Affordable Care Act [Obamacare] upheld by Supreme Court Health Care Decision Today...

[Zacha341]

Supreme Court Health Care Decision Will Define The Future Of The American Health Care System

From article: An odyssey that began during the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt and dominated much of President Barack Obama's first term in the White House could conclude Thursday at the Supreme Court. With it could end the best hope to date for the nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance and the hundreds of millions more burdened by rising costs.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision sometime after 10 a.m. Thursday in a lawsuit brought by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business that challenges the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law Obama signed on March 23, 2010.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1630596.html

[TKshreve]

Well, it passed the Republican gauntlet.

I am surprised though that the SCOTUS did not cherry pick some items from the legislation, much like they did with the immigration law in AZ.

Am I happy? I think so. Everyone knows the Health Care situation in the U.S. is defunct and driven by the exorbitant profits of private corporations. This is a step in the right direction, but I still feel that our "leaders" and "experts" could have come together to find a better solution than what they eventually finalized. Here's hoping the Health Reform is a project in motion, only to get better as we move forward.

[rb336]

based on the last couple of SCOTUS biggies, Roberts doesn't seem to be the ideologue I thought he would be

[Whitehouse]

The GOP hasn't been this angry since the killing of Osama Bin Laden!

Funny that this decission was done by 9 people who enjoy a federal health plan.

I've collected some positive reactions on this decission. Maybe you should think twice before you blast Affordable health care.

I am so happy that this passed, especially in March when I received a credit or a reimbursement from my insurance company. Thanks to the medical cost ratio in Obamacare, my insurance company made give me a $300 credit on my premiums. Of course the letter from the insurance company said congratulations on being healthy this year and not a word about Obamacare.
I have always been overcharged because I am lucky that I have a benign form of Multiple Sclerosis. I have always been overcharged when I received that diagnosis even though I am not on any medication and have had only two problems since 2000 when I was diagnosed.
Today is a good day for me. I still hope that we can make it better as time passes.

Thank God this was upheld. My son is 18 and high functioning autistic. I have no idea on earth how we could have ever afforded medical and dental insurance for him on an individual stand alone policy. So,we'd have had a kid with no insurance if anything went wrong or just taking him for a check up.
I know it's a giveaway to the insurance companies,but without it,my son would be screwed. So I'm really happy about this. Hopefully in a few years we can make a run at real universal care,but for now,this takes a huge stress off our family

It's the best possible news in my home. My wife has had arthritis since she was a baby. JRA it's called. If I was not at work we would be drinking champagne.

These people will cost insurance companies money, I know. But you would be pretty selfish if you think it would be better for them to lose their house, go bankrupt and die. By mandatoring insurance everyone shares the burden. Insurance companies are forbidden to cancel an insurance once you go sick. [[A move which I alsways though was callous.) I

Insurance is a contract for which you pay and you wish you never will need. But when that time comes and the doctor tells you you've got some serious health problem, you know at least you won't die of hunger...

[firstandten]

The one surprise in this was that Roberts was the swing vote and not Kennedy. I will need to do more research to see why that was. Based on the way we handle health care [[employer based) this was the only way the system, which was broken, by the way could be fixed.

Otherwise you are looking at some form of single payer system. While I prefer that, our society at this point is not ready for that.

[Lowell]

Even though he is Chief Justice Roberts was still a bit of the new kid on the block. Courts are traditionally named after the Chief Justice like the Warren or Rehnquist courts.

With this vote it is now emphatically The Roberts Court.

A Re-Examination of Roberts’s Legacy?

“This could be a huge day in the evolution of Chief Justice Roberts as a great chief justice,” Laurence H. Tribe, the liberal Harvard law professor, said. Mr. Tribe, who taught Mr. Roberts, said he had not opposed his nomination because he believed Mr. Roberts was less of an ideologue than many charged. “I have some sense of gratification,” he said.

[Lowell]

This is an amusing photoshop job.

[Whitehouse]

Ten things you now get now Affordable Health Care has passed the SCOTUS.

1) Insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime coverage limits on your insurance. Never again will you face the risk of getting really sick and then, a few months in, having your insurer tell you "sorry, you've 'run out' of coverage." Almost everyone I've met knows someone who had insurance but got really, really sick [[or had a kid get really sick) and ran into a lifetime cap.
2) If you don't know someone who has run into a lifetime cap, you probably know someone who has run into an annual cap. The use of these will be sharply limited. [[They'll be eliminated entirely in 2014.)
3) Insurers can no longer tell kids with pre-existing conditions that they'll insure them "except for" the pre-existing condition. That's called pre-existing condition exclusion, and it's out the window.
4) A special, temporary program will help adults with pre-existing conditions get coverage. It expires in 2014, when the health insurance exchanges—basically big "pools" of businesses and individuals—come on-line. That's when all insurers will have to cover everyone, pre-existing condition or not.
5) Insurance companies can't drop you when you get sick, either—this plan means the end of "rescissions."
6) You can stay on your parents' insurance until you're 26.
7) Seniors get $250 towards closing the "donut hole" in their prescription drug coverage. Currently, prescription drug coverage ends once you've spent $2,700 on drugs and it doesn't kick in again until you've spent nearly $6,200. James Ridgeway wrote about the problems with the donut hole for Mother Jones in the September/October 2008 issue. Eventually, the health care reform bill will close the donut hole entirely. The AARP has more on immediate health care benefits for seniors. Next year [[i.e. in nine months), 50 percent of the donut hole will be covered.
8) Medicare's preventive benefits now come with a free visit with your primary care doctor every year to plan out your prevention services. And there are no more co-pays for preventative services in Medicare.
9) This is a big one: small businesses get big tax credits—up to 50 percent of premium costs—for offering health insurance to their workers.
10) Insurers with unusually high administrative costs have to offer rebates to their customers, and every insurance company has to reveal how much it spends on overhead.

[oladub]

Whitehouse and firstandten, You forget what should be the option of states, such as Vermont to institute their own single payer plans. Instead, we are stuck with this corporatist amplification of our present system which keeps the insurance executives, big pharma execs, and attorneys feeding at the health care trough. That is still not societally affordable.

I don't know enough about the ruling to make many comments but it seems a big victory for Obama and the big money interests already mentioned. It is also another legal victory of the commerce clause over the Tenth Amendment. As I often mention, why even have the rest of the Constitution when the court only needs to 'interpret' the commerce clause, the general welfare clause, and UN authorizations to authorize most everything?

Whitehouse, since this has all been declared legal maybe the US could pull our troops out of Europe and the Middle East and stop bombing places like Serbia and Libya for you. That way we in the US could afford to better pay for Obamacare mandates and you would have to decide for yourselves in Europe at your own expense. It would be interesting to see how Europe will afford generous healthcare, defending the Euro, and itself. Smug self-righteousness about European superiority while we are providing you with an expensive defense blanket is annoying. Thank you for the little morality sermon anyway. I've got it! We keep providing Europe with security, and you provide us with Dutch healthcare.

[1953]

Here is what I cannot get my mind around: Roberts ruled that the individual mandate is a tax on not having insurance, and is therefore valid as part of Congress' right to tax. But when has Congress ever levied a tax on complete inaction? I can't think of another example. In fact, Roberts' further said that the law was unconstitutional if put up against the Commerce Clause, because all of the court's rulings on that clause had to do with people having already bought something or engaged in some commerce. Why does the tax argument stand when the commerce argument fails? Are there any existing taxes we pay for complete inaction? And, if this is a tax on not having insurance, and its mostly poor people who don't have it, isn't this just a tax on poor people?

[rb336]

one thing that made me laugh was Romney's idiotic response. He went off listing things that the Affordable Care Act doesn't do -- except every single one of them is in the act.

[Whitehouse]

one thing that made me laugh was Romney's idiotic response. He went off listing things that the Affordable Care Act doesn't do -- except every single one of them is in the act.

And how about this doozy?

[TKshreve]

Whitehouse and firstandten, You forget what should be the option of states, such as Vermont to institute their own single payer plans. Instead, we are stuck with this corporatist amplification of our present system which keeps the insurance executives, big pharma execs, and attorneys feeding at the health care trough. That is still not societally affordable.

