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Thread: Oral Arguments

  1. #157

    Re: Oral Arguments

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    A few things. What is wrong (in your opinion) with the health care system and what could fix it or why is legislation the way to go? And lastly, how does the commerce clause make it okay for the government to tell you to buy something? And if they can tell you to buy health insurance, what’s to stop them from saying, you need to buy an electric car because it’s making cars others are buying too expensive (just a hypothetical example)


    Well… that’s like... your opinion, man. ;)
    If it’s unconstitutional how is wanting the justices to not be an activist and put their ideology aside and rule it so, be acting like a hypocrite?
    What makes the health system in this country tick is insurance. Which means you often get the following relationship:
    Employee provides services to the employer.
    Employer, as part of employee's compensation, pays for insurance coverage for employee.
    Insurance company, paid (in part) by employer, provides insurance coverage to employee. Which means...
    Insurance company pays doctor's office for health care provided by doctor but...
    Health care is received by employee.

    It's not obvious that it *should* be that complicated, and it may be that that way is not ideal. But in the real world this is often how it works. And that, to my mind, is why it's less like broccoli and more like civil rights or the Great Depression or other systemic problems: It's just too complicated for a simple solution.

    I don't have to like broccoli but I also don't have to eat it. But eventually I *will* need medical care, and somebody will have to pick up the tab.

    As to whether it's really a problem, well, I didn't know people weren't aware of this, but the cost of medical care has been rising disproportionately for some time:
    Health_costs_USA_GDP.jpg
    Quote Originally Posted by The Fanatic View Post
    You'll get no argument from me on this as this has been the trend for quite some time which is why the government has been trying to address the issue for quite some time as well.
    Doesn't mean that the ways they try and address it and changes they seem to want to incorporate from one administration to the next are the appropriate way to do it either.
    There's stuff in there that I and many others are in favor of, and stuff that many are not.

    Seems we've been given a choice with this thing which is all or nothing which many are opposed to.

    Just because something's broke doesn't mean you scrap the whole thing or a good deal of the existing methods and replace it with stuff that will cause it's own set of problems which is what a lot of people think or see happening.



    Doing that would require the Supreme Court to read the entire bill (2700 pages) and pick and choose what they feel is appropriate and legal, and what is not.
    They've basically already said they aren't doing that and it's not their job to do it.

    According to the side of the aisle that is in favor of the healthcare act, gutting it (primarily the mandate part) pretty much renders the rest unobtainable and can't survive without the mandate.
    I'm not going to debate about whether this was the ideal formulation for addressing the health care crisis in this country. Like almost every bit of legislation involving something controversial, compromises were made along the way and I doubt you would find a single person who would call it ideal.

    We're in crisis. If the Supreme Court throws out the law, no matter how artfully the opinion is worded, no matter how ironclad the legal reasoning, I fear it will be twenty or more years before we can take another swing at this issue.

    One of the dumbest things about contemporary health care in this country is that people will end up not being insured and then needing health care anyway, which leads to money coming out of my pocket to pay for them. And it leads to people not getting preventative care, and it leads to long lines at the ER, as others have recently pointed out in this thread.

    Frustrating, too, because some of those people are too proud or too foolish to realize that's inevitable, and here I am taking care of myself and my family as best I can with proper insurance.

    I don't care about the moron riding around on a motorcycle with no helmet, but we all pay for the ambulance and hospital stay when it turns out he's uninsured. If that moron was required to have health insurance then it would mean he was paying into the system, and the burden would not be on me to, metaphorically, drive him to the hospital and perform the surgery on his smooth brain.

    I also don't care much to hang out in this subforum; these debates often get sour quickly. Thank you to you guys for responding positively to my post but as soon as possible I'm going to forget (again) that this forum is here.

    I'm all about the .

    Last edited by festivus; 04-03-2012 at 04:29 PM. Reason: formatting issues
    Festivus

    His definitions and arguments were so clear in his own mind that he was unable to understand how any reasonable person could honestly differ with him.





  2. #158

    Re: Oral Arguments

    Double posting because this is not really related:
    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    If it’s unconstitutional how is wanting the justices to not be an activist and put their ideology aside and rule it so, be acting like a hypocrite?
    Congress specifically found health care affected interstate commerce. And, broadly speaking, I don't think you can credibly argue that it's wrong.

