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Obama's Healthcare Reform and the Supreme Court

1001001

1001001

Serial Canon Violator
Administrator
This morning the US Supreme Court announced their 6-3 decision to uphold the President's individual mandate for health insurance.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/supreme-court-issue-obamacare-decision-135554880.html

"In a victory for President Obama, the Supreme Court decided to uphold his signature health care law's individual mandate in a split decision, upending speculation after hostile-seeming oral arguments in March that the justices would overturn the law. The mandate has been upheld as a tax, according to SCOTUSblog, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberal wing of the court. Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog says Roberts' vote "saved' the Affordable Care Act."

I am interested in hearing what people think. Will this change your life at all? Do you have employer provided health insurance?

I think the way we deal with healthcare in this country is outrageous, and needs fixing in a big way. I'm not sure if this is the way to do it, but I don't think we can continue the way we are going.

My wife and I pay nearly $10,000 a year for family healthcare coverage. And that's with $20 co-pays.

I agree with the President on the central issue: people are in the healthcare system, whether they have insurance or not. The government can and should regulate this process to protect consumers.
 
This is going to cause insurance premiums to rise and now give congress power to mandate the purchasing of anything they want the people to buy.
 
Premiums have already adjusted to the law. At this point, striking it down would have been a much bigger shock to the industry.
 
RyanKCR said:
This is going to cause insurance premiums to rise and now give congress power to mandate the purchasing of anything they want the people to buy.
Click to expand...

I don't know if it will cause premiums to rise or not. There are a lot of abuses, IMHO, in the delivery of healthcare, particularly drugs.

Again, I think that people are in the healthcare system, whether they have insurance or not. If a person has a heart attack they take him to the hospital. If he doesn't have insurance, we pay for him. Is that more fair?
 
RyanKCR said:
This is going to cause insurance premiums to rise and now give congress power to mandate the purchasing of anything they want the people to buy.
Click to expand...

Bull.

Lindley said:
Premiums have already adjusted to the law. At this point, striking it down would have been a much bigger shock to the industry.
Click to expand...

Correct. The industry has already spent a ton of money implementing this, and it would've been a disaster to have to unwind all of that now.
 
When the bill was passed I had to switch to last resort insurance and my premiums went way up and it did not cover as well as what I had before. This is a nightmare. Yes we did pay for others before but now inurance companies have no incentive to lower rates since everyone has to buy it or pay a tax (really a penalty.)
 
1001001 said:
This morning the US Supreme Court announced their 6-3 decision to uphold the President's individual mandate for health insurance.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/supreme-court-issue-obamacare-decision-135554880.html

"In a victory for President Obama, the Supreme Court decided to uphold his signature health care law's individual mandate in a split decision, upending speculation after hostile-seeming oral arguments in March that the justices would overturn the law. The mandate has been upheld as a tax, according to SCOTUSblog, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberal wing of the court. Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog says Roberts' vote "saved' the Affordable Care Act."

I am interested in hearing what people think. Will this change your life at all? Do you have employer provided health insurance?

I think the way we deal with healthcare in this country is outrageous, and needs fixing in a big way. I'm not sure if this is the way to do it, but I don't think we can continue the way we are going.

My wife and I pay nearly $10,000 a year for family healthcare coverage. And that's with $20 co-pays.

I agree with the President on the central issue: people are in the healthcare system, whether they have insurance or not. The government can and should regulate this process to protect consumers.
Click to expand...
Over here the a average John Doe pay slightly more but then again his quasi labour taxes also finances the healthcare of the non-working parts of the population with it.
I am not an expert on health issues but one thing is obvious, the US healthcare system is extremly inefficient. So yeah, perhaps you guys should exchange the natural inefficiencies of public healthcare for the rent-seeking behaviour (lobbying and stuff like that is not productive activity) of private health insurance companies.

Usually there is a trade-off between efficiency and equality, e.g. in the case of income redistribution, either you make the cake bigger or you distribute it more equally.
When there is no such trade-off and you can increase both at the same time, make the health care system more efficient and more equitable, the decision is a no-brainer.
 
Insurance industries actually wanted this to pass as they had already made the needed changes and thought this was reform they could live with- it's certainly better than single payer for them (although that would've been better for the general public). So anyone saying that this is going to send insurance companies wild is wrong; they'll be just fine.
 
RyanKCR said:
When the bill was passed I had to switch to last resort insurance and my premiums went way up and it did not cover as well as what I had before. This is a nightmare. Yes we did pay for others before but now inurance companies have no incentive to lower rates since everyone has to buy it or pay a tax (really a penalty.)
Click to expand...

It sucks that you had to do that in the short term, but when the 2014 provisions kick in your premiums should drop significantly if you take advantage of the state exchanges.

There is a calculator here that will give you an idea of the premium range you can expect then.
 
Just to be accurate, the story has been updated to correct the vote. It was actually 5-4. Chief Justice John Roberts, a Bush appointee, cast the deciding vote.
 
1001001 said:
Will this change your life at all?
Click to expand...

No, but only because I'm already in Maryland's program for people who are uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions and/or who have run out of COBRA (in my case, it's both). It's not cheap -- I pay over $500 a month, and that's with a low-income subsidy -- but it provides excellent coverage. If I understand correctly, it was one of the models for "Obamacare."
 
Speaking of which, when exactly do the Health Care Exchanges go online?

I'm hoping the prices will be low enough that I can finally feel comfortable "decoupling" health insurance from my employer.
 
I'm just disappointed that I haven't yet received the first of my usual 10,214 daily emails from the President's reelection campaign keeping me up on all the little details of life in the White House.

They're kind of like Christmas letters, but Christmas With The Obamas comes around every hour or two.

I enjoy the ones signed "Michelle," though those from my favorite uncle Joe Biden are the best - that rascal! :lol:

I expect today's, though, to be from my best buddy "Barack" and to lead off something like this:

A Victory For All Americans. But...

Dennis,

(Barry always calls me Dennis; we're like that)

This morning the Supreme Court decisively upheld the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Because of this, millions of Americans now have the assurance that (recite the bottomless cornocopia of benefits here). They know that never again will (insert list of miscellaneous perfidies of insurance companies and various dire consequences if ObamaCare were repealed).

But you and I know that there's more to do (Barry gets so chummy about halfway through; I always feel so valued).

My opponent has already announced his intention to repeal ACA, turning back the clock to (additional list of catastrophes, dogs and cats living together, etc)...
Click to expand...
At about this point, my best pal assures me that we cannot - and together, we will not - let this happen.

Then he tries to hit me up for three bucks.
 
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