Well if you're a communist party organizer sure Romney is a conservative. To people who profess conservative ideas he aint.
Lie #2 from you. It was based on the idea of a Republican idea. That is giving input.
Horse gak. Since the Japanese were interred by a Democratic Administration under your logic concentration camps are a Democratic idea too.
Irrelevant. They wouldn't vote for anything that Obama wanted simply because he wanted it. Doesn't matter how much they get out of it or if it was their idea in the first place.
Its not irrelevant if you're making the claim the ACA is somehow a Republican invention. But again, that contravenes the koolaid you're injecting intraveneously so don't worry about it. It'll just hurt your head to think bad thoughts.
Republicans have voted to keep it alive a few times now. They just won't talk about that because it's bad PR and will bring all the Tea Party challengers out.
tl;dr: Religious groups to Obama: "That's some nice cooperation you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it because you won't let us hate the gays."
Even in this thread, some posters are reacting to this very, very narrow ruling as if we're about to engage in a nationwide LARP of The Handmaid's Tale. How is it possible that turning he clock back to 2010 can prompt such outrage?
What explains this double-think? To quote "If birth control is “not your boss’s business,” why do you expect him to pay for it?" We really are at the point I mentioned above, "[t]his isn't fundamentally a disagreement about medical insurance: this is a fundamental disagreement about the relationship between the individual and the state. "
Well if you're a communist party organizer sure Romney is a conservative. To people who profess conservative ideas he aint.
He is a conservative, he is just a camber of commerce style conservative. Most of his ideas on economics won't make him any friends among liberals, but he is not the sort of guy that social conservatives like Rick Santorum would want as the standard bearer. Remember Romney did sell himself as the conservative alternative to John McCain in 2008.
Frazzled wrote: Horse gak. Since the Japanese were interred by a Democratic Administration under your logic concentration camps are a Democratic idea too.
....It was a conservative idea coming from the 90s though, maybe you could claim that conservatives played around with the idea and then moved on but to say that it wasn't a conservative idea originally is a lie. So it was an idea that was made up by conservatives and adopted by democrats. The democratic idea that the base wanted was medicare for all...
The major aspect of the ACA that makes the whole thing work is the individual mandate which is from the republican proposed plan in the 90s, other aspects of ACA like the Medicaid expansion wasn't in the republican plan.
Because the Republican Party has come to represent the interests of 4 "sub-parties" (fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, neo-conservatives, and the Tea Party), I guess someone needs to be conservative in all departments in order to be labeled a "true conservative".
When it comes to tightly contested elections, this filtering process frequently produces candidates that are unelectable to non-Republicans, which is a shame, because it would be nice to have reasonable alternatives.
Well if you're a communist party organizer sure Romney is a conservative. To people who profess conservative ideas he aint.
He is a conservative, he is just a camber of commerce style conservative. Most of his ideas on economics won't make him any friends among liberals, but he is not the sort of guy that social conservatives like Rick Santorum would want as the standard bearer. Remember Romney did sell himself as the conservative alternative to John McCain in 2008.
Frazzled wrote: Horse gak. Since the Japanese were interred by a Democratic Administration under your logic concentration camps are a Democratic idea too.
....It was a conservative idea coming from the 90s though, maybe you could claim that conservatives played around with the idea and then moved on but to say that it wasn't a conservative idea originally is a lie. So it was an idea that was made up by conservatives and adopted by democrats. The democratic idea that the base wanted was medicare for all...
The major aspect of the ACA that makes the whole thing work is the individual mandate which is from the republican proposed plan in the 90s, other aspects of ACA like the Medicaid expansion wasn't in the republican plan.
It is a little complected.
First, on Romney, it's important to understand that his conservative notions were more born of a businessman's real world experience that leftist's favored Government based solutions are generally nightmarish wastes of time, money and people. Which is fine as far as it goes, but it did result in him, as Jonah Goldberg observed, "speaking conservativism like a second language".
As for the individual mandate, it's worth pointing out that for this idea of it being "a conservative idea", it's a conservative (kinda) idea for solving a uniquely leftist problem: how to supply universal healthcare. The individual mandate is a terrible, terrible idea... unless you compare it to single payer, in which case it's pretty good, but only because the single payer system is a Hindenburg-esque disaster.