I don't know enough about the ruling to make many comments but it seems a big victory for Obama and the big money interests already mentioned. It is also another legal victory of the commerce clause over the Tenth Amendment. As I often mention, why even have the rest of the Constitution when the court only needs to 'interpret' the commerce clause, the general welfare clause, and UN authorizations to authorize most everything?

Whitehouse, since this has all been declared legal maybe the US could pull our troops out of Europe and the Middle East and stop bombing places like Serbia and Libya for you. That way we in the US could afford to better pay for Obamacare mandates and you would have to decide for yourselves in Europe at your own expense. It would be interesting to see how Europe will afford generous healthcare, defending the Euro, and itself. Smug self-righteousness about European superiority while we are providing you with an expensive defense blanket is annoying. Thank you for the little morality sermon anyway. I've got it! We keep providing Europe with security, and you provide us with Dutch healthcare.

Soooo....... to paraphrase:

1: ObamaCare is bad, bad, bad. It's really bad. It's double not good.

2: It's still without a doubt unconstitutional, but at this point I'm unsure of the full scope of what's going on.

3: Middle East, something, something, deflect, something, bombs, "but they", something, you're still wrong.

Ok - Got it.

Oh, and I really like the alternative solution you decided to not include. It really....... really provides weight to your argument.

[rb336]

he's never apologized for being an idiot before, I doubt he will stop now.

you can ask him to yourself on http://www.facebook.com/billoreillyfnc

[Detroitnerd]

Here's John Stauber's take on it:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/...-wins-we-lose/

It was a brilliant move by far Right [[but oh so likable) Chief Justice Roberts to side with the Dem-appointed Justices and uphold ObamaCare. After all, this is a massive victory for corporate power, forcing citizens to buy an expensive insurance product that won’t serve our needs very well but will profit industry, in lieu of receiving real health care.
Obamacare and its corporate mandate were born on the Right [[as in Heritage Foundation) as a way to destroy the political prospects of any single payer system that would cover all Americans with a tax-funded system of guaranteed medical care. This is the way all other industrial societies protect the right to health care, by taking it out of the hands of the giant insurance industry. The right to health care is like the right to not be enslaved – there are no half measures, and the insurance industry is the slave master.
Roberts may have brilliantly scored a “4-fer” victory:
1.) He now has an interesting historic legacy.
2.) He and his Dem-appointed colleagues have given huge new powers to corporations, and further reduced the rights of citizens.
3.) Any real reform — call it single payer, or medicare for all — is doomed in bipartisan fashion. The “pragmatists” who are for Obamacare are duped if they think it is going to be expanded to single payer. From this point on, it will only be picked over and further reinvented to empower the insurance and drug industries.
4.) Roberts siding with Dems has probably bounced Obama right out of office. The public overwhelmingly hates Obamacare, and this pours gas on the electoral fire.
No wonder Roberts delivered the goods! What a great Right Wing Justice he is.

[rb336]

Soooo....... to paraphrase:

1: ObamaCare is bad, bad, bad. It's really bad. It's double not good.

2: It's still without a doubt unconstitutional, but at this point I'm unsure of the full scope of what's going on.

3: Middle East, something, something, deflect, something, bombs, "but they", something, you're still wrong.

Ok - Got it.

Oh, and I really like the alternative solution you decided to not include. It really....... really provides weight to your argument.

what do you expect from someone who thinks the ONLY valid part of the constitution is the 10th?

[oladub]

TKshreve: Soooo....... to paraphrase:

1: ObamaCare is bad, bad, bad. It's really bad. It's double not good.

Specifically, I mentioned the ruling inconsistency with the 10th Amendment, it thwarting of better state laws, works to the advantage of large corporations and attorneys, and costs are societally unaffordable but yeah...its "bad, bad, bad" in your vocabulary. Rb's contempt for the Constitution notwithstanding, I see no reason why any two parts of the Constitution cannot be found consistent without each other in rulings.

