Supreme Court Hearing on the Affordable Care Act
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-03-22/supreme-court-hearing-affordable-care-act
Next week the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act. The Act is perhaps the most significant piece of domestic legislation since the creation of Medicare in 1965. The decision has the potential to greatly impact future federal legislation for generations to come. Reflecting its significance, the court has scheduled six hours of oral arguments. And more briefs have been filed than in any other case in the court’s history. At the center of the arguments is the so-called "individual mandate". Opponents of the mandate say it’s unconstitutional. The government says it has precedent on its side. But what really matters is what the court rules.
Guests
Joan Biskupic
Legal affairs editor for Reuters News. She has written biographies on Sandra Day O'Connor and Antonin Scalia.
Ron Pollack
executive director of Families USA, a national non-profit organization for health care consumers.
Carrie Severino
chief counsel and policy director, Judicial Crisis Network
Comments
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A Happy Anniversary…
Two years ago on March 23, 2010, a good thing happened in Washington D.C. for the American people. The Affordable Health Care Act was approved by the majority of our elected officials.
My only question is “Why, for all that is good for the people of this country, are so many people unwilling to realize that it is a healthy benefit for America?”
Because of this Health Care Act no one needs to fear, in case of a catastrophic illness, reaching a lifetime limit on insurance coverage.
Because of this Health Care Act I will worry a bit less for my daughter who is a cancer survivor.
Because of this Health Care Act my husband received the supplemental check of $250, as did many, in 2010. That helped with prescriptions when the donut hole was reached.
Because of this Health Care Act that donut hole is slowly being diminished.
There are multiple ways this piece of legislation will help Americans. You can see the progressive changes from 2010 to present and onward at www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/.
Because Affordable Health Care is a life issue to every human is a reason to celebrate this Happy Anniversary! I would like to thank all those who approved the bill! How TRULY grateful I am!
Dixie Damm, [total disclosure: I am the Loudon Co TN Democratic Party chair]
865-988-8454
3000 Sandy Shore Dr.
Lenoir City 37772
Why do people keep talking about the Constitution's commerce clause? This is a 13th Amendment issue.
The government is forcing me into debt to an insurance company. We may get to "choose" our master, but we are legally compelled to choose. If the government wants to provide healthcare for all, that's fine, but I can't be indentured to a private entity.
Personally, I'm shocked that the party of Lincoln hasn't been beating this drum since day one.
"If the government wants to provide healthcare for all, that's fine"
Where in the Constitution is this "fine"?
As for celebrations, I will celebrate when "the unaffordable care act" is dead. I guess if digging out gold fillings from a corpse is success then we will have four more years of Obama to make sure bankruptcy is unavoidable. Sooner or later no one will lend this country any more money to continue this madness.
Webb Myers on March 21, 2012 @ 5:51 pm wrote: “This is a 13th Amendment issue. . . . I'm shocked that the party of Lincoln hasn't been beating this drum since day one.”
No, it’s not a slavery issue!
Tell me, is it “slavery” when the government forces you to buy cars equipped with seatbelts and catalytic converters? When it forces you to drive at limited speeds? When it forces you to build houses according to construction, fire, and electrical codes, forces Doctors and Lawyers (among other professions) to pass certification tests before they can practice, and forces employers to provide worker’s compensation and unemployment insurance coverage for their employees?
Slavery has a settled meaning, and your attempt to redefine it as something else is typical of ideologues, but is hardly truth.
Meanwhile, the Republicans ceased to be the “Party of Lincoln” a long time ago. After all, he’s the one who gave us the first national income tax, and his position on “States’ Rights” was well known (he fought a war against it)!
Oct21 on March 21, 2012 @ 10:15 pm wrote: " ‘If the government wants to provide healthcare for all, that's fine’ Where in the Constitution is this ‘fine’?”
If you are asking where is the legal authority for such programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid (to mention only a few), the answer is not only the Commerce Clause, but the General Welfare clause, which grants Congress the power “To lay and collect taxes, . . ., to . . . provide for the . . . general welfare of the United States” (among other things) - Art. 1, Sec. 8, Paragraph 1.
Sorry to disappoint you, but the issue of whether Congress has the authority to pass this entire law isn’t in question before the Supreme Court, only whether it has the authority to impose the individual mandate (which is only part of the Patient Protection Act).
That is a close question, and it’s no “slam dunk” either way. But one thing I am reasonably sure of, the Court’s decision will not be based on libertarian rhetoric, however much some may wish.
Oh, and speaking of “bankruptcy”, were you so concerned about deficit spending when Bush the Second turned our budget surpluses into deficits?
Oh, and one more thing:
If you are receiving insurance through your employer, the individual mandate is completely irrelevant to you. It will change nothing in your life. It's only people like me, who have to purchase health insurance as individuals, who will potentially be affected by it. Given premium rates I may one day no longer be able to afford insurance, but the Insurance Exchanges the Act creates may help. They will enable me to buy at a much lower group rate, making the insurance affordable.
