Obamacare upheld as constitutional....

[_MeDotOrg]

2012 marks the 100 year anniversary of the first push by a major political party for national health insurance. In 1912, two-term Republican President and Future Mount Rushmore resident Theodore Roosevelt proposed National Health Insurance as a plank in his newly formed Bull Moose (Progressive) Party.

Why don’t Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson get the credit that Obama gets? We don’t call Social Security FDR-Care and we don’t call Medicare LBJ-Care.

Ronald Reagan said of the legislation that was to become Medicare: “ "We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."

Many people (John Boemer comes to mind) say the United States has the finset health care system in the world. By what standard? We spend a staggering percentage of our G.D.P. on health care, more than any other nation. Yet we don’t provide health coverage for 20% of our people.In two key indicators, life expectancy and infant mortality, we rank 50th and 48h respectively. One report estimated that 26,000 people died in 2010 because they didn’t have access to health care.

In 1993, Republican Senator John Chaffee introduced a bill that attempted universal coverage through a mandate on individuals to buy insurance. The bill was co-sponsored by 23 Republican senators, including then-Minority Leader (and 1996 Presidential Candidate) Robert Dole,

John Roberts seem to follow the words of a former Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “As between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the act.” Roberts didn’t find the Individual mandate Constitutional under the Commerce Clause, but he did find the mandate Constitutional as a tax, even though the case was not argued that way. I would bet that Roberts personally does not like this legislation, but he did what he belived was his Constitutional duty. I may not agree with his judicial philosphy in call cases, but I believe he showed great personal integrity in following what he perceived was his constitutional duty by adapting the interpretation that saved the act.

The states will still have to sort out the Medicaid issue. Assuming the Health Care act stands, we should have some interesting data on its effectiveness in a couple of years if some states opt in and others opt out.

Will Rick Perry bring up secession again?

[_beastie]

When my health insurance company raised rates on our organization, they always said it was due to having to pay out more in claims. They never said anything about falling investments. Of course, I wouldn't be shocked to find out they simply lied to us.

If, as planned, more healthy people buy health insurance and make fewer claims, that cost should offset the increased cost of caring for the sick (who otherwise might not get health insurance due to preexisting conditions, or be kicked out).

Even the Republicans and health insurance companies have been reassuring people they won't get rid of the parts of the Affordable Care act that people like: eliminating preexisting conditions on children, allowing children to remain on parental policies till 26. So the reality is that this country simply isn't willing to allow people to die on the streets due to lack of health care, personal responsibility or not. Sure, some hard-core libertarians and authoritarian conservatives might be ok with that, but they will never be in the majority. So we just have to accept that we are going to provide health care for everyone, and accept that we need to find a way to pay for it. Otherwise, we're just playing a game of make-believe that will end up costing us more.

[_lulu]

I think you are confusing him with Scalia. Or, more accurately, I think you are parroting Democrat boilerplate that is apt for Scalia, but not Thomas.

By Extraterrestrial standards, both Scalia and Thomas vote with their tubers.

??? I don't get it. Will you please explain?

Their brains are in there toes?

[_lulu]

Thanks.

Investing premiums is true of insurers generally. Health insurance companies invest their premiums just like other insurers do.

For example, Humana:

http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Humana_%28HUM%29

Most insurers offer clients a premium based on the expected cost of caring for them, plus a markup for administrative costs and profit. An insurance company can actually turn a profit even if the cost of administration and insurance claims exceeds the premiums it collects. It does so by investing income on the float: between the time when a client pays a premium and the time when the client needs payment for his or her medical expenses, Humana invests the premium in stocks and bonds.

Health insurance companies' investments in fast food chains and tobacco companies have made a few people wonder about a conflict of interest, or at least hypocrisy.

Or you can read a 2003 report commissioned by The Federation of American Hospitals and the American Hospital Association on the underwriting cycle of health insurers, which says this:

Health Plans must maintain adequate surplus levels. They also have a claim reserve for claims incurred but not yet paid. These funds are invested and the return on this investment is another source of revenue. Gains and losses on investments can affect premium levels, adding another layer of uncertainty in determining what premium rates will be adequate in a given year. The high returns on invested assets during the boom of the 1990s allowed Plans to partially offset underwriting losses during the last low point of the insurance cycle. As the economy slowed, the evaporation of these returns was another contributing factor to the sharp increases in premium levels experienced over the past several years. Health Plans heavily invested in equities (e.g. stocks) were especially hard hit. For example, Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans with an average of 19.3% of their portfolios invested in equities (compared to 3.6% on average for publicly traded health insurers) faced a significant loss of investment income.

[_Bond James Bond]

I still want to repeal health care...in favor of a single payer base system which allows people to supplement with whatever gold package they can afford.

[_krose]

If I am correctly judging the pulse of Utah, the people don't want or need health care and this will be a red hot issue for them in November.

We don' need no stinkin' health care. We have the priesthood, with olive oil in tiny containers and the laying on of hands.

But thankfully, Utah doesn't affect national politics, no matter how stirred up people here become. What difference will it make if we become even more Republican? We are written off as an irretrievably red state, to which neither side needs to pay any attention.

Being able to remain on your parents insurance until age 26 seems a little gratuitous to me.

What? Gratuitous in what way? Uncalled for and unnecessary, or given free of charge? I don't think either is accurate.

... Robert's argument that PPACA is a tax...

Surely he made no such argument. I believe he argued that the mandate should stand because the penalty for flouting it can be seen as a behavior-based tax, not that the entire law is a tax.

[_krose]

The weird thing about this law is that it is not great, and it will need to be modified in several ways, not the least of which will be to address some unforeseen consequences.

The problem is that now that can't happen. Any attempt to do so will fail, because Republicans have stridently marked their territory, such that a complete repeal is the only option they will accept. They have zero interest in making improvements (in fact, they seem to have little interest in cooperating in any way that actually accomplishes governing). As a result, we will all just have to deal with this law as it is, for better or for worse.

[_Brackite]

Ironically, when he was a Senator, Barack Obama voted against the confirmation of Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

Senate Roll Call on Roberts Nomination:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/polit ... lcall.html

[_moksha]

By Extraterrestrial standards, both Scalia and Thomas vote with their tubers.

??? I don't get it. Will you please explain?

Those Extraterrestrials are frequently inscrutable, but at least they approach American judicial decisions with a cluster of new eyes.

[_EAllusion]

Those Extraterrestrials are frequently inscrutable, but at least they approach American judicial decisions with a cluster of new eyes.

?

Thomas's version of texualism isn't inscrutable. His opinions aren't want for having an internally consistent, approachable basis as far as Supreme Court justices go. "New Professionalism" Scalia, on the other hand, is known for flipping between mutually inconsistent and sometimes hackneyed or factually baseless arguments depending on what gets a conservative political outcome he favors. I know Thomas often gets lumped in with Scalia because they both represent the far right of the court and are politically active, but if you actually follow their writings there is an apparent difference between the two.