Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Health care "reform" and free markets
Andy McCarthy brings together the links on the various constitutional attacks on the health care "reform" legislation that will pass the Senate tomorrow, and serves up bonus analysis to keep you asking for more. I myself have my doubts that the federal courts will strike down the dream of the Democrats to guarantee health insurance for all. When two branches gang up on a top priority, the third almost always loses, and so it will be with health care, Constitution notwithstanding. Call me dour, but that's how I'm calling it.
However -- and this is important -- the Constitutional attacks have political value. They create questions that ought and indeed must be answered, and that will take time. Throw in the schism on the left and the Obama administration's sudden "hard pivot" on jobs, and you might have a shot at knocking out the bill entirely.
12 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Dec 23, 09:06:00 PM:
Is it safe to assume that, right now, the insurance company's attorneys are preparing to fight this as soon as it is passed?
By , at
Wed Dec 23, 10:18:00 PM:
I simply wish to comment on the observation that two branches carry special weight. I really have no idea how the Supreme Court will look at it all. But, they are humans living in the present world and it may count for something that while the two branches align with each other, they obviously do not align with the public. Therefore, the court does not take great risk in bucking the two branches who seem to be using their technical authority to force legislation the public largely does not want or approve of.
M.E.
By 
SR, at
Wed Dec 23, 10:47:00 PM:
I'm hoping that the bill will not have accounted for all the possible way the free market can circumvent it.
I'm also hoping that there are ways to circumvent it.
By , at
Thu Dec 24, 04:15:00 AM:
the court won't side against the public when the very legitimacy of the government is at stake.
In case anyone has been living in some liberal bubble they must have noticed the crisis of legitimacy that will cripple this country if this is forced on the nation especially if some spurious legal rationale is manufactured to legitimize this abortion.
The court is not on the same suicide mission as the other two branches of criminals.
By , at
Thu Dec 24, 04:19:00 AM:
Call me dour, but that's how I'm calling it.
you're not dour you are sheep akin to the Jews in Poland who marched into a cattle car because a little slip of paper from the government told them to.
snap out of it or the government and the socialists are going to eat you.
By , at
Thu Dec 24, 06:56:00 AM:
From Mad As Hell ...
You're pissing up a tree if you think the answer is to pursue constitutional challenges. The legal analysis cited ignores the precedents set in the 1930s over Social Security and utility regulation. For example, there's a reason that the individual mandate is written to be a new section of the Internal Revenue Code -- even if constitutional law professor Obama doesn't know why or won't admit it. Assholes like Scalia have put state power above all else. The only vote you'd likely get today is Clarence Thomas's.
Wining back at least the House in 2010 is the first step. If the political winds shift 180 degrees and go gale force, the Supreme Court could be of later help. This could be important to thwart Obama if Congress is won back. But don't count on the likes of doughboy Scalia to lead the charge. He's been in DC too long and went native.
By , at
Thu Dec 24, 07:57:00 AM:
.... meant to include.
The better political tack is to get the young and the unemployed to understand that Obama will force them to spend all their beer money on insurance they don't want and probably don't need. Only the crazies on "freerepublic" and law nerds get off on arguments over constitutionality.
By , at
Thu Dec 24, 10:16:00 AM:
Now this is a sign o' the times: William Daley of the Chicago machine has an op-ed in the Washington Post today telling Obama to hit the big reset button.
"Either we [Democrats] plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come."
Lest some of you here at TH get too excited, Daley says: "If anything, the Democrats' salvation may lie in the fact that Republicans seem even more hell-bent on allowing their radical wing to drag the party away from the center."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122302439_pf.html
By , at
Thu Dec 24, 11:24:00 AM:
MEMO TO: Senior Citizens
FROM: Barack Hussein Obama
SUBJECT: Merry Christmas
Dear Senior Citizens:
Merry Christmas.
(It will be your last)
mmm mmm mmm.
By , at
Thu Dec 24, 11:56:00 AM:
Barry HO kept calling it "health insurance reform", but isn't it the end of the "insurance" part?
If you can wait until AFTER you have a condition to buy "coverage" how can you call it insurance?
Will they do this for life insuance next? I mean those SOB insurance compnies absolutely refuse to sell life insurance to dead people - dead being the ultimate "pre-existing condition".
By Don Cox, at
Thu Dec 24, 12:22:00 PM:
"If you can wait until AFTER you have a condition to buy "coverage" how can you call it insurance?"
You can't. Trying to bring in a health service while still relying on commercial insurance companies to collect the payments is a nonsense. A health service has to be paid for by taxation, and there is then no need for insurance.
However, this might take a while to get right. A portion of the UK income tax is still labelled "National Insurance" for historical reasons - we went down the same path 100 years ago. For the next few decades, the US will have the worst of both worlds - higher taxes, and being leeched by insurance companies on top.
By , at
Fri Dec 25, 08:22:00 AM:
"For the next few decades, the US will have the worst of both worlds - higher taxes, and being leeched by insurance companies on top."
Leaches - It is understanding that the average health insurance company has a profit margin of three percent.
What is the profit margin in your company.
How many people work for health insurance companies. Will these people become federal or state employees? Or will they dissapear?
Davod