2: It's still without a doubt unconstitutional, but at this point I'm unsure of the full scope of what's going on.

My exact comment was, "I don't know enough about the ruling to make many comments". I mentioned that it was inconsistent with the 10th Amendment and that the Supreme Court ruling recognizing that that the Supreme Court rules is law regardless of what is in the Constitution. I still didn't know when I wrote that that the ability to raise taxes was the Supreme Court trump card. And tomorrow, I will know more about the ruling than today. Bravo if you completely understand the ruling and its ramifications. I don't claim to.

3: Middle East, something, something, deflect, something, bombs, "but they", something, you're still wrong.

Ok - Got it.

Oh, and I really like the alternative solution you decided to not include. It really....... really provides weight to your argument.

The mideast reference was addressed in response to Whitehouse's pious sermonette given Europe is still profiting from US largess and had nothing to do with the ruling. Those are related but different concepts if there is a need to clarify.

Please reread as you are able. I did sugges that states at least used to have the right and ability to institute single payer plans but then you prefer the corporatist alternative.

I'm going to add something new. When Congress gave Wall Street bonuses instead of putting those bankers in prison, I concluded that there had been a huge change in US politics. The corporations were now in control. This was voted on just weeks before the presidential elections and the majority of Congress members felt compelled rub there noses in it and vote for the bankers instead of their constituents. I view the ruling claiming that we can be taxed for not buying something as just another brick in the wall of corporate rule. What if Congress votes to make insurance companies to require that we buy one or two other things, for our own welfare of course? Bankers get bonuses and we get our pockets vacuumed.

[gnome]

This ruling is red meat to the Right. Nothing could have helped more in motivating folks to get their souls to the polls. A satisfied voter stays home. A complacent voter stays home. An angry voter marches, stuffs envelopes, calls his friends and in general acts outraged; most of all they vote early and often.

[Gistok]

This ruling is red meat to the Right. Nothing could have helped more in motivating folks to get their souls to the polls. A satisfied voter stays home. A complacent voter stays home. An angry voter marches, stuffs envelopes, calls his friends and in general acts outraged; most of all they vote early and often.

Gotta agree with you on that one Gnome... that last line put a smile on my face.... don't they also tell some "dimpled" guy named "Chad" that his vote doesn't count?

[Detroitej72]

An angry voter marches, stuffs envelopes, calls his friends and in general acts outraged; most of all they vote early and often.

Well, if they are voting early and often, then...

Instead of investigating and harassing minority voters, maybe the AG should start interrogating the white, middle-aged folks who show up at the polls!

[firstandten]

Even though he is Chief Justice Roberts was still a bit of the new kid on the block. Courts are traditionally named after the Chief Justice like the Warren or Rehnquist courts.

With this vote it is now emphatically The Roberts Court.

A Re-Examination of Roberts’s Legacy?

It seems that Roberts may have been thinking about his legacy based on this statement from David Cole.

"I cannot but think that at the back of Roberts’s mind was the Court’s institutional standing. Had the law been struck down on “party lines,” the Court’s reputation would be seriously undermined. In May, the Pew Research Center reported that favorable views of the Supreme Court as an institution had reached an all-time low. Sharply divided partisan decisions like Bush v. Gore and Citizens United appear to have done damage to the Court’s legitimacy—and ultimately, its legitimacy is the source of the Court’s power. Today’s result, which upholds the actions of the democratically elected branches on a major piece of social welfare legislation that affects us all against a challenge that was always a real long shot, driven more by politics than legal principle, may help repair the Court’s tarnished image."

[ejames01]

A lot of people are going to move to Canada to get away from this socialist mess.

[Papasito]

Obama said he wouldn't raise taxes on Middle and Low Class Americans...

Well after yesterday, he just did.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphi...care-decision/

[rb336]

Obama said he wouldn't raise taxes on Middle and Low Class Americans...

Well after yesterday, he just did.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphi...care-decision/

nope. he just raised taxes on people who choose not to get healthcare.

[firstandten]

Its time for Rushbo to finally keep a promise to his radio audience

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...are/?mobile=nc

Anybody willing to help pack his bags ?