Since I certainly don't care to "gamble" that I'll never need health insurance, I'm happy to take the benefit of the Exchanges in return for the "cost" of the mandate!
P.S. - And you do realize the "penalty" imposed for violating the mandate will only be taken out of any income tax refund you are supposed to receive. If you calculate your income tax withholding carefully enough, you can wind up neither owing taxes or being owed a refund, in which case the "penalty" is meaningless!
Many things about opposition to the Affordable Care Act defy logic. Two aspects of the debate are particularly mystifying. First: caring for the poor and sick are core Christian values. How can so many conservative Christians reconcile their self-image as a follower of Christ, with their positions, which are actually counter to Christ's teachings? Second: Whenever I hear the word "government," as in "the government shouldn't be doing x or y," I substitute the word "society." The "government" is us - American society. Does it make sense for "society" to care for the poor and sick? I guess that's personal. But a society that cares for the poor and sick is certainly a Christian paradigm.
If you or someone in your family goes to the E.R. in a life and death situation,the last thing you need is this T-Party psychobabble,whether you do or do not have a Constitutional right to live.
Etaoin Shrdlu wrote: "the answer is not only the Commerce Clause, but the General Welfare clause, which grants Congress the power “To lay and collect taxes, . . ., to . . . provide for the . . . general welfare of the United States” (among other things) - Art. 1, Sec. 8, Paragraph 1".
Wrong ES, providing for the general welfare is not the same as providing cradle to grave federal government health care programs. It's to provide an atmosphere in which a free people can flourish, nothing else. Yes I am the same guy who destroyed this argument before. The commerce clause is to make regular the exchange of "goods" between the states and foreign countries, not force citizens to buy anything. GET REAL! Using your methods of reasoning there are NO limits on what the federal government can do and that's exactly the opposite of the intention of the U.S. Constitution.
If the Supreme Court decides on the merits, the AFCA will survive. But since this is an ideological court, I have my doubts.
Rejection of the AFCA would not end the debate. It would merely start it afresh, given that the American "system" is the most dysfunctional in any of the advanced nations.
For anyone who missed Fareed Zakaria's CNN special on Saving Health Care, it will be repeated this weekend. He describes the systems of several nations, ranging from the government as insurer, provider of service and employer of medical staffs, to state-regulated private insurance, whereby individuals are obliged to contribute and insurers are obliged to to provide universal coverage. Each of the systems has its advantages and flaws, but ALL the nations have in common that by nearly every measure they provide better health outcomes at lower cost than the United States.
Watch Zakaria's program - it's journalism the way it should be, and you might learn something.
I suggest that before anyone denigrates a single-payer system, they go to CNN and look at Fareed Zakaria's special on healthcare in four different nations, each of which has done health care a different way, but each has been successful. Each of these nations has less per capita cost per citizen (and visitor, if sick) and has higher quality care than we have in the U.S. Zakaria outlines what we should be aspiring to.
If it is unconstitutional to require everyone to buy health insurance, why is it constitutional for the rest of us to pay for the uninsured emergency medical care. If the the mandate is stuck down as unconstitutional because a group of people see it as against their personal rights, hospitals and doctors should no longer treat people without the means to pay for their medical care. Maybe, when a few million people die in front of our eyes because they can't afford to pay for medical treatment, people might see asking us to pay for health insurance is needed.
Your panel member claims that those of us who are insured pay $1,000 each year for the care of those who aren't. Is he guaranteeing that if this mandate stands, we will see our premiums decreased by that amount? Didn't think so. Academic.
Need I point out that the Obama administration's cost estimate has been almost DOUBLED now by the CBO. The whole cost structure for this was a sham to begin with.
It is highly likely that most everyone will need to "use" health insurance in their life time.
That said, in order for this system to work we need to reduce the number of claims related to purposeful poor choices. If someone chooses to be unhealthy I/we should not be held responsible to pay for their insurance.
Our health care system can work if we (every individual) take responsibility for our health.
Too many Americans think that holding up a big foam rubber finger that says "We're #1!" means we are actually number 1.
As far as I have been able to tell, none of the "socialized medicine" systems in other industrialized countries has impoverished their old people, basically cleaning out their life savings before letting them die.
We need a system that works better than the one we have.
I support the act, but the President included a tax that will severely affect my family. So called "Cadillac Plans" will have an excise tax of 14%. We are not a wealthy family. Teachers like my wife sacrificed wages for better health care plans for their families. Rather than include our insurance cost as part of our income tax computation, which might be fair, we will be taxed a fixed percentage, as though we were buying a car. It's a regressive tax and hurts working families.
