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The Supremes & Obama Care: Five Hypocrites and One Bad Idea
The Supreme Court is so full of it. The entire institution, as well as its sanctimonious judges themselves, reeks of a time-honored hypocrisy steeped in the arrogance that justice is served by unaccountable elitism.
This artist rendering shows attorney Gregory G. Katsas speaking in front of the Supreme Court Justice in Washington on Monday. (Dana Verkouteren, AP)
My problem is not with the Republicans who dominate the court questioning the obviously flawed individual mandate for the purchasing of private-sector health insurance but rather with their zeal to limit federal power only when it threatens to help the most vulnerable. The laughter noted in the court transcription that greeted the prospect of millions of the uninsured suddenly being deprived of already extended protection under the now threatened law was unconscionable. The Republican justices seem determined to strike down not only the mandate but also the entire package of accompanying health care rights because of the likelihood that, without an individual mandate, tax revenue will be needed to extend insurance coverage to those who cannot afford it.
The conservative justices, in their eagerness to reject all of this much needed reform, offer the deeply cynical justification that a new Congress will easily come up with a better plan—despite decades of congressional failure to address what is arguably the nation’s most pressing issue. In their passion to embarrass this president, the self-proclaimed constitutional purists on the court went so far as to equate a mandate to obtain health care coverage with an unconstitutional deprivation of freedom; to make the connection they cited the spirit of a document that once condoned slavery.
These purists have no trouble finding in that same sacred text a license for the federal government to order the young to wage undeclared wars abroad, to gut due process and First Amendment protections, and embrace torture, rendition and assassination, even of U.S. citizens.
Now they hide behind the commerce clause of the Constitution to argue that the federal government cannot regulate health care coverage because that violates the sacrosanct principle of states’ rights. If the right-wingers on the high court consistently had a narrow interpretation of federal power over the economy, there would be logic to the position expressed by the Republican justices during the last three days of questioning. Of course, the court’s apparent majority on this has shown no such consistency and has intervened aggressively, as did the justices’ ideological predecessors, to deny the states the power to protect consumers, workers and homeowners against the greed of large corporations.
We would not be in the midst of the most severe economic meltdown since the Great Depression had the courts not interpreted the commerce clause as protecting powerful national corporations from accountability to state governments. Just look at the difficulty that a coalition of state attorneys general has faced in attempting to hold the largest banks responsible for their avarice in the housing disaster.
The modern Supreme Court has allowed the federal government to pre-empt the states’ power to protect homeowners, whose mortgage agreements were traditionally a matter of local regulation and registration. The court has no problem accepting Congress’ grant of a legal exemption in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that allows the bundling of home mortgages into unregulated derivatives.
The court has vitiated the power of the states to control interest rates, even though quite a few had explicit provisions in their constitutions banning usury. The result is that loan-sharking by banks that can claim to be engaged in interstate commerce is constitutionally protected, which is why there are no limits on mortgage, credit card or personal loan interest rates.
The sad truth is that President Obama and the Democrats brought this potential judicial disaster upon themselves. In light of what has been said this week in the Supreme Court, it seems inevitable that the linchpin of the 2010 reform—mandated coverage—will be thrown out, probably along with the crucial accompanying reforms. Forget coverage for the young and those with pre-existing medical conditions. The Democrats will protect themselves from this reversal by arguing that all they did was copy the program that this year’s prospective Republican presidential candidate implemented when he was the governor of Massachusetts. Mitt Romney’s plan included the dreaded mandate that he and the Republican justices condemn.
How ironic that Barack Obama’s health care agenda would be in a far stronger legal position had the president stuck by his earlier support of a public option. Clearly, our federal government has the judicially affirmed power under our Constitution to use public revenues to provide a needed public service, be it education, national security, retirement insurance or health care. Obama’s health care reform should have simply extended Medicare and Medicaid coverage to all who wanted and needed it—no individual mandate—while allowing others to opt out for private insurance coverage. That’s an obvious constitutional solution that even those die-hard Republican justices would have a difficult time overturning.
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Show AllTo avoid the Big C, change your diet. Eat mostly vegetables. Eat no red meat. Become a vegan if you can, but if not eat a small amount of meat with lots of vegetables and little or no dairy. Dairy harms the body more than lean meat.
