Affordable Healthcare Act upheld

[Jonathan Meer]

[Vad]

I face palmed. Just saiyan.

[Belle Hibiki]

Doesn't quite make up for Citizen's United. but at least I have more than zero respect for them, now.

[Anzekay]

hey so America gets to stay a little bit closer to being civilized.

Grats.

[Orion]

Now you just have to stop killing each other with guns and maybe the hospitals will be able to operate on other things?

[Pinky]

Roberts claimed the mandate was under the authority of the Congress to lay and collect taxes, but the Constitution only mentions excise, impost, income, or duty taxes. The individual mandate is none of them since it only applies to people not doing as the law commands, which is probably why Roberts didn't call it any type, and neither is it going to be laid uniform (a Consitutional requirement).

On top of that, taxing is a method for collecting money for funding the national govt's activities but the ACA doesn't apply to any Enumerated Power, so at best what we have is a tax of questionable validity being arbitrarily applied to fund an unenumerated activity.

And I've been watching the left foam at the mouth since the oral arguments about how Roberts was some sort of right wing loon simply for questioning the administration's terrible logic behind their legal defense of the bill. The hysterics was funny for a while, but in the end all he did was marginally close the until-now unlimited expansion of the Commerce Clause and open a much bigger hole in the Tax Clause.

The only thing that seems right with this is that Roberts was telling Democrats that they have to stop lying about the mandate not being some sort of tax (but what kind? apparently nobody knows). The dissenting opinion was also full of interesting counter points, especially in that what Roberts did was change the defense's argument in order to get it to fit into a vague interpretation of the Tax Clause. It's not the Justice's role to tell the involved parties what case they should have made, but to judge the case that they did make.

I've read that Romney raised three million dollars the same day that the ruling came out, and the campaign donation window is now only hours away from closing. The SCOTUS ruling certaintly didn't make this thing more popular, and their timing was interesting.

[Kaden]

I genuinely can't remember the last time you've bothered to use capitalization or punctuation in a post, Pinky.

[Sage]

hey so America gets to stay a little bit closer to being civilized.

Grats.

lol it's a bit staggering that so much argument had to go into providing Americans with a fundamental human right.

EDIT: Ironically, at the same time, we're stripping away those same fundamental human rights from refugees and landed immigrants, which I find beyond disgusting.

[Vad]

Roberts claimed the mandate was under the authority of the Congress to lay and collect taxes, but the Constitution only mentions excise, impost, income, or duty taxes. The individual mandate is none of them since it only applies to people not doing as the law commands, which is probably why Roberts didn't call it any type, and neither is it going to be laid uniform (a Consitutional requirement).

On top of that, taxing is a method for collecting money for funding the national govt's activities but the ACA doesn't apply to any Enumerated Power, so at best what we have is a tax of questionable validity being arbitrarily applied to fund an unenumerated activity.

And I've been watching the left foam at the mouth since the oral arguments about how Roberts was some sort of right wing loon simply for questioning the administration's terrible logic behind their legal defense of the bill. The hysterics was funny for a while, but in the end all he did was marginally close the until-now unlimited expansion of the Commerce Clause and open a much bigger hole in the Tax Clause.

The only thing that seems right with this is that Roberts was telling Democrats that they have to stop lying about the mandate not being some sort of tax (but what kind? apparently nobody knows). The dissenting opinion was also full of interesting counter points, especially in that what Roberts did was change the defense's argument in order to get it to fit into a vague interpretation of the Tax Clause. It's not the Justice's role to tell the involved parties what case they should have made, but to judge the case that they did make.

I've read that Romney raised three million dollars the same day that the ruling came out, and the campaign donation window is now only hours away from closing. The SCOTUS ruling certaintly didn't make this thing more popular, and their timing was interesting.

^ I concur

[Pinky]

lol it's a bit staggering that so much argument had to go into providing Americans with a fundamental human right.

I'm unconvinced that "positive" rights exist like this. For medical services to be a right somebody has to pay for and supply the serivce. If people want to give you charity and doctors want to help you then that's one thing, and that sounds nice to make sure everyone can have that but there is a famous road paved with good intentions. In reality it cannot happen for everyone everywhere without the use of force that's as broad as the "right" is. It's negative rights that are truly fundamental because they don't require that someone be subjugated for another's benefit.