The individual mandate is, to paraphrase Churchill, the worst form of universal healthcare, except for all the other ones.
Which, of course, leads to the point that the truly Conservative solution is having an actual market in healthcare: virtually every problem in healthcare delivery today springs from the phenomenon of 3rd party payer. That is, having someone other then the consumer of the good be the one paying for the good.
Frazzled wrote: I missed the part where ROmney worked, lobbied for, or voted on the ACA.
He implemented Romneycare which is what the ACA is based on. But, like I said, if you tell a lie often enough and loud enough, people start to believe it's the truth. Trying to say that the ACA isn't a compromise plan that consists of elements that conservatives want requires willful ignorance at this point.
Frazzled wrote: I missed the part where ROmney worked, lobbied for, or voted on the ACA.
He implemented Romneycare which is what the ACA is based on. But, like I said, if you tell a lie often enough and loud enough, people start to believe it's the truth. Trying to say that the ACA isn't a compromise plan that consists of elements that conservatives want requires willful ignorance at this point.
Please show me any evidence during the drafting of this law that Democrats had any interest in working with Republicans on the final outcome of the ACA.
First, on Romney, it's important to understand that his conservative notions were more born of a businessman's real world experience that leftist's favored Government based solutions are generally nightmarish wastes of time, money and people. Which is fine as far as it goes, but it did result in him, as Jonah Goldberg observed, "speaking conservativism like a second language".
As for the individual mandate, it's worth pointing out that for this idea of it being "a conservative idea", it's a conservative (kinda) idea for solving a uniquely leftist problem: how to supply universal healthcare. The individual mandate is a terrible, terrible idea... unless you compare it to single payer, in which case it's pretty good, but only because the single payer system is a Hindenburg-esque disaster.
The individual mandate is, to paraphrase Churchill, the worst form of universal healthcare, except for all the other ones.
Which, of course, leads to the point that the truly Conservative solution is having an actual market in healthcare: virtually every problem in healthcare delivery today springs from the phenomenon of 3rd party payer. That is, having someone other then the consumer of the good be the one paying for the good.
So Romney speaking conservatism as a second language more came from the fact that Romney wanted to run a centralist to make a play at the moderate voters that where pissed at Obama. But the the reality of the Republican party kicked in and he had to keep playing whack a mole during the primary process to which lead to him making concessions to the more conservative primary voters but since he didn't act the way from the very beginning the never really believed him when he said those conservative things.
Romney for his credit was smart enough to understand that if you want to president you need to appeal to general election voters which are generally more moderate, diverse, and female than the voters that showed up in republican primary. He was trying to juggle too much at once and ended up failing miserably.
Also maybe Republicans in the 90s put forth those solutions because they understood the reality that the US health care system is hugely flawed and lots of people slipping through the cracks. It had an inflation many times higher than the average and was well behind many other nations when you look at outcomes. Also maybe they realized that people want solutions to problems, and these republicans where actually interested in governing.
Or maybe they realized what many economists have, that a free market style solution for health care will never work and only be worse than what we have due to two reasons: healthcare is a non-optional product, and a the asymmetric information problem.
Yea about the actually hobby lobby case, I think Ginsburg is right on this one, this decision is horrible. All well, just another reason I glad I am a dude.
Well, birth control isn't exactly a "females-only" issue. Men can utilize birth control through condom use or vasectomy. As for birth control medication, I'm certainly glad its readily available, and if it wasn't, I would certainly be directly affected.
And if you don't thin there are people out there who would outlaw both condoms and vasectomies if given the chance, I can provide you some links.
Well, birth control isn't exactly a "females-only" issue. Men can utilize birth control through condom use or vasectomy. As for birth control medication, I'm certainly glad its readily available, and if it wasn't, I would certainly be directly affected.
And if you don't thin there are people out there who would outlaw both condoms and vasectomies if given the chance, I can provide you some links.
I know, the degrees are different though. Some peoples desire to have the government involved in women's health is just so much stronger.
Frazzled wrote: I missed the part where ROmney worked, lobbied for, or voted on the ACA.