Most doctors won't tell you this because doctors do not study nutrition in medical school. Yes, medical schools do not teach nutrition. Why do you think many doctors look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.
If you get the Big C, do not take chemo or radiation therapy. It does not prolong your life, but rather makes what time you have left miserable. Again, switch to green vegetables and you will live much longer, even with cancer.
You will die someday, but don't fear it, because the fear of death enslaves you. Only people willing to die have freedom.
Thank you, tomcarberry!
Let me add that we don't need meat products to get our protein. Neither do we have to balance some magical combo of legumes and grains. There is actually a lot of protein in green, leafy vegetables. In fact if you do it be a ratio of protein to calories, the highest count in a food is in lettuce! It was finding this truth out that let me finally embrace going vegan, because I can't handle grain products, which play havoc with my blood sugar. So I thought I needed meat products to get my protein. But I didn't.
Now I'm living a happy life of fresh vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts and seeds.
Glad I don't pay attention to any of these comments from my original here, I would already be a dead duck. 'Eat the agricultural age bounty", I stay as far away from it as possible and have never felt better and my ONLY colonoscopy 4 years ago was fine. So, so much for the big c and eating a purely vegetarian diet. I will eat what works for me. Homo sapiens evolved eating protein and fat with occasional gathering of seasonal foods for a few million years and the body has not put in 2 new stomaches so I can eat a bunch of leaves and grass, go lay down regurgitate the stuff in my stomaches and chew it again. And the beginning of the agricultural age is the point when the diseases of civilization appeared before then, if any hominid got cancer, obese, heart disease, diabetes or the rest of it, it was rare. The mummies around the world demonstrate this. And it is not hard to understand the ignorance of fat in the diet, people are led to believe from a lying government and marketing assholes that fat is what makes one fat. Absolute BALDERDASH!
The title should be modified to increase the count of Hypocrites to at least 8, to include Mr. Obama and the two Speakers of the Congress.
Obama started the campaign by promising health reform for the people, but, once elected, sold out to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Remember his dismissing single-care by saying that it was "too radical to implement". Then he talked about a public option to which only those not covered by a private insurance could subscribe. But then he couldn't stand firm even in support of this rickety public option. He agreed to entertain "other options", and, since he deemed the public option to be "only a means, not an end", he helped design, and signed, an awful bill without any public option.
I, for one, would be happy if the SCOTUS strikes down the individual mandate. It is based on the heartless argument that people don't buy insurance because they are overconfident of their health or youth, or are trying to save money that way. Most of the uninsured people just can't afford the insurance, or have lost it because of job changes, layoffs, and insurance cancellation by the health industry. This piece of the AHCA simply criminalizes misery, and delivers the victims to the health industry sharks.
Digby's blog today has a quote that resonated with me. Yes, the ACA is a poor substitute for a single-payer universal system, but the political reality in the USA in 2012 for anything better, for now, is awfully grim. To wit:
"I wish I had more confidence that liberals would rise up en masse and demand single payer if Obamacare is struck down, but I just can't imagine it happening. It would take a whole bunch of people who have health care (most of the country) taking to the streets and demanding it for others. At this point I think the middle class is battered and tired. The best case is that some states would manage to pass Romneycare in fits and starts."
when government, media and society keep the concept of full employment and right to economic security under the rag, and small business can not afford paying even wages, any mandatory cost to production favors corporations - so in this sense the blocks from the court unknowingly have turned against themselves, as the primary shareholders
Drdulk:
You said:
" It is based on the heartless argument that people don't buy insurance because they are overconfident of their health or youth, or are trying to save money that way."
Isn't that only half the equation? The insurance strongmen have strategically placed themselves, like toll-booths, between the caregiver and the one in need of health care. Therefore they get to arbitrate who gets what, or pre-empt the decisions of the medical experts. Furthermore, they employ a legion of fact checkers on-board to seek out the remotest form of "previous condition" as cause NOT to cover what is needed (in the way of medical intervention) today.
My point is that beyond the cost of this "product," many of us have reason to question why we'd give $500 or more per month to an insidious, extraneous body that provides NOTHING and gets to decide IF we'll get the care we need in the first place.
Donna Smith made it poignantly clear that having insurance is no guarantee of paid-for care! And the entire basis of the film SICKO exposes the for-profit insurance industry (along with what passes for health care in Amerika) for the sick joke that it is. 45,000 die a year for lack of care, and 108,000 FROM bad care.
