Why Obamacare is Constitutional

Hmmm you dont think the US healthcare industry has a substantial effect on interstate commerce?

Pretty big industry.

 

Another thing; I believe Obama purposely designed the implementation of Obamacare to be drug out over years with the WORST crap not hitting until 2014 as a way to pass this through Congress without a voter uprising!

If this was implemented when the bill was signed, States and business and People would have understood the effects immediately which surely would have created strong public debate.

I also believe they wanted all the crap to hit the fan long after the 2012 elections!

In spite of the constitutionality debate, I think this legislation stunk from the head from the very beginning!

If government wishes to provide some social programming for any reason, then create the program and MANDATE that the taxpayers are in agreement to fund the program. If the taxpayers refuse to fund it, then don't do it!

 

Every "legal precedent" overturned the PREVIOUS "legal precedent", or status quo.

The point at question is quite simple and clear : does the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT have the authority to FORCE private citizens to engage in commerce?

According to the US Constitution: no way in hell.

And, please spare us the Leftninny Drone Mantra about "the commerce clause!", "the commerce cause!", as if it, somehow , grants this power.

It does not, by ANY stretch of the imagination.

 

I suppose you believe in the “unique” circumstance argued by some Leftists Anti-Constitutionalist Justices huh? The word “unique” is not in the Constitution. The word "commerce" as in the "Interstate Commerce Clause" means "an interchange of goods or commodities." The Point of Sale is that exchange. You seem to mistakenly think the word "commerce" means "production" which it does not.

production (prəˈdʌkʃən)

— n
1. the act of producing
2. anything that is produced; product
3. the amount produced or the rate at which it is produced
4. economics the creation or manufacture for sale of goods and services with exchange value

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/production?o=100084&qsrc=2894&l=dir​

Obamacare sets up a whole new system, not just regulate the point of sale of goods and services sold across state lines. As I have pointed out MOST of healthcare commerce is within a state, and Congress unconstitutionally prohibits the buying of healthcare policies across state lines. Obamacare is not trying to regulate the buying and selling of bandages and medical equipment actually going across state lines.

 

Kids in kindergarten know the car insurance deflection is pitiful. There is NO car insurance mandate in any state. You may buy or borrow a car and drive it at any age without a license, registration, or insurance on any private road or property that has granted you permission to do so. ONLY if you wish to drive on PUBLIC owned roads do you have to prove your ability, register your car, and show LIABILITY insurance or prove financial responsibility.
People that do not drive have no mandate to buy auto insurance anywhere in the USA.
For the Imperial Government to ORDER healthy young people to purchase something they neither need nor want is clearly unconstitutional.

 

Nope! Sadly Medicare is currently carrying over an $82 Trillion unfunded liability.

Medicare liability, bottom of the page.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

 

The distinction is the difference.

From where is the federal authority derived to impose a mandate for inaction? The administration argued before the SC that it was the commerce clause. Reading some of the transcripts from last week, that didn't seem to go over to well.

 

LOL. You still think there is some genuineness to either party? That's cute. With the stipulation to cover preexisting conditions removed, the entire legislation is a dream come true for the medical profession.

You have an industry. This industry's prices have been raised to the point of extreme gouging of the populace. At the same time, the populace as a whole is shrinking wealth wise, with money becoming more and more concentrated. Only those with health insurance can afford the ever increasing price of the product, and those people are shrinking in numbers. The great majority just choosing to die instead of pay the outrageous costs. So what do you do? You pay the two for hire parties to force the populace to play the game and pay the outrageous prices. Prices so high they would rather die than pay. You mask it with a guise of nobility, create an air of fake debate, and sell the final legislation as a great compromise from the 2 sides who represent all Americans. This whole thing is a charade. (*)(*)(*)(*) the democrat and republican party, and all the people who time after time can't see through this bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

 

The 1st party to propose the mandates was the GOP. Those who fallow the democrats now advertise this as proof mandates are a great thing that all should embrace. You have all been sold a bill of goods. I wouldn't be surprised to hear the SCOTUS ruling to be that the mandates are legal but forcing insurance companies to pay for preexisting conditions is unconstitutional.

 

I enjoyed your posts I can see we have about the same opinion on the political parties that rule this country. I hope they strike down the law but do not believe they will. I hope it is not the double-edge ruling you propose at the end of the above post. Yet it would not be a shock I will admit.

To stay on topic I will post why I think it will be ruled constitutional.

1. The republicans have plans for this precedent the fact they can blame Obama for it makes it even sweeter.

2. It gives them the best chance for winning the independent vote. Which will be the only way to defeat Obama in November.

I am no fan of the current president, but not sure I want to give even more power to either party. Just to have a different authoritarian that will take advantage of the new power.

 

But making people purchase something is not regulating the commerce, it is demanding it.

And actually, current Regulations do not allow Insurers to cross state lines, which is kind of ironic, since they are supposed to only be involved in commerce between the states...

 

Let's lay this myth that the GOP/Conservatives first proposed he "mandate" as written in Obamacare.

""The U.S. Supreme Court will put the middle issue to rest. The answers to the first and last can come from me. After all, I headed Heritage's health work for 30 years. And make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, the myth persists. ObamaCare "adopts the 'individual mandate' concept from the conservative Heritage Foundation," Jonathan Alter wrote recently in The Washington Post. MSNBC's Chris Matthews makes the same claim, asserting that Republican support of a mandate "has its roots in a proposal by the conservative Heritage Foundation." Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and others have made similar claims.