    What critics would have the Supreme Court do here is look under the hood of the law at one of the bits inside and evaluate whether that one bit is, in fact, part of interstate commerce, after Congress has already found that the whole issue is part of interstate commerce. Right or wrong, that is not judicial "restraint." That's judicial meddling. Root for it all you want, and I would agree with you sometimes it's appropriate for a court to go under the hood of a law, but it's not resraint.
    Festivus

    His definitions and arguments were so clear in his own mind that he was unable to understand how any reasonable person could honestly differ with him.





  3. #159
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    Re: Oral Arguments

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    What makes the health system in this country tick is insurance. Which means you often get the following relationship:
    Employee provides services to the employer.
    Employer, as part of employee's compensation, pays for insurance coverage for employee.
    Insurance company, paid (in part) by employer, provides insurance coverage to employee. Which means...
    Insurance company pays doctor's office for health care provided by doctor but...
    Health care is received by employee.

    It's not obvious that it *should* be that complicated, and it may be that that way is not ideal. But in the real world this is often how it works. And that, to my mind, is why it's less like broccoli and more like civil rights or the Great Depression or other systemic problems: It's just too complicated for a simple solution.
    :
    I am aware costs are rising, thanks for assuming I didn't. I am also aware of how most insurance is obtained through the employer.

    My questioning was to get your perspective not because I don't know how it works.

    I am not saying there isn’t a problem with cost, things need to be done to lower cost and to stop people from walking into the ER and passing the cost on to others. Two things that could have been done would have been to allow insurance companies to sell across states lines to create more competition and tort reform so doctors don’t have to charge an arm and a leg to protect from frivolous lawsuits (not every lawsuit is frivolous). Both of those don’t force anybody to buy anything. We could also enforce illegal immigration laws and stop paying for illegals to get free ER visits. AS for the other people who get free ER care I haven't thought about a solution for that.

    But making everybody buy health insurance won't fix the issue of having cost passed on to everyone else. Plenty of people that have insurance, visit the doctor, get a bill for what the insurance doesn't cover and don't pay that bill. How do you solve that, mandate everyone pays their bill or pay a fine?

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    We're in crisis. If the Supreme Court throws out the law, no matter how artfully the opinion is worded, no matter how ironclad the legal reasoning, I fear it will be twenty or more years before we can take another swing at this issue
    Question, are you for this because you believe it’s the best thing or just because something is better than nothing? Cause I gotta tell you if you’ve read up on this bill you’d probably see it would do away with the private insurance market.
    Last edited by NCRAVEN; 04-03-2012 at 05:00 PM.





  4. #160
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    Re: Oral Arguments

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    Congress specifically found health care affected interstate commerce. And, broadly speaking, I don't think you can credibly argue that it's wrong
    But the courts job is to determine if what congress does is constitutional or not. So that's not practicing activism.

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    What critics would have the Supreme Court do here is look under the hood of the law at one of the bits inside and evaluate whether that one bit is, in fact, part of interstate commerce, after Congress has already found that the whole issue is part of interstate commerce. Right or wrong, that is not judicial "restraint." That's judicial meddling. Root for it all you want, and I would agree with you sometimes it's appropriate for a court to go under the hood of a law, but it's not resraint.
    The court is not going under the hood of this law at all, or at least it doesn't seem that way by their questioning. If they good under the hood and say what parts stand or fall (if they strike down the mandate) that would be going under the hood.





  5. #161
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    Re: Oral Arguments

    GOP lawmakers are saying OBY is threatening/putting a bounty on the court with unprecedented remarks and he even resorts to name calling - "un-elected" just like Galen does in here. LOL - there's a reason they're un-elected, which is to do what OBY the King
    is complaining about. It limits the King's executive power and it's working in this case and this goes back to 18th Century liberal thinking. Then Jefferson the leader of OBYs own party put it in our new system as part of the checks and balances between the three branches - executive, legislative and judicial.

    That's why the ONE is so upset. He must be worried sick about losing it. Slick Willie called OBY a Chicago thug in 2008. Now his pal and former Chief of Staff is running Chicago.

    We already said our health care system isn't perfect but it's the best in the world. Ask Greece. If anyone doesn't like it they can move to Canada and join the 50,000 pussies that deserted there during the Vietnam War and see how bad their health system is.

    See my links above detailing how their citizens are coming down here for health care. It's
    so broke the gov't can't afford to build new hospitals and they shut completely down at
    least two weeks of the year.

