and stay out of ours, Knut

PS please take Obama with you

I guess that means I don’t have to purchase car insurance anymore.

You don’t have to own a car either, but one goes with the other.

In many places you can choose public transportation. There is no mandate to own a car. There is no equivalence unless you equate health insurance with car insurance. Most of us do not even equate health insurance with health care. You only have one body. You can’t choose not to have a body, so this mandate is fundamentally distinct.

It’s an easily confused yet meaningful distinction. No reason to propagate it?

TPM has an article about severability as relates to this decision and the law:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/conservative-suit-against-the-mandate.php

At the end, a legal academic says “I cannot conceive” of this Supreme Court striking the precedent of severability in interpreting cases even when it isn’t specifically written into a law.

No one could have ever imagined a lot of things lately.

Medicare for all was more certain – sigh ……

At least in the courts (and only in theory, who knows what the current court would do). But Congress would never pass that, all Republicans plus most Democrats would oppose it. And most likely the corporate-oriented President too.

It is better because Obamacare breathed life into an industry that was entering the death spiral that Knut has outlined above. They needed a bailout and they got it in the individual mandate. With the mandate and subsidies, the healthcartel can solidify its evil grip on the lives of Americans and continue to reap gigantic profits and corrupt Congress for another decade or so.

The idea of FORCING people to buy a product from a private commercial enterprise is a very bad and dangerous precedent in this era of iron fisted corporatism. Please spare me the auto insurance analogy, folks. That is about liability, and it is a privilege to use the public roadways. No one, certainly not the federal govt is forcing anybody to buy collision insurance.

Also, the bill was a giant exercise in buying time for the HealthCartel. 2014? WTF? WHY? Because it allows them to rape and plunder the pocketbooks of millions and quiets the screaming by saying “just hold on a few more years, wait until we see how the healthcare bill plays out. Everything will be just fine, kids.” while they jack up premiums relentlessly in the meantime.

Finally, it is time for me to invoke my old history teacher Dad’s admonition that “nothing fundamental ever changes in the US without a full blown, system threatening crisis. This has only happened twice in our history, The Civil War and the Great Depression (New Deal.)” So, if you want to get something fundamentally changed, you must precipitate a crisis – and be ready with a plan. I believe the crisis is on its way. It will precipitate itself. There will be some moment when the number of people without insurance reaches critical mass. Somebody with some influence finds out they don’t have coverage, or some child will die, I can’t say for sure but I do think a spark will set off the chain reaction. We need to keep screaming Medicare for All and lodge that in the public mind as an alternative.

The health insurance companies contribute nothing to the economy and nothing to society. Their only business is extortion. Their executives get rich off the suffering of working Americans. The Roberts court will, IMHO, protect them (as a professional courtesy) preserving the hated mandate.

I hope I’m wrong. That would mean that Obama’s “historic achievement” is unconstifuckingtutional. What a putz.

“Yes, you have to wonder why, in hindsight, he went after anything. Any health care law, medicare for all or public option or this one, can be attacked by conservative activists and judges, on any number of grounds. ”

Maybe, but that’s why Obama should have passed a law that A) had massive public support and B) went into effect immediately, instead of after some ridiculous arbitrary period of time. That gives the law a much stronger footing and reduces the likelihood of Republican challenge.

Did Vinson rule on whether or not we can see obummers birth certificate too?

I see all the waste in the health care industry and it convinces me that we have to put the insurance companies out of business to fix it.

This POS so-called HCR has always been a big stinker. I agree that it had some *minimal* “good things” in it, like extending parents’ ability to insure their kids under their health insurance to their mid-20s. Yes: good thing.

But seriously, this Bob Dole-Mitt Romeny POS was designed solely and only for the financial benefit & gain of the greedheads in BigIns, BigPharma, BigHospital, BigMedicalDevice… talk about death by spreadsheet. Talk about “I don’t want BigIns to get between me and my doctor”… which happens *daily.*

I hate to see citizens suffer even more, but this stinking pile needs to be kicked to the curb. I *thought* I was voting for alleged “Democratic” politicians, both for POTUS and in the House & Senate. All I’m seeing anymore is hard-right Neo-Con/Lib (pick your poison) politicians solely and only working for the corporations, not for you and me.

BAH!!!

I agree with a prior comment. Sadly it’s going to take some calamity to bring about the *real* changes that we need bc far too many citizens – no matter how they vote – have drunk the KOOL AID that somehow “things are ok.” Most emphatically, they’re not.

I just wonder at this Reagan-appointed judge tossing this out… I esp wonder if the same judge would’ve done that IF Barry actually ran as the Republcan that he is??? PRobably not. Bunch of shill-hacks on the courts, too.

Interesting, though. Thanks for the post.

Here is what I don’t understand. Both the initial House version as passed and the Senate version as passed on Christmas Eve contained a severability clause. What happened to it as it moved through conference and reconciliation?

These days, forgetting to put in a severability clause as a matter of course is very close to legislative malpractice. Unless someone planted a timebomb like the one that Phil Gramm planted in Gramm-Leach-Bliley.

1.Historic Democratic majorities in the House and Senate
2.A Democratic President with his “Signature Issue”
3.A year and a half of legislative time

And this poorly written disaster is the best they can do?

The idea of FORCING people to buy a product from a private commercial enterprise is a very bad and dangerous precedent in this era of iron fisted corporatism

Thanks for all the great posts to all on this blog. HCR bill not only breathed life into HCR companies as you indicated but also Republican Party.

Republican party will highlight this mandate to run to majority in all branches because no American or for that matter any human being of any Democratic country will accept this mandate for a private corporation no matter what the incentive is. Faster Democrats realize this it will enable them to correct course.

Lets say for argument sake if a ABC Fast-food company which uses 20% Food and Rest 80% Fillers and Additives buys up rest of the competition in local market and then gets Congress to pass mandate either to eat that horrible stuff or pay up under no one left hungry act citing this bill as a precedent what will one say. Our country will not only become uncompetative but also unlivable.

HCR Fix can be in two ways in my opinion which our country did to great success in the past in other market sectors. Both might not be palatable to AHIP & Pharma used to easy profits at the expense of American competitiveness.

Republican way with what Pres. Theodore Roosevelt would have done. Break-up of companies, enforcement of Anti-trust laws, Intense competition driving down prices, basic health care consumer rights enforcement, making health care affordable and obviously due to that more subscribers voluntarily signing up.

Democratic way with what Pres. Franklin Roosevelt would have done. Govt Run Single Payer with Tax on all to pay for that system or Public Option without mandate to prevent price collusion and competition in health care lowering prices and enable more to afford to sign-up with benefit features to allow others who still might not be able to sign-up.

In this case, I agree with you completely as to cause and solution.