The confusion arises from the fact that 20 years ago, I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and I devised a viable alternative.

My view was shared at the time by many conservative experts, including American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholars, as well as most non-conservative analysts. Even libertarian-conservative icon Milton Friedman, in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article, advocated replacing Medicare and Medicaid "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy."

My idea was hardly new. Heritage did not invent the individual mandate.

But the version of the health insurance mandate Heritage and I supported in the 1990s had three critical features. First, it was not primarily intended to push people to obtain protection for their own good, but to protect others. Like auto damage liability insurance required in most states, our requirement focused on "catastrophic" costs — so hospitals and taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the expensive illness or accident of someone who did not buy insurance.

Second, we sought to induce people to buy coverage primarily through the carrot of a generous health credit or voucher, financed in part by a fundamental reform of the tax treatment of health coverage, rather than by a stick.

And third, in the legislation we helped craft that ultimately became a preferred alternative to ClintonCare, the "mandate" was actually the loss of certain tax breaks for those not choosing to buy coverage, not a legal requirement."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...age/52951140/1

 

A distinction that makes any comparison fallacious.

First no one is required to purchase automobile liability insurance simply because they are a citizen and are alive.

Second auto insurance is ONLY required if you are licensing a vehicle you want to operate on PUBLIC roads.

Third you are ONLY require to have liability coverage which does not cover YOU it is to insure that if YOU harm someone else that person can collect on YOUR insurance policy.

Fourth you can post a bond in most states and self insure yourself.

Fifth there is no FEDERAL requirement, it is up to each individual state.

 

I have a question, why is it that now that everyone realizes the fascist mandate is going to be dumped raytri is no longer in this thread?

 

I have a second question.

Who the hell cares?

 

At this point, I doubt that. SCOTUS, controlled by 5 far right ideologues responsible for the atrocious Citizens United ruling, has near dictatorship power this days, but there are some rules they still need to abide by. They just want to sink the healthcare bill, and don't have any reason to change how they do it.

That said, it's absolutely true that the individual mandate is a conservative deal, with Romney playing a lead role, and it's absolutely true that they are disingenuous, and their qualms with ObamaCare have nothing to do with the mandate. It's mostly about higher taxes on wealthy people to help 30 million get insured, combined with a heavy dose of partisan obstructionism. The mandate is just their only possible court vehicle for helping to get the whole thing overturned, and it's the one piece most of the public doesn't like, because in isolation, it gives the impression that one must buy something they can't afford (getting lost is the fact that they will have generous subsidies to do so, and the fact that we currently pays higher taxes for those who don't have insurance).

So the mandate is their baby. It's hardly surprising at this point that right-wingers would want to oust their baby if it means short-term political victories. Besides that, their only real principles are protecting very wealthy people.

 

Good Grief! The Mandate idea is NOT a Conservative idea. Romney is NOT a conservative. To describe Conservative Justices (wishing to preserve and conserve the Constitution, and actually follow their oath) as those with "far right ideologues" is really pretty funny since actually following the Constitution IS a "far right ideologue..." according to you. Whenever three were actually questions and arguments based on the text of the Constitution Obamacare came up as flat as a 6 day old soft drink in a paper cup. The only time Obamacare stood half a chance was when the court was discussing illegal Democrat precedent made after Democrat FDR threatened the Supreme Court so they would stop ruling his "New Deal" unconstitutional. Google the "Switch in Time that Saved Nine."

 

See msg# 538

 

The worst legislation ever passed, obamacare, was passed by a strictly partisan vote of Democrats. So because some day long ago in a galaxy far, far, away a conservative said, everybody should have insurance, conservatives don't own it. The idiot Democrats that passed it WITHOUT READING IT, are the only owners of this piece of crap.

 

Republicans are partisan obstructionists. Got it.

Republicans opposed ObamaCare without reading it or seeking any honest analysis of it. Got that too. Republicans are the creators the individual mandate, however, and it was broadly supported. You can't run away from that to avoid looking like disingenuous partisan opportunists. Romney is the Father of ObamaCare.

http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/03-29-12-10-55-the-individual-mandate-is-a-republican-idea/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...urned-its-back-on-the-individual-mandate.html

 

Democrats passed Obamacare without reading it or seeking any honest analysis of it. Sweet.

 

LOL, Citizens United. What do you have against free speech?

 

Thank God we have some real Americans on the court (also known as conservatives) versus the traitorous Communist cowards (also known as liberals) who wouldn't know the constitution if it slapped them on the side of the head. But thanks to the court conservatives we have enough of a majority for the constitution to gain victory of the yellow spined cowards and their attempts to circumvent it. We've already had a few instances since Obama entered office and we're about to have another. Another victory for the constitution over liberal ideology.

 

I think Republicans were the only ones who read the bill. From the summer of 2009 until the bill passed, I could count on finding an online analysis of the bills, both the House and Senate versions almost every day going over one point of the text or the other. Liberal analysis's were purely reactionary. Most liberals didn't really care about the details. They just wanted to blow a whole wad of money.

You seem to be under some sort of delusion that the individual mandate supported some sort of broad Republican support. The last time it was a feature of Republican legislation was the Republican version to Hillarycare in...what was it, 1993?

The Republicans figured out that a mandate would be unconstitutional years ago. Sorry to say, the Democrats care so little for the constitution that they don't really care if it's constitutional or not.