    That's what a Canadian told me on a cruise ship 10 years ago. She always goes to
    the hospital in Detroit and the Canadian gov't pays them. She also waits months for a
    simple x-ray. The same will happen here if OBY CARE is upheld. They will schedule you
    according to age and severity of illness. My x-ray office has already confirmed this.


    http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/0...supreme-court/
    Last edited by AirFlacco; 04-03-2012 at 05:45 PM.





  6. #162
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    Re: Oral Arguments

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    Double posting because this is not really related:

    Congress specifically found health care affected interstate commerce. And, broadly speaking, I don't think you can credibly argue that it's wrong.
    Sure. I'll buy that. But even the most liberal (big and small "L") interpretations of the bill still show the mandate to be incredibly outside the norm of anything that has been passed. If government can insert themselves in our lives by simply saying "because we are all involved in it one way or another" then you open the flood gates for federal control of .... well .... everything. That's the problem I have with it.

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    What critics would have the Supreme Court do here is look under the hood of the law at one of the bits inside and evaluate whether that one bit is, in fact, part of interstate commerce, after Congress has already found that the whole issue is part of interstate commerce. Right or wrong, that is not judicial "restraint." That's judicial meddling. Root for it all you want, and I would agree with you sometimes it's appropriate for a court to go under the hood of a law, but it's not resraint.
    You're right. It's not restraint. But lack of restraint doesn't make a court activist either. You simply cannot tell someone they must buy something simply because they may be involved in a social compact of some sort. This debate goes above the healthcare fray and instead becomes an individual liberty issue.





  7. #163

    Re: Oral Arguments

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    I am aware costs are rising, thanks for assuming I didn't. I am also aware of how most insurance is obtained through the employer.

    My questioning was to get your perspective not because I don't know how it works.
    Are you patronizing me? I don't understand. I was answering your question.

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    I am not saying there isn’t a problem with cost, things need to be done to lower cost and to stop people from walking into the ER and passing the cost on to others. Two things that could have been done would have been to allow insurance companies to sell across states lines to create more competition and tort reform
    "Tort reform"???

    That is a BS talking point if I ever heard one. One day over a beer we can discuss how much bullshit there is packed into those words, but not without the beer.

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    so doctors don’t have to charge an arm and a leg to protect from frivolous lawsuits (not every lawsuit is frivolous).
    No. Doctors have to charge an arm and a leg for a host of reasons, but defending from lawsuits is not one of them. Doctors have to pay insurance companies to protect them from lawsuits, and I do not accept as a premise that the premiums charged by the insurance companies are fair or reasonable or connected to the actual cost of the insurer doing business. Doctors also have to charge an arm and a leg because of the administrative costs associated with billing health insurers, which are burdensome indeed, as some of our readers and perhaps yourself already know.

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    Both of those don’t force anybody to buy anything. We could also enforce illegal immigration laws and stop paying for illegals to get free ER visits. AS for the other people who get free ER care I haven't thought about a solution for that.
    Whatever. There's a lot of misinformation out there about what's in the actual ACA; the brand-neutral website factcheck.org posted this awhile back to help clear things up.

    Regardless, as I said upthread I would not say the ACA is perfect. It is much better than doing nothing, and if it fails, we will have nothing but skyrocketing costs for a long, long time.

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    But making everybody buy health insurance won't fix the issue of having cost passed on to everyone else. Plenty of people that have insurance, visit the doctor, get a bill for what the insurance doesn't cover and don't pay that bill. How do you solve that, mandate everyone pays their bill or pay a fine?
    Many service providers have to deal with providing services to people who don't pay. Why should they be different from lawyers, plumbers, or house painters? Do they need special protection from deadbeats? I don't see this as a real issue, just something petty to whine about for someone who has already made up his mind.

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    Question, are you for this because you believe it’s the best thing or just because something is better than nothing? Cause I gotta tell you if you’ve read up on this bill you’d probably see it would do away with the private insurance market.
    Yeah, you read your sources, I'll read mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    But the courts job is to determine if what congress does is constitutional or not. So that's not practicing activism.
    If you say so.

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    The court is not going under the hood of this law at all, or at least it doesn't seem that way by their questioning. If they good under the hood and say what parts stand or fall (if they strike down the mandate) that would be going under the hood.
    Heh. The court spent an entire day hearing arguments on what would happen if they hypothetically struck down part of the law but not all of it, and you're telling me that's not going under the hood?