Just as the holy mantra of profit forbids mention of causative factors like the bevy of toxic chemicals inside our air, food, and water, neither does the public learn much about the relationship between corn syrup, additives, chemical residue, pesticides and the general condition of compromised health now witnessed in epidemics of obesity, depression, Diabetes, and cancer.
The model stinks to high heaven!
Siouxrose,
You are right about the illogic of the health insurance model (as you are most of the time in most of the discussions on CD). Above, I was just quoting what I remember from two years ago as the main argument presented by the AHCA advocates for the individual mandate. That argument is callous because it implies that the people who do not buy health insurance do so out of mischief rather than their just not having the means for it.
Indeed, Siouxrose. The for-profit insurance rackets are the quintessential "death panels"; their very raison d’être is to ration care and deny claims. Buying from them is like buying protection from the mob. This is who Obama works for.
I'm running counter to consensus wisdom here in predicting the Supine Court's ruling on this case. (Partly because Scalia's question on broccoli was even more moronic than usual, a deliberately lame metaphor, which any idiot can see bears no resemblance at all to the HC mandate (selecting one vegetable over another? Please!).) I hope I am wrong, but I strongly suspect that, after much feigned anguish and noisome grandiloquence, the Supine Court will in fact uphold the Obamacare mandate because this is what serves Wall Street and their corporate masters. In the end, I believe the Supines will in fact force us all into the tender loving mercies of the real death panels, while also attempting to undermine Medicare. Their arguments are only theater, and lousy theater at that.
"Obama’s health care reform should have simply extended Medicare and Medicaid coverage to all who wanted and needed it—no individual mandate—while allowing others to opt out for private insurance coverage. That’s an obvious constitutional solution that even those die-hard Republican justices would have a difficult time overturning."
There was a conservative interviewed earlier this week on NPR -- don't remember who at the moment -- who said that had Medicare just been extended to all, there would not be this court battle, as Medicare has already been ruled to be constitutional. Yep. And it was funny that this was allowed to slip, because there's been sparse mention of the logical solution of enhanced Medicare for All, which, of course, is to be expected -- especially by an organization for whom United Healthcare is a corporate donor.
But, please, nobody say that the Obama didn't know all this. Frankly, I doubt if he'll even shed tears over the demise of Obamacare -- either way he wins with his corporate backers.
SCOTUS has always been partisan and biased. Just crack open a history book for the long tradition. The pendulum is swinging toward authoritarian neo-fascism. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are made a mockery of daily. The corruption has infected every institution of govt. from the Federal level down to the city council, SCOTUS is but one example.
The fact that the political whores in Congress and the Pres. passed this piece of authortarian and kleptocratic legislation is yet another example of the deeply entrenched corruption. Forget the puppets, look behind the curtain at the centers of POWER.
Look at the historyof the Supreme Court. For 95% of its history its been anti worker and pro protection of wealth. Don't expect it to be anything different. You want to change the Court--restrict its function to ruling on lawsuits that are unresolved in lower courts and eliminate its ability to rule on the constitutionality of law-- like the courts in most other DemocraticNations. Now we also have another dysfunctional body in the Federal government--- the Senate. I prpopose eliminating its ability to legislate too and reduce its role to merely advising on foreign treaties- I short we rewrite our constitution to take the form of a parliamentary system.
Vote conservative. Bring on the Rapture.
At the end of the day, whether the Supreme Court upholds or overturns the law -- all 9 of them and their families will still have health care. No wonder some of them are laughing.
SCOTUS has always sucked. Nevertheless, if they strike down this god-awful bill, even if the reasons are dumb, I'd take it just to get a clean slate to try once again for a medicare for all type of plan.
Frankly, I don't understand the court's line of reasoning. The government has no trouble making people pay more if they don't have dependents or don't have a mortgage. The law is full of incentives and penalties. There's no no trouble forcing people to chip in and collectively buy drones and depleted uranium shells. Why the sudden sanctimony about a penalty for failing to chip in for health care?
It's easy, the Koch brothers, or in other words the people that bought the united states want more profits. Health care or Medicare for all is against everything Americans for prosperity is about so there will be no spending on the little people when more tax breaks and de-regulation is more profitable. Don't blame Obama for high gas prices, the Koch brothers are the ones collecting all your money.
