US Healthcare Discussion Thread

[Sophus]

The part requiring everyone to have health care has been struck down as unconstitutional. Will most likely be on its way to the Supreme Court. Thoughts?

[Inevitable Droid]

The part requiring everyone to have health care has been struck down as unconstitutional. Will most likely be on its way to the Supreme Court. Thoughts?

Forcing people to get insurance was one aspect of the legislation the insurance companies probably liked.  Take that component out, and the insurance companies will likely react in a highly negative way, and politicians will take heed.

Should be an interesting show.

[DJAkuma]

I'm guessing that if they allow people to opt-out for religious reasons we'll see a marked increase in whatever religions don't allow modern medicine, at least on paper.

[Sophus]

I'm guessing that if they allow people to opt-out for religious reasons we'll see a marked increase in whatever religions don't allow modern medicine, at least on paper.

I have to admit it's incredibly stupid to let someone opt-out for religious reasons but not as an act of "free expression".

[Inevitable Droid]

I'm guessing that if they allow people to opt-out for religious reasons we'll see a marked increase in whatever religions don't allow modern medicine, at least on paper.

Perhaps it will be deemed relevant that in states where property or other state taxes are used primarily to fund the primary and secondary schools, adults with no children are still required to pay these taxes as a civic duty.  For one thing, just as an adult could decide later in life to have children, so too could an adult decide later in life to change religions, or drop religion entirely.  For another, just as the adult was once a child, and had recourse to the primary and secondary schools for personal use, so too could the adult's parents have had recourse to medical benefits, and it isn't a given that the adult's parents are the same religion as the adult.

[Sophus]

A political cartoonist's take on this:

[LARA]

Sophus wrote:

The part requiring everyone to have health care has been struck down as unconstitutional. Will most likely be on its way to the Supreme Court. Thoughts?

I'm making an guess that the Supreme court is going to overturn this ruling.  The federal court ruled it unconstitutional saying that a mandate goes beyond the scope of the federal government, but the way this thing is set up, it isn't exactly a mandate to buy insurance, it's an IRS tax break if you have it.  So since the federal government has the power to collect taxes through the IRS, they do have the power to do this and give those without insurance a big kick in the butt at tax time. Hopefully I'm wrong.

The only thing that gives me a wee bit o' hope is that Kathleen Sebellius is heading this mess.  I lived in Kansas when she help start the Kansas Healthwave program for kids.  It's a SCHIP program but the difference was that higher income people could buy into it, so it gave an option to people who couldn't afford costly private care but didn't qualify for medicaid for their kids.  And as far as I know Kansas is still doing okay economically so it's not like the program is bankrupting anyone.

The second possible brightness in this morass is that the Dems are trying to change the poverty levels.  Because the new healthcare law has ways for people to buy into exchanges based on income as a percentage of the poverty line, this would affect who can buy in to get healthcare from the government. (I actually skimmed through that 1000+ page clusterfuck to find the tables on this)

Not sure how adjusting the poverty line would affect other government programs, however.  And who knows if they will change it.  And if they don't a good percentage of America will be in significant financial pain.

But, all in all, I think looking at the way Social Security has been run in the past, it really doesn't matter how beneficient the current administrations actions on Healthcare will to be be.  All it will take is another tax-cut-oilwar-party-time administration to drain the coffers.  Just look at recent history.