U.S. Judge rules healthcare bill unconstitutional

General Discussion
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Healthcare: Judge rules Obama healthcare law unconstitutional - latimes.com

Well a U.S. District Court Judge has decided that the healthcare law?s mandate is unconstitutional. Not shocking this is what many people were counting on would sink it. The Obama Administration thought it could cram healthcare into the commerce clause because it crossed state lines, to blatant holes in this that anybody could have pointed out. First, when you do nothing, ie you don?t buy health insurance that doesn?t actually fall under the interstate commerce clause so the government can?t legally enforce this penalty, and second the federal government can?t force you to buy a product. If they could then the government could force you to buy broccoli or pay a fine.

Now for the fun part? the Democrats didn?t put a severability clause into the bill so they can?t just remove the offending item, the entire bill must go down. And given the ruling it?s a judicial mandate to stop everything in the bill right now. The only way to get around it is to take it the supreme court. Even if they do, the entire bill will fall apart if they can?t force people to buy the product as it depends on everybody contributing into the system.

I think the SCOTUS will strike down the bill, probably sooner rather than later now. Leaving the Democrats two options, either accept the defeat and let healthcare die completely, or try again with a single payer mandate and hope that they can jam it through unlike last time, but this time with Republican control in the house.

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hey i thought repubs hated activist judges? lol

…should have done medicare for all from the start :bluu:

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I don’t really follow politics, but from where I’m standing it seems you guys really love health insurance companies, even if they fuck you over.

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Fucking exactly. This is what going half ass gets you.

Edit: The bill was too weak to help anyone. There is no difference between shitty insurance and no insurance. All the bill did was force everyone to be a customer with absolutely no cost protections. I once had a plan that required a $250 deductable before I could get any perscriptions and then $50 as a copay each time. The doctor visit rate required $150 before even getting to the co-pay. I never used it. I might as well not have had it. This was just a cheap company covering their employees. What do you think people with pre exsisting conditions would pay? With no cost protections the bill was a toothless bullet point to a toothless admin.

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The smell of justice in the air

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I’m curious why so many people are happy with for-profit health care? The pre-existing conditions thing and policy caps are fucking all kinds of people.

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Yep. I THOUGHT about getting insurance through my job, but then I looked at the policies, and realized no matter what I got, I was getting fleeced. No matter what, I’m paying more for the same thing I’m getting now.

Price caps are crucial to any kind of healthcare reform. Discrimination over pre-existing conditions being eliminated is crucial to any kind of healthcare reform. Forcing people to have healthcare or else they pay a fine isn’t even patching a broken system. It’s taking a pickaxe to a broken system to break it open some more.

And for RC’s comment about for profit health care, John Q rings heavily in my head.

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I’m all for protecting people from invasive governments, but if the alternative is for people to be fucked by private companies, I dunno. I think we have it right over here; I’d rather pay my taxes and not need help than not pay and need help.

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I think the only people who are happy with for-profit health care are health care companies. running health care as a business puts the interests of the shareholders in direct opposition in the interests of the patients these health care companies are supposed to serve. so its pretty stupid.

HOWEVER i’m not sure that obama’s solution is the best one. now that republicans are coming back into power, they’ll probably try and screw over everyone again, while licking the assholes of health care lobbyists. fucking pieces of shit.

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Things that are incorrect:

  1. Crowing about this as a blow against Obama/the Dems/liberals/whatever. The judge struck down a mandate that wasn’t even in the plan as originally presented. It was one of the many compromises that the administration had to make before it would be accepted by… you know, those other guys.

  2. Hailing this as a victory against the very concept of universal health care. A judge striking down a specific piece of legislation has nothing to do either way with the concept that the legislation is attempting to address.

Those companies pay for a lot of airtime, and a lot of people who consume the information delivered by that airtime also tend to be happy with for-profit health care. Even thought it’s fucking them and everyone they know.

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I’m glad I live in a place where my cancerous left testicle was removed for free. And my ongoing observation is performed for free.

Despite that little bout with the big C, I’ve still paid more for universal healthcare than I’ve used. And I don’t regret contributing a single penny.