You are mixing your apples and oranges. Being forced to "chip in" by purchasing an overpriced product from an industry that has been ripping us blind, by maximizing profits on sick people, is a whole different matter.
If we were all able to "buy in", or forced by taxes to "chip in", to an expanded Medicare for all single payer program, which would instantly sideline the majority of money people are shoveling into the profit pockets of big insurers, then the cost per person for health care, not health insurance, would plummet.
Obama, sadly kind of deserves this. If he had made a serious effort for single-payer, then he could have saddled his foes with the potential illegality of the private option that was ultimately accepted. Instead, he's let himself be painted as the owner of Plan-B.
I also have to wonder why there is never a cry over Medicare Part-D insurance which is a twisted public/private plan design.
Sometimes it feels like maybe John Jacobs and Terry Robbins were right in 1969. But I remain a follower of Ghandi instead. But I still feel those feelings.
They made the strategic error of a frontal assault on the Empire. No matter how grandious your vision, it becomes a delusion when you start to believe individual citizens can stage a frontal assault or even a bombing assault on the Empire. They have too many guns and any bombing won't really affect the 1%; at best it will make somebody pay an insurance co-pay and at worst it will kill some innocent bystander.
Plus it alienates the population instead of converting them to the cause, which is the whole rationale of Ghandi's non-violence. But frustration feeds the desire to do some kind of frontal assault.
Scheer is right as far as he goes, but he fails to connect the dots and get to the root cause of both the economic and health care crises: corruption. The Court has, in a series of decisions, legalized bribery. This led to bank deregulation and impunity, and led Obama to crib Romney's health care plan and allow insurance and pharma lobbyists to write much of it. We are left, in consequence, with a plan that still fails to cover tens of millions, causing 50,000 needless deaths a year, with a health system that costs twice as much per capita as other developed nations' systems with worse health indicators, and that will by 2030 result in health insurance premiums exceeding mean per capita income.
That makes six hypocrites and two very bad ideas.
Inequality is the root cause. Corruption is merely a symptom of the root cause because the very rich can buy the government. But even during the few times in history when the rich could not buy all of the government (they always can buy a big chunk), such as 1945 to 1970 or so, the rich figure out to get by pretty well.
Boy its been a long time nice I read so many comments and agreed with (in part at least...) everyone! My feeling is we will lose either way the Supreme Court eventually rules. This was a healthcare plan after all written by and for the medical insurance industry. Obama chose a very partisan approach to healthcare reform while claiming to be 'bi-partisan' (remember that?) by including both Democrats and Republicans whose campaigns were bought and paid for by the same industry. The end result was predictable in that the 99% will lose, the Medical Industrial Complex will win and the media will go on pretending that this is some kind of monumental decision no matter what the SC ruling turns out to be.
The 'Citizens United' ruling has virtually guaranteed that the Medical Industrial Complex will continue to decide which candidates represent "us" while prohibiting, obstructing and demonizing any independents that appear to be gaining traction politically. Therefore until our broken political system is addressed, no meaningful changes will appear on the horizon.
D’oh! -- Five Hypocrites? -- Only Five? -- Get Out!
What do you call the “Liberal Wing” of the U.S. Supreme Court?
Behold their greatest hits during the "historic" Obamacare Arguments:
Justice Elena Kagan:
JUSTICE KAGAN: Although the exchanges function perfectly well in Utah where there is no mandate. They function differently, but they function. And the question is always, does Congress want half a loaf. Is half a loaf better than no loaf? And on something like the exchanges it seems to me a perfect example where half a loaf is better than no loaf. The exchanges will do something. They won't do everything that Congress envisioned.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor:
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Counsel, the problem I have is that you are ignoring the congressional findings and all of the evidence Congress had before it that community ratings and guaranteed-issuance would be a death spiral — I think that was the word that was used — without minimum coverage. Those are all of the materials that are part of the legislative record here.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
JUSTICE GINSBURG: So why should we say it's a choice between a wrecking operation, which is what you are requesting, or a salvage job. And the more conservative approach would be salvage rather than throwing out everything.
Justice Stephen Breyer:
JUSTICE BREYER: I would say the Breast Feeding Act, the getting doctors to serve underserved areas, the biosimilar thing and drug regulation, the CLASS Act, those have nothing to do with the stuff that we've been talking about yesterday and the day before, okay?