He implemented Romneycare which is what the ACA is based on. But, like I said, if you tell a lie often enough and loud enough, people start to believe it's the truth. Trying to say that the ACA isn't a compromise plan that consists of elements that conservatives want requires willful ignorance at this point.
For a state. It was geared towards a state. If I remember correctly they had reliable intel who could and could not purchase medical insurance within the State. Like 10% of the state.
First, on Romney, it's important to understand that his conservative notions were more born of a businessman's real world experience that leftist's favored Government based solutions are generally nightmarish wastes of time, money and people. Which is fine as far as it goes, but it did result in him, as Jonah Goldberg observed, "speaking conservativism like a second language".
As for the individual mandate, it's worth pointing out that for this idea of it being "a conservative idea", it's a conservative (kinda) idea for solving a uniquely leftist problem: how to supply universal healthcare. The individual mandate is a terrible, terrible idea... unless you compare it to single payer, in which case it's pretty good, but only because the single payer system is a Hindenburg-esque disaster.
The individual mandate is, to paraphrase Churchill, the worst form of universal healthcare, except for all the other ones.
Which, of course, leads to the point that the truly Conservative solution is having an actual market in healthcare: virtually every problem in healthcare delivery today springs from the phenomenon of 3rd party payer. That is, having someone other then the consumer of the good be the one paying for the good.
So Romney speaking conservatism as a second language more came from the fact that Romney wanted to run a centralist to make a play at the moderate voters that where pissed at Obama. But the the reality of the Republican party kicked in and he had to keep playing whack a mole during the primary process to which lead to him making concessions to the more conservative primary voters but since he didn't act the way from the very beginning the never really believed him when he said those conservative things.
Romney for his credit was smart enough to understand that if you want to president you need to appeal to general election voters which are generally more moderate, diverse, and female than the voters that showed up in republican primary. He was trying to juggle too much at once and ended up failing miserably.
Also maybe Republicans in the 90s put forth those solutions because they understood the reality that the US health care system is hugely flawed and lots of people slipping through the cracks. It had an inflation many times higher than the average and was well behind many other nations when you look at outcomes. Also maybe they realized that people want solutions to problems, and these republicans where actually interested in governing.
Or maybe they realized what many economists have, that a free market style solution for health care will never work and only be worse than what we have due to two reasons: healthcare is a non-optional product, and a the asymmetric information problem.
Yea about the actually hobby lobby case, I think Ginsburg is right on this one, this decision is horrible. All well, just another reason I glad I am a dude.
There are a lot of things going on here, and I think you're wrong about all of them.
That said, I realize that you're quite emotionally invested in these ideas, no matter how insane I may find them ("a free market style solution for health care will never work"...), so I'll stipulate you actually believe these things. Beyond that, there doesn't seem anywhere to take the discussion.
Frazzled wrote: I missed the part where ROmney worked, lobbied for, or voted on the ACA.
He implemented Romneycare which is what the ACA is based on. But, like I said, if you tell a lie often enough and loud enough, people start to believe it's the truth. Trying to say that the ACA isn't a compromise plan that consists of elements that conservatives want requires willful ignorance at this point.
Here is a great example of believing crazy things: implementing Romneycare means one supports Obamacare? Let's just look at two reasons that's crazy;
1) States, unlike the Federal Government, have a Police Power. This doesn't have anything to do with Law Enforcement officers; rather it means that the Federal government is a government of enumerated (i.e., limited and listed) powers. Those powers that the Federal Government does not possess, for example here the power to compel people to purchase a product or regulate healthcare, are reserved to the states.
While a conservative is unlikely to give a full-throated defense of Romneycare, it is entirely within a strictly conservative view of the constitution to believe that Romneycare is a valid use of state power while maintaining that Obamacare is not.
The Police Power of the states means that (outside of areas of exclusive federal jurisdiction like DC, embassies and so on), the Federal Government does not have any right or ability to regulate criminal acts. The individual states could, for example, allow cockfighting (and three do).
2) The idea that because Obamacare contains "elements that conservatives want", and therefore conservatives ought to support it (or that ) is... well, let's use a simple logical example: you and a friend go to a pizza place.
When the question about what to order is asked, you reply that you want green peppers, but no mushrooms, as you have a deadly allergy to them, and no anchovies because... well, anchovies. Then the pizza comes and hey! Green peppers, mushrooms, anchovies, dog biscuits, a fried egg and a Dover sole.