    Quote Originally Posted by HoustonRaven View Post
    Sure. I'll buy that. But even the most liberal (big and small "L") interpretations of the bill still show the mandate to be incredibly outside the norm of anything that has been passed. If government can insert themselves in our lives by simply saying "because we are all involved in it one way or another" then you open the flood gates for federal control of .... well .... everything. That's the problem I have with it.
    Sure, that's fair enough. The pure-of-heart libertarian will say "I reject seatbelt laws, I reject rules about where I can smoke my cigarette, I reject rules about prostitution and narcotics and abortion, I reject rules requiring the ingredients be posted on my bag of potato chips. It's *my* body and I can do what I want." That guy will definitely *not* want the ACA telling him he needs insurance.

    That guy was played by Burt Reynolds in Deliverance, who (if I remember correctly?) said he didn't believe in insurance. And I get it, and I sympathize, and it's an interesting theoretical position. In the real world, though, Burt Reynolds' character had his arm broken, and poor Ned Beatty, on top of his other indignities in the movie, had to pay for the emergency medical care.

    I'm not going to tell you you can't/shouldn't believe what you believe, but in the real world *somebody* is paying for medical care, and that somebody is the taxpayer, when it's some numskull who thought he'd never get hurt.

    Quote Originally Posted by HoustonRaven View Post
    You're right. It's not restraint. But lack of restraint doesn't make a court activist either. You simply cannot tell someone they must buy something simply because they may be involved in a social compact of some sort. This debate goes above the healthcare fray and instead becomes an individual liberty issue.
    Yeah, like I said, I understand. I *do* wish you modern libertarians would see that you can say the same thing about religious issues & abortion, but those are separate inflammatory debates.
    Festivus

    His definitions and arguments were so clear in his own mind that he was unable to understand how any reasonable person could honestly differ with him.





  8. #164
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    Re: Oral Arguments

    LOL - The court spent the entire day shooting the thing down while the liberal judges

    bailed their guy out, all w/o reading any of the 2,700 pages. The arguments concentrated
    on the mandate and commerce clause plus 1 or 2 other points.

    Now, had they read and commented on each section of thee law, then they would have
    been getting under the hood. Some people.

    :)





  9. #165
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    Re: Oral Arguments

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    Are you patronizing me? I don't understand. I was answering your question.
    No, I was not patronizing you. You said “I didn't know people weren't aware of this “ since it was a reply to me I thought it was a “shot”.

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    "Tort reform"???

    No. Doctors have to charge an arm and a leg for a host of reasons, but defending from lawsuits is not one of them. Doctors have to pay insurance companies to protect them from lawsuits, and I do not accept as a premise that the premiums charged by the insurance companies are fair or reasonable or connected to the actual cost of the insurer doing business.
    It’s not the only reason, it’s one of. Doctors pay insurance companies to protect them, and the insurance companies charge premiums in relation to the protection the doctor needs, so the cost is a factor. Same with the actual health insurance company and the premium they charge to pay for the patients bills (and an FYI health insurance companies have one of the lowest profit margins of any business it’s under 3%)

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    Doctors also have to charge an arm and a leg because of the administrative costs associated with billing health insurers, which are burdensome indeed, as some of our readers and perhaps yourself already know.
    Not knocking you for not reading the whole thread but I made that point earlier.

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    Whatever. There's a lot of misinformation out there about what's in the actual ACA; the brand-neutral website factcheck.org posted this awhile back to help clear things up.
    Factcheck is not 100% non-partisan btw, I saw the CEO or whatever he was admit they try to be but aren’t always successful. But my point had nothing to do with illegal immigrants getting federal money. My point was, if we enforced our laws, they wouldn’t be here to get free ER care and the bills they don’t pay won’t get passed to others.

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    Many service providers have to deal with providing services to people who don't pay. Why should they be different from lawyers, plumbers, or house painters? Do they need special protection from deadbeats? I don't see this as a real issue, just something petty to whine about for someone who has already made up his mind.
    But that cost gets passed on to you. Which is the point of mandating people by health insurance isn’t it? So people pay their bills and the cost goes down? I know maybe we can make people by lawyer insurance or plumber insurance so their unpaid bills don’t get passed on to us???

