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Obama's Healthcare Reform and the Supreme Court

Holding the Senate looks tricky since there are 21 Democrat seats and only 10 Republican seats at stake (this is the class from Bush's last mid-term election). Currently electionprojection.com is showing 4 Republican pickups and 1 Democrat pickup, for a final Senate composition of 50-R, 48-D, and 2-Independents.

I would also guess that the ruling also means the Medicaid extensions are also dead in most states (The court voted 7-2 on that issue).
 
I am glad it passed, but wish this country had the nerve to go further. With my health rapidly declining, I am fearful of losing my insurance and that any further problems that may/will eventually surface, could bankrupt us. I hope this law improves things, but I worry that it just won't be enough of a change to make much difference. But at least it's something.
 
gturner said:
Holding the Senate looks tricky since there are 21 Democrat seats and only 10 Republican seats at stake (this is the class from Bush's last mid-term election). Currently electionprojection.com is showing 4 Republican pickups and 1 Democrat pickup, for a final Senate composition of 50-R, 48-D, and 2-Independents.

I would also guess that the ruling also means the Medicaid extensions are also dead in most states (The court voted 7-2 on that issue).
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Well, the Independents caucus with the Dems, so that's 50-50. Then you get Biden (meaning that hopefully, Obama gets reelected) and you have 51-50 Dems.

Although recent polls always show the GOP in the House are massively unpopular.
 
My Name Is Legion said:
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.
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He only sends you emails? He texts me.

gturner said:
But can any of the provisions of the health care law survive when the individual mandate is stripped out, which the Republicans will be free to do because the mandate is now a tax, thus subject to budget reconciiation which can't be filibustered?
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Well, it was originally passed through budget reconciliation, so I would assume the same rules apply to repealing it. If Congress wanted to just repeal the mandate, insurance companies would probably collapse. However, that is precisely what Governor Romney said he would do. As with anything this big, popular opinion seems to love the good things but hate the bad things even though some of the good only functions with the bad.

As a law student, it's interesting from a legal perspective. But I'm glad to move past the legal part and we can finally start worrying about helping those who need help in our system.
 
I'm not sure they could repeat how they passed it, which was to take a House bill about housing for veterans, strip out all the text in the Senate, and then insert the Senate version of the health care bill. Chief Justice Roberts expressed no interest in delving ino the machinations Congress uses to make sausages, but Senate Republicans have already indicated they'll defund the individual mandate via reconciliation now that the Supreme Court has declared it to be a tax. Democrat Senators Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, Ben Nelson, and Jon Tester have long expressed their desire to eliminate the mandate, so this may happen even prior to November. Certainly with those four on board there'd be no way to stop it after November.
 
Veto?

ETA: It was just explained to me why reconciliation won't work. In the short term, a repeal will add to the deficit according to the Congressional Budget Office. And, as long as that's what the CBO is saying, reconciliation is unavailable.
 
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Alidar Jarok said:
Veto?

ETA: It was just explained to me why reconciliation won't work. In the short term, a repeal will add to the deficit according to the Congressional Budget Office. And, as long as that's what the CBO is saying, reconciliation is unavailable.
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That didn't stop them from passing the Bush tax cuts via reconciliation. They basically created a loophole out of thin air that allowed you to add to the deficit via reconciliation as long as the legislation sunsets after 10 years. Democrats got rid of the loophole in 2006 when they took over the Senate (with zero credit from the press), but the loophole is bound to return whenever Republicans regain a Senate majority.
 
All Parliamentary rules are created out of thin air. They can be modified at any time by a simple majority vote. It's fear of creating a precedent that keeps them in line.

I don't think they want to remove the mandate for 10 years with a sunset provision. That doesn't seem to make either side happy.
 
Alidar Jarok said:
Well, it was originally passed through budget reconciliation, so I would assume the same rules apply to repealing it.
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Actually, the main piece of legislation (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) was passed via normal procedure (including the mandate). Reconciliation was only used for amendments (Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010) to the previously-passed Senate bill.


Alidar Jarok said:
I don't think they want to remove the mandate for 10 years with a sunset provision. That doesn't seem to make either side happy.
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I'm sure they would do it if they thought they could get away with it. Republicans will do anything they can to delay, weaken, or outright kill the healthcare reform legislation.
 
I was just reading a brief article on how the Governor of Louisianna, Bobby Jindal, said he will not implement the legislation even after the Supreme Court decision.

"We're not going to start implementing Obamacare," Jindal said during a conference call with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. "We're committed to working to elect Gov. Romney to repeal Obamacare."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/...es-implement-obamacare-despite-152429092.html

So I guess some GOP governors are going to wait until after the election, hoping for that clean sweep.

McDonnell, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, added that he has not yet polled fellow state executives in the GOP about how they plan to proceed after the ruling, but said that most are looking to the election in November for guidance.
 
Guartho said:
There is a calculator here that will give you an idea of the premium range you can expect then.
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Based on that, my premiums would be less than I paid for hospitalization-only coverage...20 years ago.
 
I've got a radical idea for those opposed to healthcare provision. Decline to take any medical cover that comes as part of your job and you're not allowed to take out insurance yourself and join the rest of the population that doesn't have health care or can't afford it.
 
If we did that, wouldn't we have to pay a huge fine (now a tax) to the IRS, so that we couldn't afford food, rent, or shoes?
 
gturner said:
If we did that, wouldn't we have to pay a huge fine (now a tax) to the IRS, so that we couldn't afford food, rent, or shoes?
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From what I understand it, it's to offset the rather large costs of covering who would be normally uninsured (ie, you).

On the other hand, if you were that hard hit, you can now join Medicaid or Medicare, and then you'd be insured again.

I think.
 
So wait a minute. If the law exempts everyone who can't afford health insurance from the fine/tax, then they won't have to get health insurance, which is the same situation as now without all the new layers of bureaucracy. Or perhaps I don't fully understand the law, since one of the Justices argued that reading it violates the Eighth Amendment.
 
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