EDIT: Ironically, at the same time, we're stripping away those same fundamental human rights from refugees and landed immigrants, which I find beyond disgusting.

No government has infinite resources. It's a flaw of all activity: no matter what you believe, a positive action cannot apply to everyone forever. The question is which distribution system is more efficient and effective, the private market or the government. I'm surprised that there's anybody left in the first world that believes the government has the competitive edge.

[Sage]

I'm surprised that there's anybody left in the first world that believes the government has the competitive edge.

I sincerely doubt anyone believes having the government run anything is more efficient.

You're talking about economics though; efficiency versus equity. This isn't economics, this is ethics, and I believe I'm a consequentialist; I believe in the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Privately-run hospitals are almost the antithesis of that, and certainly don't take things like the hippocratic oath seriously.

Access to healthcare - which in many cases is access to life - offers immense freedom from many worries and uncertainties millions of Americans live with every day. It works all over Europe. It would work in Canada if our system wasn't so corrupt.

I think it would work better if supplemented by private healthcare for those wealthy enough to afford it, but that's it's own debate.

Efficiency is important, but if that's all you think about, you get people seriously considering crazy things like abolishing child labor laws or the minimum wage (which is shockingly low in most states).

I see where you're coming from, I guess, but I place a really high value on human lives, and I feel our government is responsible, in part, for doing what it can to protect them.

[Pinky]

I sincerely doubt anyone believes having the government run anything is more efficient.

You're talking about economics though; efficiency versus equity. This isn't economics, this is ethics, and I believe I'm a consequentialist; I believe in the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Privately-run hospitals are almost the antithesis of that, and certainly don't take things like the hippocratic oath seriously.

Access to healthcare - which in many cases is access to life - offers immense freedom from many worries and uncertainties millions of Americans live with every day. It works all over Europe. It would work in Canada if our system wasn't so corrupt.

I think it would work better if supplemented by private healthcare for those wealthy enough to afford it, but that's it's own debate.

Efficiency is important, but if that's all you think about, you get people seriously considering crazy things like abolishing child labor laws or the minimum wage (which is shockingly low in most states).

I see where you're coming from, I guess, but I place a really high value on human lives, and I feel our government is responsible, in part, for doing what it can to protect them.

This reminds me of an Ayn Rand quote. The debate between collectivism and liberty is about morality first. People don't support collectivist morality because they believe in collectivst economics, most people understand that collectivist economies are bad. Instead, they believe in collectivist morality and that leads them to collectivist economic policy.

Over the last decade I've watched goverment run systems routinely shut down hospitals due to lack of funds, never for a lack of need. But that is an economic argument, and if that's off the table then what can I say? The only thing left is to accuse the incumbent leadership of being poopyheads, who need to be replaced by people that would expand medical systems without respect to fiscal viability.

[Anzekay]

itt quotes by people I've never heard of, still don't convince me that government healthcare systems are a bad thing.

hey look I just went to the doctor because I have a flu and medicare paid for it. That's pretty cool, but you know what's even better? A kid I know on the other side of the country was able to have brain surgery the other day, to remove a tumour from up there, because medicare paid for almost all of the major costs of the operation. What they didn't cover, the kid's private health insurance did. If he had only had the private insurance, his parents would probably be in debt now.

Sure anecdotes are just that, but I still can't bring myself- as a person who lives in a country with a functional and capable government-run healthcare system- to even remotely think that any arguement against the concept of one in general makes sense. To me, it's simply insane to be against one.

Insane.

[Super Buu]

It's just simple selfishness. I'm doing okay, why should I have to help those other people who aren't doing okay? After all, we live in a perfect world of equal rights, if you can't afford healthcare then obviously you just squandered your opportunities, the same opportunities I had!

The correlation between Christian Fundamentalism (remember that thing in that book? Something about the good samaritan?) and Right-wing politics is something I will never fathom.

[Anzekay]

I could quite happily run off a long list of New Testament passages that go against a lot of right-wing ideals.

But it would take a while.