So if you ask me at that level, I would say, sure, they have nothing to do with it, they could stand on their own. The Indian thing about helping the underserved Native Americans, all that stuff has nothing to do. Black lung disease, nothing to do with it, okay?
So that's — do you know what you have there? A total off-the-cuff impression. So that's why I am asking you, what should I do?
[...]
What he's thinking of is this: I think Justice Scalia is thinking, I suspect, of — imagine a tax which says, this tax, amount Y, goes to purpose X, which will pay for half of purpose X. The other half will come from the exchanges somehow. That second half is unconstitutional. Purpose X can't possibly be carried out now with only half the money.
[...]
I mean on — on a list of things that are in both your opinions peripheral, then you would focus on those areas where one of you thinks it's peripheral and one of you thinks it's not peripheral. And at that point it might turn out to be far fewer than we are currently imagining. At which point we could hold an argument or figure out some way or somebody hold an argument and try to — try to get those done.
Is — is that a pipe dream or is that a --
[...]
But would you — I would just like to hear before you leave your argument, if you want to, against what Justice Scalia just said, let's assume, contrary to what you want, that the government's position is accepted by the majority of this Court. And so we now are rid, quote, of the true "heart" of the bill. Now still there are a lot of other provisions here like the Indian Act, the Black Lung Disease, the Wellness Program, that restaurants have to have a calorie count of major menus, et cetera.
Finally: Memorable gems from the Liberal” Justices during the Obamacare arguments before the SCOTUS:
KAGAN: “Isn’t half a loaf better than no loaf at all?” Okay. Half a knish? Half a bagel? Half a matzoh ball? You tell me!
SOTOMAYOR: “The insurance companies will go into a “death spiral” – ZOMG!
GINSBURG: “We need a “Salvage Job" not a “Wrecking “Operation” – Gevalt!
BREYER: “The Breat-Feeding Act” and “biosimilarity” and “Black Lung Disease” and CLASS Act” and the “Indian thing” and the “Indian Act” and “amount Y, goes to purpose X, which will pay for half of purpose X” and “Purpose X can't possibly be carried out now with only half the money” and “peripheral and not peripheral” -- “Is that a pipe dream?"!
Note to Justice Breyer: Ask the Hookah-Smoking Catepillar!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Truly lame theater, but the far right wing was even worse. Can you believe the Scalia's broccoli argument? Holy Sh--! This is the collective wisdom of the Supine Court? More like court jesters in a confederacy of dunces.
Doug Terpstra
Actually, Scalia's broccoli argument makes perfect sense, as genuine law professor and constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley makes clear in this recent piece:
The supreme court asks, 'Are there any limits?'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/27/supreme-court-asks-are-there-any-limits
"The chief justices' questioning was ominously skeptical of federal overreach in the healthcare law's individual mandate.
"Key conservative justices expressed notable skepticism about the constitutionality of the healthcare law in Tuesday's hearings. The statements of Roberts and Kennedy are particularly interesting.
"As expected, the justices did not allow much oral argument before interrupting with questions. Kennedy was early out of the box with a question that many of us have been asking, "Are there any limits?"
Indeed! Where are the limits? Broccoli today...and then what?
Arugula? Radicchio? Belgian Endive?
I rest my case.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you, Sarah B. Made me laugh. Unfortunately, the oysters represent the health care consumers waiting for the Walrus and the Carpenter to walk with them along the briny beach.
tomcarberry
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
~~ Lewis Carroll
"The Walrus and the Carpenter"
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1872)
I couldn't resist. Besides, I wanted to emphasize how much more articulate and learned and coherent the Walrus is compared to Justice Stephen Breyer and Company.
PS -- Let's raise our glasses and drink to the oysters!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ACA is a steaming pile of legislative manure and needs to be killed, buried and the earth salted beneath.
Have you actually read this legislation? It reforms NOTHING. It forces everyone to buy a crap policy with low annual limits and $1 million stop loss.
That means if you have this insurance and you have millions in health bills due to catastrophic sickness or injury, YOU ARE STILL FUCKED because after exhausting policy limits, the private, for profit insurance companies who are being gifted with a CAPTIVE consumer base of 311,591,917, STILL have NO OBLIGATION to cover the extraordinary costs of medical care under these circumstances.