There hasn’t been a good argument against universal healthcare since… ever. Not even Dr. B can find one, and he’s okay with that.

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maybe now we can get a real healthcare plan instead of an insurance company blowjob package. like national healthcare

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Good luck with that.

Something like universal health care is going to take everything but the military to get it enforced.

Sadly.

There exist far too many rich motherfuckers with their hands in far too many pots for this to change through anything short of a revolution.

Insurance companies, health “care”, doctors, legalized drug companies that ensure that their drugs are the legal ones - even the food industry plays a HUGE part in this money scheme that is nothing if not diametrically opposed to the well-being of the U.S. citizenry.

As I see it.

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Did they figure out how to cure death yet?

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you’re asking this when half of the thread contains posts from our resident trolls

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Explain.

Square root : Dr. B : Cube root : -8

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The healthcare bill wouldn’t have changed shit imo, forcing people to buy it won’t change the prices. If you’re an insurance company, and you KNOW people have to buy your insurance…what would you do? “Price Gouge” of course.

Now the real porblem with the healthcare industry is the model itself. It’s caused prices to get absolutely bat shit out of control. The deductable system is retarded for healthcare. For car insurance, it’s okay, price can only get so high(the cost of the car). Same for house insurance. You fucked your car up, $3k in damages, pay your deductable and we’ll cover the rest. Fine, no biggie.

The problem with healthcare is that tests, medicine, ALL that shit is super super expensive, and can be ongoing for a persons life. If you have a certain deductable and a monthly payment, from a consumer standpoint, that’s the price of your healthcare. You don’t care how much the cost of all that shit really is, you just care how much comes out of your pocket. The problem is, Docters know this. I firmly believe Doctors, though they mean well, are fucking stingy people like everyone else. If I’m a Docter, and a CT scan costs $5,000, and you come in because you have a headache, ima be like "Yo, get yourself a CT scan, it’ll only cost you your deductable. Better safe than sorry :slight_smile: " Then you do it, and pay your deductable, but your insurance pays a fuck load of money for your headache.

The problem is furthered by all the malpractice lawsuites running around. Now you have lawyers coming into play trying to make some easy cash. Let’s say 1 in 5,000 times a headache leads to death, a Dr. won’t risk it because they don’t wanna get fucked in the ass by a fucking stingy lawyer. So fuck it, better safe than sorry for the doctor too. So now you have all these unecessary tests being ran on everyone with a headache. Not just headaches either. Your knee hurts? Get an MRI. Your skin is itchy, let’s draw some blood and get some expensive labwork ran. Before you know it, insurance companies are spending money out the ass. When that happens, of course they’re gonna raise the price of insurance to the consumer.

Now you get rid of policy caps, and force more people to have insurance…jesus christ, I bet in the long-run the bill would cost more for majority of americans, and help very few(The ones who were denied insurance in the first place…that’s fucked up).

Single payer will help, better yet, the system we have for animal insurance would be better too. Insurance just pays a % of damages, no matter what. 5,6,7…depends on your montly payment. So you have to think about how much shit REALLY cost, not just your deductable and/or monthly paychecks.

Drugs are a fuckin joke too. The price difference between a “real” and “generic” drug is astronomical in most cases. I’ve seen cases where a generic costs $50, and the real deal costs $500. However, the difference in co-pays is like what? $10, $20? It’s fuckin dumb. So now what? Most consumers are like, “Well, the real drug costs me $20, and the generic is $10, I’ll just get the real one”. And you walk away thinking it was only $10 more, however the price difference was MUCH more, you just don’t see it because of the way our system works.

I think without changing the system itself and forcing more people to be involved in this, obviously, disfunctional model, would do more harm than good. Just me though…

/rant

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just copy what Canada does. Nothing wrong can ever happen in any situation where you think to yourself WWCD???

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every time i go up to Vancouver i’ve noticed canada doesn’t have nearly as many obese people, which of course drives down health care costs. how does canada keep so fit?

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Legally fuck 14 year olds?

See above.

As I see it.