By the reasoning expressed above, hey, it's got the green peppers...
That's what we have in Obamacare: a few ideas that might be worthwhile in a different context, a few crazy ideas, a few terrible ideas and a few ideas that are downright toxic.
Buzzsaw wrote:
Here is a great example of believing crazy things: implementing Romneycare means one supports Obamacare?
No one claimed that. What was claimed is the ACA is based on Romneycare. Being based on a Republican idea just shows that the ACA was a compromise between liberal and conservative ideas.
Buzzsaw wrote:
Here is a great example of believing crazy things: implementing Romneycare means one supports Obamacare?
No one claimed that. What was claimed is the ACA is based on Romneycare. Being based on a Republican idea just shows that the ACA was a compromise between liberal and conservative ideas.
If I remember correctly that was pointed out to but RomneyCare was geared towards 10% of the state
It's kind of irrelevant who invented what at this point. The ACA is law.
If you recall, Obama got elected on a platform of universal healthcare (remember the Hope stickers and the speeches). Most Democrats wanted a single payer system. Since it was obvious that wouldn't get Republican buy-in, the "Massachusetts model" (who really cares who came up with the model or what it was called at this point) was used as the model, on a federal level, for the ACA, in an attempt to come to a compromise with obstinate Republicans. Republicans didnt buy into that either, but Obama still won the election on a platform of universal health care, he did not abandon his platform, and the ACA became law.
In order to repeal the law, Republicans will have to win the White House. Except the more people die, and more people are born, and we get more immigrants, the less politically conservative the country is getting. The Republicans have made so many horrible blunders against women, minorities, and immigrants, that its very, very hard to imagine that they will produce a candidate capable of defeating Clinton, because she has such an insurmountable advantage with women, minorities, immigrants, and on top of that, she has liberal white males.
So barring some star candidate appearing out of nowhere, you are stuck with the ACA. The only way to change the ACA is for Republicans to cooperate with Democrats. So, if you're a Republican voter, you can take a "let the whole ship sink" attitude and live with the ACA as it is, or else you need to demand from your representatives that they cooperate with the opposition to improve the law.
There are a lot of things going on here, and I think you're wrong about all of them.
That said, I realize that you're quite emotionally invested in these ideas, no matter how insane I may find them ("a free market style solution for health care will never work"...), so I'll stipulate you actually believe these things. Beyond that, there doesn't seem anywhere to take the discussion.
I am not emotionally invested dude, like at all. If that is what you got from that post then you really misunderstood me.
First Romney wanted to president, in order to be president he needs moderates or maybe even dissatisfied democrats to vote for him to win, in order for that to happen he needed to act like a moderate in order to avoid "scaring the villagers". However since Romney had a prolonged primary fight that forced to act conservative to try appease republican primary voters who are far more extreme and conservative than the general elections voters. Romney was unable to bridge the cap there so he lost. All those things he said that pissed off primary voters was Romney just being a sloppy candidate or him trying to appeal to general elections voters. That doesn't mean though that he wasn't a conservative, he was, just a camber of commerce/big business style conservative.
Second the reality of the health care market is that it is a completely different animal compared to lets say the market for sneakers. this isn't some left wing fantasy by the way, something I have heard and seen actual academic economists talk about before, and not the left wing ones with an agenda like Paul Krugman. The non optional product means that health care is something in many cases is something you MUST have or well you die. If you are bleeding to death you don't have to time to shop around town for the best rates. This combined with the asymmetric information problem, which is the fact that the there are very few if any real informed consumers in the health care market. Why? Well most people don't have medical degrees, they don't what is wrong with them, how to treat it, what drugs to take, at what dose, what is the right combination of goods/services is best for them, etc. Yea you can go to hospital and ask those things and have the doctor diagnose them and tell you what to do, but that has its own problems: people not being forthcoming with their doctor about their symptoms, etc. The end result is inefficient outcomes that screw over the consumer.
Economists call stuff like this "market failures". A term used when a market doesn't behave as economic theories say it should. Some sort of government action is necessary in health care, having the government back off and have the market fix it won't work.