The article refers to "reforms" in the ACA but really, stripped of its obviously unconstitutional mandate, it's nothing but an insurance policy which inevitably benefits the issuing insurer because most people self-medicate most injuries and illnesses. Why? Because most injuries and illnesses are minor.
When you NEED hospitalization or extensive health care, however, the coverage mandated under the ACA WILL NOT provide it.
Read it and see for yourself.
Shame, shame shame on democrats for supporting this reeking filth.
Nationalize health care
or
Single payer.
Now.
I will not waste my time arguing for Single Payer anymore. It's a compromise. One I thought was possible to get, so it was where I started.
From now on I'll only argue for socialized health care. So, yes, Nationalize health care.
Obamacare is a farce and deserves to die. And the truth is that the indiividual mandate is unconstitutional. But did we really want the nation turned over to these creeps that for years rigged the system and relegated thousands to death or permanent suffering. Should health care be run by corporate profiteers? I hope to God this filthy corporate Republican court follows through and kills this thing. Let's see if Obama runs on single pay or just whines liked the master's whipped pup.
Neither party can hear the screeching brakes of world-wide capitalism racing toward the abyss. How will Democrats defend themselves when this goes down? What will they lie about next? How about a national puke-in for the next election. Share your true inner feelings and your lunch too.
Bobby Rush got thrown off the floor at the house for wearing a hoody in respect of Stopping racism but these ass holes can make a mockery of our judicial system, no problem. Tea baggers can spit on law makers on the steps of congress with no arrests, no problem. Joe Wilson can holler you lie at the president during a state of the union address, no problem. Rick Scott can pull off the largest Medicare scam in history and not even get arrested, must be a different set of rules for Koch suckers!
Mr. Scheer, how do liberals expect konservatives to klimb out of poverty when the cost of kollege has skyrocketed? I hope you see that as a nice metaphor for all of das kapitalst/imperial troubles in Merka. And I don't think liberals have an answer. So what's the point of criticizing konservatives? I can only think of one. To re-win the throne for liberals, so the empire can kontinue "thriving" under liberal rule. Isn't that right, Robert Scheer? You would like to move the Whitey House to San Francisko, wouldn't you?
Thankfully, the people are learning the way to their nirvana without escort by the Merkan hellbird and its two petro-fried politikal wings. We the people know how to do health right. We're learning how to harmonize with nature, which is one of the ways to describe the solution to all problems. Stop scratching your head any time now. Learn about evolution and you'll understand. Regarding healthcare, we'll employ the government if we see fit. We'll do just fine without the government, if we see fit (this is much more likely). No elite opinions/initiatives necessary thank you very much. Save your energy. The whole hellbird is going down in flames. Nirvana is within sight for the people. We got the key now, Mr Scheer.
"Mr. Scheer, how do liberals expect konservatives to klimb out of poverty when the cost of kollege has skyrocketed?"
rt, I hope your meth lab blows up before you sell your shit to young minds
Consider also the permanent damage this is doing to the Democratic Party. Why vote Democratic, if they end up doing everything the Republicans want?
So true, Robert Scheer.
All the positive features of Obamacare, including coverage for tens of millions of uninsured Americans, would have been satisfied, and paid for, by allowing ALL Americans to buy Medicare insurance, at their election, and with no pre-existing exclusion. The poor has Mediaid, and some of the working poor will likely wait until they get sick before they buy Medicare. The finances not only work, but will lower our national debt to boot.
The Supremes are out of the picture, and the scheme is supported by two-thirds of Americans, Republicans included, when they were last polled. Pity Obama. He missed the boat again.
The 800 pound gorilla in the room is that our government is so dysfunctional that any possible shift in law and even elections is up to the supremes - and the citizens and media that accept this.
You're probably right and the bothersome part is the supremes are predjudice useless bastards. Roberts and his far right crew has proven that their agenda is totally corporate and they could care less about the American people.
unhealthy health judging...
how fair stands any ruling from our highest court in the land...
when its justices won’t address their own conflicts-of-interest...
and how can conscientiousness exhibit impartial characteristics...
once endeavors lose earnestness at the start of hearing business!...
two judges accepted honors at a dinner supported by legal counsel...
another bench member helped propel the main body in question...
two others exceed the limit in owning company related stock...
so what more gets ignored for a lack of recusal to rest on?...
