SCOTUS: ObamaCare Decision

[Zeke12]

Might I suggest we let the whole Iraq thing go? Whether Bush lied or Obama lied (and I believe neither is the case) is largely irrelevant. I am still struck by two things:

1) The individual mandate's tax/penalty (or penalty/tax, if that's what blows your skirt up) was sold as critical to the feasibility of the ACA (so as to help insurers, which in the future must accept all-comers, navigate the information asymmetry problem). Now we learn, however, that:

2) Said tax/penalty isn't nearly as mandatory as anything else the IRS is charged with collecting. Indeed, the damn thing might never be collected.

Is this latter issue a poison pill that will ultimately doom the ACA to failure?

As regards one, the proper answer is convoluted and complicated, but the short answer is, it is not as essential, now, as it might have been during various iterations of the legislation. One also has to separate its' policy utility from its' political utility -- and yes, there was a time when the mandate was absolutely vital to the political calculus of getting the bill passed.

As to no. 2, I don't really think so. Most people prefer to obey the law. Most people will simply make sure they have insurance -- which is the desired effect. The enforcement mechanism was left how it was deliberately. No one wanted to jail people for not carrying insurance.

 

[Dick Whitman]

So for legal purposes, it is not a tax but is authorized by Congress' power to tax.

Yeah, this is exactly what I've been trying to say today here. She said it better, obviously.

 

[RickStain]

So for legal purposes, it is not a tax but is authorized by Congress' power to tax.

Yeah, this is exactly what I've been trying to say today here. She said it better, obviously.

Yeah, sorry (to the Supreme Court, not to you), but that's stupid. Words mean what they mean.

I know they needed an excuse to hear the case if they wanted to uphold under taxation but not run afoul of that law, but I thought they could do a little better job of dancing around it than they did.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

Where are all these healthy people in their 20s who don't have and don't want insurance? I never met any of those. However, I've met lots of healthy people in that age range who want insurance but can't get it through work, or find what is offered prohibitively high. I'm sure the former category exists, I just don't know if we could fill up a good-sized Big Ten stadium with them.

I met a lot of them. A LOT of them.

"I don't need this." Famous. Last. Words.

Then the bill comes from the hospital, and the physician, and perhaps for the MRI/CT in addition to a bill for someone to read it. Don't forget the anaesthesiologist if the 20-something had a surgical procedure.

Some had the means. Some didn't. The ones who didn't are understandable, to a degree, but for those who could do something about this and chose not to, there's a problem. They don't think the bill is their responsibility. It's someone else's issue. Always.

For those who cannot, we should be able to help out. For those who don't ... THAT'S who they're going after. If it raises awareness aside from the barking and outright b_tching, then something positive came out of this.

That's the way it's being sold, but the math doesn't add up. Yes, some young people will no longer be freeloading. Young people aren't being added to stop them from freeloading. They are being added to pay more into the system than they take out, so that they can subsidize the already sick, the non-young poor, and all the other people who are going to be getting health care now. That money to pay for their care had to come from somewhere, and those young freeloaders were an easier target than the general taxpaying public.

The idea didn't come from going after strictly 20-somethings. People of all ages have been running from healthcare coverage ... until they need it. Then they wonder why they can't simply sign up for it a couple of days before a major procedure. Again - and it has been said before - we're going after those who cannot. We're going after those who won't or don't, then want to game the system at their convenience.

It shouldn't be that difficult to figure out, but it is. Or ignorance is bliss. Or maybe a little of both.

The problem is for all the government intervention, finding a way to offer more options for healthcare coverage needs to be addressed. Don't confuse my stance with defending providers ... some of them are scumbags and predators of the highest order.

Supposedly, providers now cannot deny based on pre-existing conditions. All that will do is cause them - and Aetna has led this charge for a generation, if not more - to look for every loophole to deny what many of us consider routine health procedures, tests and appointments.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

How did we get back to 1998 WMDs from SCOTUS health care?

The GOP is whining about Obama's "lying" about whether the health care law is a tax. I pointed out that essentially what goes around comes around.

Might want to rethink that approach ... Not one of your better rhetorical strategies.

Let's see:

GOP lies to Dems about WMDs and 9/11 connections to Iraq which ends up costing nearly a trillion dollars, thousands of American soldiers' lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens' lives = Dems are unpatriotic.

Obama lies to GOP about whether health care law has a tax or not in it = Obama is a lyin' socilist who wants to take away your freedom!!

Yep, got it.