Here is 56 page report by the Council of Economic Advisors form 2009 that talks about what I mean link
So are they revising that part of the mandate or letting it drop?
WASHINGTON – A divided Supreme Court has agreed to allow an evangelical college in Illinois that objects to paying for contraceptives in its health plan to avoid filling out a government document that the college says would violate its religious beliefs.
The justices said Thursday that Wheaton College does not have to fill out the contested form while its case is on appeal but can instead write the Department of Health and Human Services declaring that it is a religious nonprofit organization and making its objection to birth control.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have denied Wheaton's request and made the college fill out a form that enables their insurers or third-party administrators to take on the responsibility of paying for the birth control.
Well, birth control isn't exactly a "females-only" issue. Men can utilize birth control through condom use or vasectomy. As for birth control medication, I'm certainly glad its readily available, and if it wasn't, I would certainly be directly affected.
You must not have gotten the "if you have a penis you can't comment" memo that I've gotten a few times on FB.
skyth wrote: No one claimed that. What was claimed is the ACA is based on Romneycare. Being based on a Republican idea just shows that the ACA was a compromise between liberal and conservative ideas.
It's a compromise because a think tank came up with it and then a moderate governor in a hard-left state implemented it. It's a compromise because it was and remains widely hated by conservatives and garnered zero votes from anyone but Democrats.
gak. I can think of a lot of Republican compromises, by that ludicrous definition.
Seaward wrote: It's a compromise because it was and remains widely hated by conservatives and garnered zero votes from anyone but Democrats.
Yes, but the point is that it contains ideas supported by conservatives in the past as an attempt to get bipartisan support instead of just passing what liberals really wanted. Yes, the republican party decided that opposing it to the death was a good political move for winning future elections (based on "FIGHT THE ENEMY", not its actual content), but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a compromise offer intended to get their support. Nor does conservative hatred based on the superficial name of "Obamacare" make a very convincing argument when polls show much stronger support for the content of the law if it is presented under a different name.
Peregrine wrote: Yes, but the point is that it contains ideas supported by conservatives in the past as an attempt to get bipartisan support instead of just passing what liberals really wanted. Yes, the republican party decided that opposing it to the death was a good political move for winning future elections (based on "FIGHT THE ENEMY", not its actual content), but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a compromise offer intended to get their support. Nor does conservative hatred based on the superficial name of "Obamacare" make a very convincing argument when polls show much stronger support for the content of the law if it is presented under a different name.
Would it be a compromise with Democrats if Republicans included reintroducing segregation in their next bill, since Democrats were at one point huge supporters? Party positions change. What was true twenty or fifty or a hundred years ago about Democrats and Republicans is not necessarily true now. Remember when all those Democrats voted to authorize the Iraq war, as another example?
Democrats were desperate for bipartisanship in case the entire thing went tits up. There was no question that the Republicans were not going to vote for it, however, so the only thing stopping them from doing what they really wanted to do was...I don't know. Fill in the blank for me here. The desire to desperately scream that the whole thing was a compromise with Republicans despite all evidence to the contrary? Which, again, is based entirely on the notion that because one conservative think tank floated it and one moderate in Taxachussetts implemented it, it was enshrined into Republican dogma. I think you'd object to that standard if it were applied to Democrats, though since hypocrisy's the favorite pastime around here, I'm sure that won't stop you from championing it.
And you're too smart to continue on with the, "conservatives only hate it because of the name," nonsense.
Seaward wrote: Party positions change. What was true twenty or fifty or a hundred years ago about Democrats and Republicans is not necessarily true now.
1) We're talking about time scales much shorter than 20-50+ years.
2) Nothing about their ideology changed, they just decided that making Obama a one-term president was the absolute priority and the best way to do it was to oppose everything he attempted to do and fight to the death to stop it. It's a case of "you're in favor of X, that means I hate X because you are The Enemy and I must destroy you".
Remember when all those Democrats voted to authorize the Iraq war, as another example?
Yes, but that was a genuine ideological change once people realized that the war had been sold to them with deceptive justification and its supporters had no plan at all for how we were ever supposed to end the war. It wasn't just "Bush is evil, therefore anything Bush wants must be opposed at all costs".
And you're too smart to continue on with the, "conservatives only hate it because of the name," nonsense.