(and here’s a link for supreme court justices personal finances)...
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/02/supreme-court-justices-personal-finances.html
"what is arguably the nation’s most pressing issue."
Seriously? the destruction of civilization, possible extinction of humanity and millions of other species? Sound like something that might require some attention too? Health care is important. Solving climate catastrophe is crucial to the survival of the human race.
I will just say that your point is taken, yet, we need money to help fix the climate problem and health care is the single biggest noose around the neck of our government, our business community, that effects American wealth right now. We are looking at years past of double digit price health care inflation and two to three times what any other country pays out in health care. It effects everything that happens in our economy including people having enough money to live more frugally.
The US military/security cabal is the biggest noose around the neck of our government, our country and our world. While health care certainly siphons off a lot of money, so do fossil fuel and nuke subsidies and profits, in a more direct way, from climate action. So does the prison-industrial-drug war/border war complex. So does the lack of education, which also creates Republicans, especially of the right wing variety. Those and half a dozen other things seem like much bigger blocks to movement on climate than health care is, except in the minds of some. (It's not entirely a question of dollar amounts.)
Maybe the point is, what will open a perceptual gap between the far right and others? What will open a gap between corporatists and TP/evangelical crazies? What will most discredit the Republican candidates at every level and office? I think Nader had a great idea when he suggested Occupy push for a living wage-level minimum wage increase. That would make a big difference in health care for the people who need it most--they could afford better food, better places to live, occasional denntal [sic--trying to avoid insidious advertising links) care... even a pill or 2. Those who need it most could afford mental health care and that would decrease physical health care costs dramatically. How about a big push on the farm bill, which is a major cause of unhealth in the US AND a major cause of GHG emissions and the same solutions would help with both?
"How ironic that Barack Obama’s health care agenda would be in a far stronger legal position had the president stuck by his earlier support of a public option. "
His pseudo support for a watered-down fake non-functional Trojan Horse version of single payer may have fooled Mr. Scheer but it's just one more item in the betrayal-of-principles column to the rest of us.
tomcarberry,
You hit it right on with "Most doctors won't tell you this because doctors do not study nutrition in medical school. Yes, medical schools do not teach nutrition. "
I attended medical school at UC Davis (pre-pepper spray) '69-'70, before I was thrown out for leading a strike in protest of the Cambodia invasion. The same week as the Kent State Massacre marked the end for me.
One day in the first quarter, someone asked the lecturer what are the essential vitamins and nutrients. His response: "Read a box of Wheates."
Of course my classsmates are now retiring, and maybe some improvement has occurred.
Excellent article and none of your arguments made it into the hearing. The defense of this bill was as confusing as the Justices who oppose it. I am stymied as to why the right wing is not screaming to get this passed. While dozens of legislators hold large investments in for profit health care and insurance company's, this bill add's millions of hard working payee's into the system. These stocks will skyrocket if SCOTUS upholds this bill.
I will stay out of the moral implications except to say; we have an acquaintance, 32 year old father of two little girls, laid off one year ago, no insurance. Died last week while setting in the bath tub from blood poisoning due to an infected tooth that he did not have the money to have pulled. Yea, I am a proud American.
I am now convinced that some of these boys on the court are so simple minded, or single minded, that they have not considered their wealth nor consulted with their financial managers. This whole conversation about heath care is just diabolical.
As my granny would say, "cutting off your nose to spite your face".
I watched a documentary on Franklin Delano Roosevelt recently. He fought an elitist Supreme Court. FDR was way before JFK. I weep for my nation.
I have often wondered why it isn't compulsory for this small group of people on the Supreme Court, who theoretically, but not in fact, represent the "best"legal brains in the nation, aren't required to come to unanimous decisions. If they are dealing with legalities, then they should be unanimous on the interpretation. If they cannot reach agreement, then obviously, the way the law is written needs to be amended. Under those circumstances, the Court's duty is to send the law back to Congress with details of its flaws and why agreement cannot be reached.
Any split decision from this small group of people is proof that the decision is a flawed compromise, and therefore, not a strict legal decision.
The Supreme Court is not there to make policy, and they should never be allowed to assume a cloak of infallibility by means of the "Judicial Review" scam.
You've really wondered this or you're just posing a rhetorical question?