Apparently you don't realize that the "what goes around comes around" argument you're making leads to one of two conclusions: A) you're agreeing that the President has been lying with regard to the ACA; or B) you believe that the GOP wasn't lying with regard to Iraq. I am pretty sure neither is what you're trying to say.

I don't know if Obama lied or not. I think he figured it was a mandate, and when the SC deemed it a tax, he shrugged his shoulders and took it as winning on a technicality.

And if he did lie about it, like I said, the GOP got a taste of its own medicine for once.

 

[printit]

I pulled up the government opening briefs on both the jurisdictional and constitutional issues. The government argued, as the Supreme Court majority held, that for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act - a statute enacted by Congress - it was clear that Congress did not intend the penalty to be a tax. Basically the reasoning was that Congress knows the difference between a tax and a penalty, knows how those terms are used for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act so if they didn't use the term "tax" it was because they didn't want it to be a tax under the AIA.

So, for statutory purposes the penalty is NOT a tax.

The government's main argument was that the ACA is constitutional under the Commerce Clause. Its secondary argument was that the ACA was a valid exercise of Congress's taxing authority. However, I did not see where the government called the penalty a tax. I read it pretty quickly so maybe I missed it, but I kept seeing references to the "penalty." The underlying premise for this argument, which Roberts relied upon, is that as long as there is a reasonable interpretation of a statute that will uphold the constitutionality of that law, it must be given that interpretation. Nobody said it was in fact the intention of Congress to use its taxing authority - only that there was a reasonable interpretation of the statute that would render the statute constitutional under the taxing powers.

So, arguably, the government did NOT admit that even for constitutional purposes the penalty is a tax.

Therefore, no lie.

And to show just what a tax law/constitution geek I am, I'll even go as far as arguing on behalf of Romney that his MA mandate is not a tax even if the SC decision did hold the ACA mandate a tax in its Constitutional analysis. Assuming the MA legislature properly identified the mandate as something other than a tax, then under the statutory interpretation analysis the MA mandate is whatever it was called and NOT a tax. Since there is no constitutional issue with the State's law (which of course does not involve Congress and its authority anyway) you never reach the part of the decision regarding tax, taxing authority etc.

Again, no lie.

Thank you for making my point 1,000 times better then I did. If I need a lawyer I'm calling you.

It's not a tax,(I agree) but since Congress could have passed it as a tax, (again, I agree) we're going to say it's Constitutional. That's it. One day (a long time from now, when emotions are not so high re: health care) people will look at this "logic" and say, "Hey, that really broadens the power of the government well beyond what anyone intented...hmmmm....wonder if that will ever come back to bite us"

 

[User 11148]

I don't know if Obama lied or not. I think he figured it was a mandate, and when the SC deemed it a tax, he shrugged his shoulders and took it as winning on a technicality.

White House flunky: Mr. President, Justice Roberts is on the phone asking about that individual mandate tax ...
President Obama: No, absolutely not, emphasize to him that it is not a tax ...
White House flunky: He's saying that if it's not a tax, they'll have to throw out the whole ACA as unconstitutional ...
President Obama: You know it's funny he should mention that tax ...



For the record, I think all this "President Obama lied" business is ridiculous.

 

[Starman]

He lied, he lied, he lied.

 

[Boom_70]

Ronald Reagan had a great understanding and appreciation of what is important to most Americans as evidenced by this quote and many others:

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem"

-- President Ronald Reagan, 1985

You want to have a keen appreciation of how he thought, then
read his diary.

 

[Boom_70]

Let's see:

GOP lies to Dems about WMDs and 9/11 connections to Iraq which ends up costing nearly a trillion dollars, thousands of American soldiers' lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens' lives = Dems are unpatriotic.

Obama lies to GOP about whether health care law has a tax or not in it = Obama is a lyin' socilist who wants to take away your freedom!!

Yep, got it.

No one is saying that. We were pointing out that it is, in fact, accurate to call Obama a liar. Just as it was accurate to call Bush a liar.

Since when can "lying" be applied retrospectively? Didn't the oft-quoted Obama tax comment come several years before the Supreme Court decision? At the time, Obama wasn't "lying" about anything, he believed it.

The Bush WMD claim was a bald-faced lie from jump, put forth as a red herring for the American public.

Apples and ... you know ...

I guess John Kerry bought the lie hook, line and sinker. Surprised that a man in his position would not have had his own sources to verify:

“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation … And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction… So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real …”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan.23.2003

Quotes like that certainly helped Bush sell the war to the
skeptics. If John Kerry had said that the threat was not real, do you think we would have gone to war?