No, I'm sure there are conservatives who hate it based on its actual content. There are also a lot of people who declare strong opposition to Obamacare but then say they agree with the various individual things it does as long as you don't call it "Obamacare" when you ask.
Peregrine wrote: 1) We're talking about time scales much shorter than 20-50+ years.
We're really not. Heritage came up with it, what, sometime in the late '80s or early '90s?
2) Nothing about their ideology changed, they just decided that making Obama a one-term president was the absolute priority and the best way to do it was to oppose everything he attempted to do and fight to the death to stop it. It's a case of "you're in favor of X, that means I hate X because you are The Enemy and I must destroy you".
I agree that nothing about the ideology changed. And we can say that because the individual mandate was never anything more than lukewarm with Republicans.
Yes, but that was a genuine ideological change once people realized that the war had been sold to them with deceptive justification and its supporters had no plan at all for how we were ever supposed to end the war. It wasn't just "Bush is evil, therefore anything Bush wants must be opposed at all costs".
Well, I'll admit I don't have your ability to look into the hearts of men and decide that Democrats are genuine and Republicans are false, but I'm of the 'good for the goose, good for the gander' camp. If you can accept Democrats changing positions in the space of two years, I can accept Republicans changing positions in the space of fifteen.
No, I'm sure there are conservatives who hate it based on its actual content. There are also a lot of people who declare strong opposition to Obamacare but then say they agree with the various individual things it does as long as you don't call it "Obamacare" when you ask.
No matter what you do to the name, favorability still doesn't hit the majority, so that's a bit of a moot point. Most of the country doesn't like it. That hasn't changed.
Guys... this is going to be some ground shattering thing soon.
From the way I read this, it's the SC issuing a stay over the "accommodation" function within the ACA/HHS. Here's more at the Post.
Hol-y-moly... this actually sparked outrage from three of the four dissenters in Hobby Lobby to issue a statement scolding the rest of the court for ignoring what they claim had been decided on Monday.
What I find baffling is that I'm not sure that those three dissenting justices even actually read Alito's majority opinion. The justification wasn't over accommocation, but that the government didn’t offer to Hobby Lobby what it did to other organizations and which HHS claims as satisfactory to relieve the burden on religious expression, which means that even by the government’s own standard they did not use the least burdensome method to satisfy what they consider a compelling state interest.
Big distinction there... as it was narrowly decided over a regulatory function defining what is the compelling state's interest.
This foreshadws that the rest of these issues are still open for debate at the Supreme Court, and the injunction shows that the justices aren’t done with the mandate yet...
For reference, Wheaton College didn't allow men to enter women's dorms until the mid 90's, and didn't allow school events which involved dancing until around 2002 (I can't remember precisely). Also many of their alumni object to the teaching of evolutionary biology at the Institution.
It is that ridiculously conservative.
But some of the colleges and organizations say that signing the form authorizes the third parties to provide the contraceptive coverage, making them complicit in actions that offend their religious beliefs.
Paying an employee who purchases birth control of their own accord would also make them complicit in actions which offend their religious beliefs which, knowing people who have worked for Wheaton College, has most assuredly occurred. Hell, this argument could easily extend to providing an education to a woman who used birth control while being educated, of started using it after graduation.
Granted, the quoted statement is the author's interpretation of the argument being made by Wheaton College et al, but given my knowledge of that Institution it would not surprise me if it were really that stupid.
Seaward wrote: Yeah, I suppose it's a market-based solution in the sense that the Democrats did indeed use the word "market" a few times when talking about it.
When you have individual consumers selecting their own insurance plans from a range provided by individual consumers competing on price and services... that's a market.
The Democrats have absolutely no one to blame but themselves for not going for universal health care when they had the chance to do so. They wanted token Republican votes, and chasing them was more important than pleasing the rabid progressive element. That's the call they made. It's fun to try and pin it all on Republicans, but it just ain't so.
Actually, the Democrats went for the ACA style plan because;
(a) They needed every blue dog to sign up, and none of them wanted universal healthcare.
(b) There are powerful inside interests in US healthcare, and none of them wanted universal healthcare.
(c) It was Obama's preferred model.