Diane, this is certainly an important issue and I appreciate your broadcast. I just hope you and the others present a fair and balanced report. I am an attorney and a conservative and feel this Act (and particularly its mandate) is an unprecedented overreaching abuse under the Commerce Clause or whatever. We can't kid ourselves, it will lead to more and more government controls of this kind on health and other issues and less and less personal freedoms . . . even the freedom to be irresponsible and unprepared or unprotected as to our health if we wish.
My main objection to the insurance mandate is being required to purchase the insurance from for-profit entities. I would not object so much if I didn't keep seeing extremely high pay for executives within these companies. I have also read many stories about insurance companies finding a way not to pay out, such as by finding an error in an application for insurance. It reminds me of the mafia...we're required to pay for protection and they still might find a way not to pay. Legalized extortion...
I am a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. When I am in conversation with it with friends and family the objection of the Act is that they are "being forced to buy it." And Americans do not like to be forced to doing anything let alone being ordered to buy health insurance.
Gary from Ohio
some young people have a job that barely gets the rent paid how is they going to pay for health insurance? How can u Pay a fine for not have insurance when u can't afford insurance in the first place. This is going to be hard for those who make to much, but not enough,to buy insurance or else get fined.
Was there the same opposition to requiring car insurance to registering a vehicle? What are the fundamental differences between the requirements for car insurance and health insurance. They both mean to ensure that all are taken care of.
It's a toss-up whether I distrust the government or businesses more, but I'd like to point out that insurance isn't synonymous with health care. For-profit companies have often made the calculation that there is more money to be made by collecting premiums and then denying care when policyholders need it; or mandating HMO structures that speed patients through doctor's offices, creating working conditions that engender mistakes, then moaning about the high price of malpractice claims...
Universal health coverage could fix these problems. As with anything, the key would be to provide the most effective, rather than the cheapest in the short-term, implementation.
I'd also like to point out that the Obama Administration's rationale for setting up this Affordable Care Act was that the U.S. spends too much money on health care and gets comparatively little in return; yet my inexpert understanding is that the final structure did very little to contain costs and relatively little to expand access, especially to alternative treatment modalities.
PPACA should not be challenged on the grounds that it requires all people to purchase health insurance, but on the grounds that it requires all people to purchase health insurance from companies who for generations have been extorting people and/or the companies they work for in the premiums they charge and the business practices they use. The issue should challenge the constitutionality of the current health care system of private insurance companies on the following grounds:
Private health insurance companies have established medical procedures without consulting doctors and hospital administrators (such as hernia surgery being considered day surgery), which in essence is practicing medicine without a license;
Doctor are forced to “sign-up” with an insurance company’s “plan” and accept their fees for services because if they don’t, they will have no patients – a clear interference with free enterprise;
People who do not have health insurance are charged far more for services from doctors and hospitals than the prices for the same services charged to those with private health insurance – discriminatory pricing;
Although a patient must acknowledge reading health insurance companies practice of confidentiality, there is no confidentiality, since health insurance companies subscribe to a database where claims are collected to be retrieved if pre-existing conditions are suspected – and many health insurance companies send records to other countries for processing;
Health insurance companies many times have no contract with the people they cover, but with their employers, thereby limiting their liability for possible litigation over “covered” disputes;
A middle class income cannot afford the exorbitant premiums a health insurance company charges and the government should not subsidize an overpriced commodity
Mary-Cat
The false assumption is that all uninsured pay nothing for their hospital care. Many work our payment plans with hospitals, all of whom provide this service. Please stop misrepresenting this in order to support your premise.
Ron Pollack believes there is a magic money pot out there.
I had to buy insurance on the open market in my 50's due to a divorce....I spent over 24k on health care last year with insurance ...and I was not critically sick.....over 20% of my income
i am a woman and its maryland insurance...I just hope I make it until I reach medicare age...The sad part is because you are older no one that offers health insurance would want to hire you either
I'd rather have national health care ...otherwise you have insurance companies that sponsor golf tournaments and horse races
Before Obama came to Office the citizens were demanding a Public Heath Care System. The same taxpayer subsidized health benefits that all congressmen, senators and federal employees are getting. Why the law makers have to be on Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) paid by the taxpayers while the taxpayers have to be on the mercy of For-Profit private insurance? The For-Profit health insurance industry’s lobbyist derailed the Public Heath Care System debate by declaring the war on the White House and forced that every citizen be insured to maximize their profits.
I get direct medical, dental and Rx through the VA. I don't need and I don't want additional medical insurance. Yet, everything I have read and everyone I have talked to says that the individual mandate will force me to dip into my meager retirement income to buy surplus medical insurance that I don't need or I will have to pay a tax/fine. I support the need for affordable health insurance, just not the onerous individual mandate.
We're paying for the uninsured who receive care now so we need this mandate, which will provide premium subsidies to those who can't afford insurance, which means....we'll still be paying for the uninsured. Excellent example of patently idiotic policy 'rationalization.'