The thing is, though, that with the way that healthcare systems work in almost every country that has one, even those who can afford private insurance still benefit greatly from the public system too. It isn't like you'd be paying an addition tax or levy or whatever purely for other people's healthcare costs.

[Pinky]

Government is the fiction that everyone can live at the expense of everyone else. Government run medical plans are the largest fiscal liability in the US, both at the national and state level (every state's biggest budget items are Medicare and Medicaid). No matter how much you enjoy your political support being bought at someone else's expense, we are gradually but steadily headed for a cliff -- "forwad" isn't a good direction right now. The socialist welfare states across Europe are decaying, and the advancement of that decay is directly linked to which nations have the most lavish entitlement programs. Eventually, all they will have left is a debt they can't pay and we are right behind them.

And while you guys are talking about it, nowhere in the bible does Christ or his disciples advocate the use of force as a means to any end, which is necessary for the programs you advocate. All resources collected by the first Christians were volentary donations, ie charity. The ends-justify-means ideology that you guys are indulging in, where you shamelessly support the use of force against fellow citizens not because they are a danger but merely because they won't do as you want them to in the manner you want them to, is tyrannical and cannot be justified by New Testment philosophy.

[Anzekay]

I'm just gonna take my hat and leave because nothing you have to say on this topic makes any reasonable sense to me, Pinky. Best to not try too hard to understand it, I think.

[Sage]

Government is the fiction that everyone can live at the expense of everyone else. Government run medical plans are the largest fiscal liability in the US, both at the national and state level (every state's biggest budget items are Medicare and Medicaid). No matter how much you enjoy your political support being bought at someone else's expense, we are gradually but steadily headed for a cliff -- "forwad" isn't a good direction right now. The socialist welfare states across Europe are decaying, and the advancement of that decay is directly linked to which nations have the most lavish entitlement programs. Eventually, all they will have left is a debt they can't pay and we are right behind them.

And while you guys are talking about it, nowhere in the bible does Christ or his disciples advocate the use of force as a means to any end, which is necessary for the programs you advocate. All resources collected by the first Christians were volentary donations, ie charity. The ends-justify-means ideology that you guys are indulging in, where you shamelessly support the use of force against fellow citizens not because they are a danger but merely because they won't do as you want them to in the manner you want them to, is tyrannical and cannot be justified by New Testment philosophy.

What about the US? You're over ten trillion dollars in debt. If socialist nations in Europe are in decay, then your nation must be a long way beyond that.

And how is this any different? You pay road taxes, do you not? What if you didn't want to drive? How come you still have to pay tax? Is that not the same 'tyranny' you're talking about? What if you don't support the military? Certainly, given that the US spends more on its military than anywhere else in the world, far and beyond any amount that could be justified by the most eloquent spindoctor, and I'm certain that at least a part of your income tax goes to fund that. Supplying money to the armed forces sounds a lot more tyrannical than giving someone with cancer a second chance to me.

Your nation is the only first world nation without some sort of socialized medicine program, and also suffers from the worst debt crisis in human history. Giving medicine to the people isn't the problem, the priorities of your litigious, selfish, resource-squandering government are the problem.

[Ashe]

I think Pinky's arguments are a valid offering to the thread. I'm not saying I agree (or disagree) with them, but they are promoting discussion in a (so far) constructive manner, especially between himself and Sage. I like reading things like that.

On an unrelated note, I feel for those that are not in this country yet know way more than you wish about this country's politics. Seriously, I can't (and this is pretty typical American here) even begin to fathom the infrastructure of most other country's political branches nor what their duties and such are. The Government/Economics classes in this country below the privately funded level are absolute shit, given that most of the time it seemed like we were just circle jerking about how fucking awesome and superior our country is to everyone else's methods while we never could offer any reasonings behind it. So it intrigues me when I see how all of you guys who are subjected to Americans staking a flag on the internet itself and frequently discussing our politics but at times rudely making it clear that we don't care about another country's own.

[Anzekay]

Oh I absolutely agree with you. The man can have his opinions, and he's certainly not trolling with them. But for me, they just don't make any sense when I compare them to how I understand things to be, there is just a fundamental difference in the way I view things that makes me not want to get involved for more than a few exchanges.