Yes, it was Democrat policy start to finish. The point about how close the policy is to what Republicans had previously is important because it establishes;
(d) That Republican opposition to the ACA was political theatre, and not due to any real opposition to the reforms in ACA.
(e) The Republicans are now a bit stuffed when it comes to formulating a policy alternative, because they're committed themselves to getting rid of ACA but there's no scope for real reform because ACA is pretty much what they wanted all along.
Also;
(f) Holy fething gak we've been over this so many fething times before.
sebster wrote: When you have individual consumers selecting their own insurance plans from a range provided by individual consumers competing on price and services... that's a market.
Yet not a market-based solutions.
Actually, the Democrats went for the ACA style plan because;
(a) They needed every blue dog to sign up, and none of them wanted universal healthcare.
(b) There are powerful inside interests in US healthcare, and none of them wanted universal healthcare.
(c) It was Obama's preferred model.
Yet somehow it's still a compromise with Republicans. There's not an emoticon that rolls its eyes hard enough, I've discovered.
Yes, it was Democrat policy start to finish. The point about how close the policy is to what Republicans had previously is important because it establishes;
(d) That Republican opposition to the ACA was political theatre, and not due to any real opposition to the reforms in ACA.
(e) The Republicans are now a bit stuffed when it comes to formulating a policy alternative, because they're committed themselves to getting rid of ACA but there's no scope for real reform because ACA is pretty much what they wanted all along.
Republicans didn't "have" the ACA previously. I know that one moderate in a communist liberal state implementing the policy is all you need to claim that Reagan wrote the thing from the grave, but it just ain't so.
Hey, guess what. Democrats favor easing gun control restrictions because Democratic governors have signed such legislation into law before. I can play, too.
Also;
(f) Holy fething gak we've been over this so many fething times before.
Don't get mad at us because you're a slow learner.
I live in a fairly Catholic area of the country, and I can assure you there's no pretending about the moral objections to abortion here. It goes so far that when our doctor asked us if we wanted to do the pre-birth screenings for various things and we turned it down because we wouldn't have aborted anyway, he commented, "Yeah, we have very few people do them here for the same reason."
For some of us, killing fetus' is really pretty reprehensible.
I should clarify. Yes, there are millions of people who find abortion morally reprehensible, I believe they are completely genuine in their belief and believe their opinion is just as legitimate as my own (while I do not believe a conception is the start of a human life equal to any other, I also believe it is an extremely subjective issue on which no position can be completely settled).
When I talk about people who pretend to be morally horrified about abortion, I am not talking about those people. Instead I'm talking about the various moral crusaders that work through various not-for-profits and church groups, and they talk about abortion in genocide terms, and the great lost generation, about abortion being the same as slavery and all that other nonsense. My issue there is that these people work absolutely exclusively in measures to make abortion harder to get, they don't work in any way to make abortion something people need less often. These groups are far more interested in having a noble cause than in actually improving the issue. This means that when research is undertaken in to the effect of free contraception, particularly long term contraception like IUDs, and it shows you can cut rates of abortion to a fraction of what they were... there is not one bit of interest from these anti-abortion groups, because ultimately they just don't give a gak about actually reducing abortions. They simply want their cause.
Sorry for being a bit too loose in the wording of my previous answer, I hope that makes things clearer.
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Dreadclaw69 wrote: It's just another attempt to discredit something he disagrees with - first it was if one religion (JWs) don't oppose healthcare then no other religion should, now it's that no one who objects to abortion actually cares about the ruling
On the abortion issue, read my expanded answer to cincydooley.
On the JW issue - I explained to you multiple times the relevance of the JW comparison, and not one of those comparisons said anything close to the crap you just posted.
Honest question - why are you here? I mean, why do you bother posting on this forum? You barely read other people posts, and when you do it's just to mangle their points in to something you can dismiss. You clearly have no interest in honest debate, so what exactly is it you want to get out of this place?
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Buzzsaw wrote: As for the individual mandate, it's worth pointing out that for this idea of it being "a conservative idea", it's a conservative (kinda) idea for solving a uniquely leftist problem: how to supply universal healthcare. The individual mandate is a terrible, terrible idea... unless you compare it to single payer, in which case it's pretty good, but only because the single payer system is a Hindenburg-esque disaster.
