Lead plaintiff in Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare goes bankrupt...

I just don't get how you can claim government is infringing on your liberty when there are laws mandating insurance, but then you are OK with laws allowing you to pass the buck to others, which infringes on their liberty.

As a small business owner, the law should not be unconstitutional. There are laws mandating being bonded and insured. Is it unreasonable to ask a business to pay for insurance.

Now, I think tying health insurance to an employer hurts the U.S. in many ways and stifles entrepreneurship, but somehow the notion of single-payer means we're godless heathens.

 

What laws are you specifically talking about?

Tying health insurance to employment through tax incentives was a well-meaning idea that caused lots of undesirable unintended consequences and complications. The same thing will happen with health-care mandates.

Single-payer would be a direct, appropriate solution.

 

Single-payer makes so much sense -- as a business proposition -- it's crazy people are so crazy against it. But we have to have this Frankenstein of a health reform plan which, while better the current system, still clings to an employment-based system that is an accident of history because people are too worked over "government is bad" to look at this as a possible economic boon to businesses, not having to pay for and administer health benefits.

 

Bankruptcy laws allow the costs of debt to be passed to society as a whole. It's not a bad thing to do, because people shouldn't be enslaved by debt and debtor's prisons are a vile way to treat civil case disputes. Interesting case here, though, of some states still allow for debtors to be jailed.

http://blogs.wSportsJournalists.com/law/2011/03/17/on-the-rise-of-debtors-prison-the-scariest-thing-that-ever-happened-to-me/

To the original point, the plaintiff's arguments are hollow if she and her husband can write off their debt, but then think they shouldn't have to pay into a system that ultimately allows the burden of health care costs to be shared.

 

Yes, this absolutely proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Obamacare is a good idea...

 

Single-payer would have been a good idea.

Has anyone seen how health insurance company donations to political campaigns have be divvied up since the health-care reform bill was passed. Any health-care insurance company executive against it probably isn't a good fit in their job.

 

Those debtors' prisons stories are scaremongering. The people referenced are always being jailed for ignoring court orders, not failure to pay.

 

Who said that?

 

A true public option is better than single-payer. Single-payer will eliminate all sorts of private choice. Single payer also has the major downside of eliminating competition. That's not going to help. As inefficient as the health care market is today, it will be even less efficient without any competition.

 

No, it's not unreasonable to ask a business to pay for it. It would be unreasonable, in my opinion, to require a business to pay for it. Suppose at the prevailing wage rate a given employee can generate no more than, say, $200 in profit a month. If the employer is required to either: A) pay for insurance; or B) pay a "tax" of some amount for not providing insurance, that employee becomes a losing proposition.

And boy howdy do I agree with you!

Single-payer wouldn't be my cup of tea -- I'd like us to move away from insurance, period, except for protection against catastrophic loss ... well, actually, that's a move toward what insurance is really about -- but I agree with you that we wouldn't be godless heathens under a single-payer regime. Well, not all of us, anyway ...

 

The big thing we hear from big business is that nobody likes the "uncertainty" of knowing what hook they'll be on with the new health plan. That is Boehner's big buzzword. Wouldn't single-payer eliminate the uncertainty now and forevermore?

 

Yep