    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    Yeah, you read your sources, I'll read mine.
    So your argument is, confirmation bias? It’s very simple. “Employers will find it cheaper to pay the fine because the rise in premiums (for many reason, covering per-existing conditions, colonoscopy's mammograms with no copay). The plans then become too expensive for individuals who then pay the fine getting put in to the healthcare exchange, causing insurance companies to go out of business.”


    Quote Originally Posted by festivus View Post
    Heh. The court spent an entire day hearing arguments on what would happen if they hypothetically struck down part of the law but not all of it, and you're telling me that's not going under the hood?
    They did that to discuss severability. And if they went through to see what they would or would not severe that would be “going under the hood”. If they find the mandate unconstitutional they need to scrap the whole thing and let congress start over.
    Last edited by NCRAVEN; 04-03-2012 at 09:45 PM.





  10. #166
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    Re: Oral Arguments

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    That’s not entirely true. I’ve had times as has my wife where we’ve needed to go to the doctor and not had insurance. She broke her foot and all we had to do was pay for the visit and walking boot etc.

    Matter of fact, recently, even though I had insurance I asked a tech who was doing some work how much things would cost if I paid cash, she said it was 40% less. Main reasons were less paperwork, bureaucracy, no need to pay someone to bill the insurance company fight with the insurance company and then come after the patient for the rest.
    I get you man, I do, but a majority of the population that doesn't have insurance also doesn't have the money (or doesn't want to pay) to cover the costs of the service.

    I haven't really read a whole lot about it because it seems like there is no point if they're going to force everyone to do it anyway, but I feel like insurance should be relevant to the person's health and it should be reflective in the costs. For example, my wife and I rarely get sick. The only time we have needed a doctor in the recent past was when I tore my shoulder. Neither of us smoke, we don't drink much, we're active, we eat a lot of organic foods...

    Just seems to me that insurance for folks like us should have more options that are reflective in the costs than for someone who say has chronic arthritis or is a pack-a-day kind of guy.
    Last edited by wickedsolo; 04-03-2012 at 09:55 PM.
    Disclaimer: The content posted is of my own opinion.





  11. #167

    Re: Oral Arguments

    It's out of our hands.

    It could go either way. It's interesting, it's exciting, it's important. The funny thing is, it likely all comes down to one man:
    220px-Anthony_Kennedy_official_SCOTUS_portrait.jpg

    Very easy to oversimplify and say X or Y is obviously right and only a fool would disagree. Very easy. The only thing I know for sure is the majority opinion will be scholarly and well supported by precedent. Which way it goes I wouldn't guess.

    The oral arguments are not a spectator sport, where the Justices put on a show for us to deliberately give us clues how they will vote. Heck, we can't even guess what people are thinking when we watch them play *football*, and we're actually as smart as some of those guys.

    Anyway. I think I'm done here.

    Carry on.
    Festivus

    His definitions and arguments were so clear in his own mind that he was unable to understand how any reasonable person could honestly differ with him.





  12. #168
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    Re: Oral Arguments

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    I get you man, I do, but a majority of the population that doesn't have insurance also doesn't have the money (or doesn't want to pay) to cover the costs of the service.
    My main problem with the law is the mandate/penalty there are several other problems I have with it but that's number 1. Like you pointed out earlier if they don't have the money for insurance now how do they pay the fine?

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    I haven't really read a whole lot about it because it seems like there is no point if they're going to force everyone to do it anyway
    This is very sad to me. Seriously, are we so used to government overstepping their limits we just give in.

    From the epilogue of "Ameritopia"
    "The essential question is whether, in America, the people’s psychology has been so successfully warped, the individual’s spirit so thoroughly trounced, and the civil society’s institutions so effectively overwhelmed that revival is possible. Have too many among us already surrendered or been conquered? Can the people overcome the constant and relentless influences of ideological indoctrination, economic manipulation, and administrative coerciveness, or have they become hopelessly entangled in and dependent on a ubiquitous federal... "

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    but I feel like insurance should be relevant to the person's health and it should be reflective in the costs. For example, my wife and I rarely get sick. The only time we have needed a doctor in the recent past was when I tore my shoulder. Neither of us smoke, we don't drink much, we're active, we eat a lot of organic foods...
    I agree to a point and most insurance does work that way but you pay them to protect you for things that you don't have the funds for accidents, cancer treatments etc.





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