Dude. Kerry lost in 2004. You can retire the quotes now.

And Kerry got duped just like many other gullible politicians and the American public did. Shame on him.

Just to be clear Barron sidetracked us into this debate. I was merely balancing the ledger.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Let's see:

GOP lies to Dems about WMDs and 9/11 connections to Iraq which ends up costing nearly a trillion dollars, thousands of American soldiers' lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens' lives = Dems are unpatriotic.

Obama lies to GOP about whether health care law has a tax or not in it = Obama is a lyin' socilist who wants to take away your freedom!!

Yep, got it.

No one is saying that. We were pointing out that it is, in fact, accurate to call Obama a liar. Just as it was accurate to call Bush a liar.

Since when can "lying" be applied retrospectively? Didn't the oft-quoted Obama tax comment come several years before the Supreme Court decision? At the time, Obama wasn't "lying" about anything, he believed it.

The Bush WMD claim was a bald-faced lie from jump, put forth as a red herring for the American public.

Apples and ... you know ...

I guess John Kerry bought the lie hook, line and sinker. Surprised that a man in his position would not have had his own sources to verify:

“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation … And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction… So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real …”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan.23.2003

Quotes like that certainly helped Bush sell the war to the
skeptics. If John Kerry had said that the threat was not real, do you think we would have gone to war?

Dude. Kerry lost in 2004. You can retire the quotes now.

And Kerry got duped just like many other gullible politicians and the American public did. Shame on him.

Just to be clear Barron sidetracked us into this debate. I was merely balancing the ledger.

And I was pointing out the irony of the "Obama's a liar" argument.

 

[Boom_70]

They're all liars. Every one of them.

Amen! They'll say whatever it takes to get reelected.

Given that lying works, it makes much of the constituency
idiots.

 

[schiezainc]

They're all liars. Every one of them.

Amen! They'll say whatever it takes to get reelected.

Given that lying works, it makes much of the constituency
idiots.

See, I disagree with the last part of this statement. I wouldn't call much of the constituency on either side idiots. Sure, the extremists of both parties are dumb (no doubt) but I feel like most voters fall in the "Well, I've got to pick the lesser of two evils here" camp and aren't really pleased entirely with either choice.

At least that's where I stand. I admit, though, that I am a strange individual so maybe that's not quite the case. Maybe everyone does indeed suck.

 

[TigerVols]

33.

That's the number of times the GOP House has voted to repeal "Obamacare."

When Republicans say government never accomplishes anything, are they making a self-fulfilling prophecy?

 

[Starman]

Not only do they think it doesn't work, they WANT it not to work.

 

[Drip]

33.

That's the number of times the GOP House has voted to repeal "Obamacare."

When Republicans say government never accomplishes anything, are they making a self-fulfilling prophecy?

NAACP gave it to Mitt, who spoke at their convention. I give Mitt credit for going into the Lion's Den. However, his speech writers suck!

 

[dixiehack]

33? I guess Tom Cruise will divorce them now.

 

[Boom_70]

33.

That's the number of times the GOP House has voted to repeal "Obamacare."

When Republicans say government never accomplishes anything, are they making a self-fulfilling prophecy?

NAACP gave it to Mitt, who spoke at their convention. I give Mitt credit for going into the Lion's Den. However, his speech writers suck!

I think that Mitt knew what he was getting into and used the colored people as willing pawns to highlight his opposition to Obamacare.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

33.

That's the number of times the GOP House has voted to repeal "Obamacare."

When Republicans say government never accomplishes anything, are they making a self-fulfilling prophecy?

NAACP gave it to Mitt, who spoke at their convention. I give Mitt credit for going into the Lion's Den. However, his speech writers suck!

I think that Mitt knew what he was getting into and used the colored people as willing pawns to highlight his opposition to Obamacare.

That is giving Romney undeserved credit for being strategic.

 

[Boom_70]

33.

That's the number of times the GOP House has voted to repeal "Obamacare."

When Republicans say government never accomplishes anything, are they making a self-fulfilling prophecy?

NAACP gave it to Mitt, who spoke at their convention. I give Mitt credit for going into the Lion's Den. However, his speech writers suck!

I think that Mitt knew what he was getting into and used the colored people as willing pawns to highlight his opposition to Obamacare.

That is giving Romney undeserved credit for being strategic.

Seemed like a no brainer. Surely Romney did not think that the colored folk would cheer when he announced that he wanted to repeal Obama care.