Unconstitutionalcare

The judge was appointed by a Democrat. Play the semantics game all you want. And how is it "dredging it up again" when the decision was handed down today? The first time a democrat-appointed judge ruled against it and you want to say "nothing to see here." Glad you are not running my news department because your judgment of newsworthiness is ... how to say it ... lacking.

 

Well, it beats having an uninsured person going into an emergency room, receiving treatment and a bill he could never hope to pay and having everyone's insurance rates go up because of it.

 

Again: It was a joint decision by a H.W. appointee and a Clinton appointee. I don't think either of those appointments binds either person to forever and ever decide in that party's favor on every issue; rather, if they are doing it right, they are deciding on the merits of the law and the case before them. If things did work that way, we could call an end to it right now because Anthony Kennedy was appointed by Ronald Reagan and thus we know how the ruling will come down. We could also have dismissed California's Prop 8 (gay marriage) lawsuit because the judge was a Republican.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the legal nuances of their ruling. You do pretend.

 

Posting a Yahoo link about a legal ruling is pretending to be "an expert on the legal nuances of their ruling?" Or was it identifing that one of the judges was appointed by a Democrat? Was that delving into challengine legalese? Either you are incredibly moronic or trying to make some kind of point that has nothing to do with the thread. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it is the second option. But, truthfully, your history of posts does not rule out the first.

 

As we have gone from discussion of issues to personal insults, I will check out of this, having made my point in a manner that causes you to bring the insults.

 

The AMA represents less than half the physicins in the US and I do not know their political stance on manpower. That said, there is a large physician manpower shortage in the country that will become more of a probem as the population grows and ages. Primary care and geriatric care are two of the greatest needs. Some of the slack will be picked up by physician extenders like nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Medical school are extremely expensive and few have opened in the last 25 years. interestingly, Medicare pays hospitals to train interns and residents once they have graduated medical school and there are more training slots than newly minted MDs. The rest of the slots are filled by foreign graduates, many of whom retrun home with their skills to increase the quality of heath carein their native lands.By the way, the lag time from opening a medical school to producing doctors is a minimum of 7-10 years or more depending upon the specialty.

in a budgetary cost cutting move a generation ago, Canada limited the number of post graduate slots, leading to a significant physician shortage that has been ameliorated by an aggressive campaign to import foreign doctors. The US tends not to import foreign MDs without amking certain that their level of training is equal to or greater than that offered in the US.


The question about big pharma profits is a good one. But big pharmaceutical companies are not they, they are us. Publicly traded companies are meant to generate profit and dividend to their shareholders, who often are mutual funds, retirement plans, unions and individuals. companies that provide medical services could be forced or choose to become non-profits but then the owners would suffer as well. It's not us v. them...we are them.

 

Because there are certain aspects to it that finally take care (hopefully) of some of the bullshit that insurance companies were getting away with for years. No more denying coverage on alleged pre-existing conditions. No more putting a lifetime cap on the amount of money that a company will pay, thereby preventing people with serious illnesses or injuries from becoming bankrupt. And it allows parents to keep their kids on their plan longer while the kids are struggling in this economy to either get a FT job, or to use the job to pay back their student loans instead of having their checks deducted for insurance.

Well, the GOP had power for almost 6 years. If they were serious about health care reform, they would have done something. They didn't.

I've said it before. Had the GOP done some sort of reform of the worst parts of the industry, such as the pre-existing bullshit, or the "Usual and customary" crap, there wouldn't have been a need for Obamacare.

 

Baron, I agree with you. The GOP's refusal to tackle this in the six years it had the lead is inexcusable. That was yet another thing on Bush's long list of topics where he had a failureship to lead, and he does deserve to be taken to task for this. However...
Bush got hammered for his expensive prescription drug program that was yet another unfunded mandate. Obama's health care reform is much, much more of the same. They are still finding things in it that will add to the cost. Like I said, doing nothing was better than doing the wrong thing. However, I see your point that something had to be done. So this leads to the crux of the argument...yhis should have been handled quite differently. Passing something this huge on a purely partisan basis was a big mistake by Obama, and I really think despite all the talk about the debt limit and his percieved weakness there, the reason Obama is going to lose in 2012 is because of how Obamacare was passed against the will of the people. I think about the Dems prancing past the protestors on the Hill, what a show of arrogance that was. Nancy Pelosi and her friends just added fuel to the fire and MADE SURE the Tea Party and friends would not forget. That kind of set the tone for the rest of Obama's term.

What should have been done was a solid, if not unspectacular, approach to health care reform that incorporated ideas from all sides. Not a giant "F-You" approach. Something could have been done that was an actual positive achievement form Obama...a real legacy instead of what we ended up with. The Republicans showed up ready to talk and were told there was no room at the Inn. This is not Obama's fault, but it reflected badly on him because the entire process seemed so corrupt.
Meanwhile, again in a failure to message well, Obama's staff went with "we are going to add 30 million people to the health care insurance rolls, people who cannot afford to pay for it, and doing this will save us billions of dollars." Seriously, that was the message. Sometimes I wonder if Obama even has PR people.
I think this law will either be struck down or repealed. When this happens I hope the GOP can, instead of taking an Obama-bashing victory lap, actually get together with the other side to solve the problem correctly this time. I won't hold my breath.

 

President Nixon: “Say that I … I … I’d tell him I have doubts about it, but I think that it’s, uh, now let me ask you, now you give me your judgment. You know I’m not too keen on any of these damn medical programs.”

Ehrlichman: “This, uh, let me, let me tell you how I am …”

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Ehrlichman: “This … this is a …”

President Nixon: “I don’t [unclear] …”

Ehrlichman: “… private enterprise one.”

President Nixon: “Well, that appeals to me.”

Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because …”

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Ehrlichman: “… the less care they give them, the more money they make.”

President Nixon: “Fine.” [Unclear.]

Ehrlichman: [Unclear] “… and the incentives run the right way.”

President Nixon: “Not bad.”




http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcript_of_taped_conversation_between_President_Richard_Nixon_and_John_D._Ehrlichman_(1971)_that_led_to_the_HMO_act_of_1973:

 

Can you try to add something to the conversation (for once) instead of posting something just to post something? 1973. Nearly 40 years ago. Yeah, that's relavant.

 

Combine all that with the fact that *everyone now has to buy from them*. So they can charge whatever they want.

Part of the reason they denied coverage for all those reasons in the past is so that they could keep the price competitive enough that people would still buy health insurance (and thus they could make obscene profits). Now they don't have to worry about that. You *have* to buy from them. They don't care if there's a clause in the law that says they have to buy every customer a gold-plated yacht, they can just raise the price to make up the difference. And then raise it some more just for funsies.

This is the Newt Gingrich health-care plan, and 20 years ago liberals would have been rioting in the streets if someone had tried to pass it.
Instead, they are trying to argue with a straight face that a law making it a crime to not buy from corrupt corporations is somehow going to de-corrupt the corporations.

 

As a follow-up, Obama is going to take on gas prices by mandating that they be raised no more than once a month, and as a tradeoff everyone has to own a car and leave it running 24/7. That'll show those oil companies.

Then he's going to tell airlines that they have to make the seats more comfortable, and mandate that everyone buy at least three flights a year. Suck it, airlines!

For his final act, he'll stick it to the commodities speculators by mandating that the entire federal budget has to be invested in whatever they are buying, right after they've bought it.