I cannot believe that even now, after years of debating this stuff, we still have people claiming that single payer is a disaster. How many times do we have to put up the cost per capita of US healthcare in comparison to the rest of the developed world before it finally sinks in? Anyway;
USA - 8,508
Switzerland - 5,643
Canada - 4,522
Germany - 4,495
France - 4,118
Sweden - 3,925
Australia - 3,800
United Kingdom - 3,405
Japan - 3,213
The only question is what system best suits the US, and can be achieved from where they are now. The argument that a government run system would drive up costs is nonsense that is so many years old.
Anyhow, funnily enough I actually agree that a primary problem with the current US system is the presence of a party. You'd get massive efficiency improvements just from having people choose their own levels of insurance. In fact, add in the subsidies necessary so that the poor can afford their own insurance, and a minimum level of government care and you'd pretty much have the system in operation in much of the rest of the world.
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Seaward wrote: It's a compromise because a think tank came up with it...
By 'a think tank' you mean the Heritage Foundation, which is the central policy wing of the Republican Party.
When you're using a market in the belief that competition in said market will deliver the optimum price and quantity... that's a market based solution.
Yet somehow it's still a compromise with Republicans. There's not an emoticon that rolls its eyes hard enough, I've discovered.
I actually agree that the word compromise is wrong. There was no compromise on the ACA legislation, it was drafted by Democrat policy makers and voted for entirely by Democrats.
But that has nothing to do with where the ideas for it originated from, and what that says about the Republican opposition to the bill.
Don't get mad at us because you're a slow learner.
That's true. I am a slow learner. I mean, I keep posting this stuff and expecting some of it will sink in one day.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: It's just another attempt to discredit something he disagrees with - first it was if one religion (JWs) don't oppose healthcare then no other religion should, now it's that no one who objects to abortion actually cares about the ruling
On the abortion issue, read my expanded answer to cincydooley.
On the JW issue - I explained to you multiple times the relevance of the JW comparison, and not one of those comparisons said anything close to the crap you just posted.
Honest question - why are you here? I mean, why do you bother posting on this forum? You barely read other people posts, and when you do it's just to mangle their points in to something you can dismiss. You clearly have no interest in honest debate, so what exactly is it you want to get out of this place?
sebster wrote: And yet for decades any Witness who starts a company and gives his employees health coverage will be paying for any of those employees to access blood transfusions should they need one. And no-one has ever made a peep about this, because claiming that having to cover other people's choice to have a blood transfusion or not is moaning about a really minor inconvenience.
And that's just life, mate. A person may be morally opposed to war, but they've still got to pay their taxes to fund the army.
Do you get the distinction now, or are you going to expand your belief that this is a breach of religious liberty to also include the outrage that Jehovah's Witnesses have to cover blood transfusions for their staff? And then start claiming that it's a breach of a pacifists freedom of religion that their taxes go to the armed forces?
Dreadclaw69 wrote: Again, you have not answered the question - trivial to whom? You keep attempting to minimize this, whenever to the groups involved this is evidently a more serious matter concerning their faith. Which leads me back to my point that you are unwilling to look at the crux of this. What one faith chooses to do does not impact another. If a Jehovah's witness based employer chooses to not take legal action then that does not prevent others from taking legal action.
Your example of taxes is another example of a false comparison. Taxes are gathered and distributed to various projects by the government, those being taxed have no say in what their taxes go on, and have no input after the taxes have been collected. As you can see that, again, does not match the facts here.
I'm glad you stopped your gross mischaracterisation that this was religious oppression though.
I'm not even going to bother with your accusations of bad faith.
Seems that the Supreme Court did indeed upheld religious freedom, as we discussed in that now locked thread. To quote your phrase this judgement is now the "law of the land". I know you don't like that fact so I look forward to your profanity laced reply.
The Democrats have absolutely no one to blame but themselves for not going for universal health care when they had the chance to do so. They wanted token Republican votes, and chasing them was more important than pleasing the rabid progressive element. That's the call they made. It's fun to try and pin it all on Republicans, but it just ain't so.
Actually, the Democrats went for the ACA style plan because;
(a) They needed every blue dog to sign up, and none of them wanted universal healthcare.
Gee... wonder why Seb? Seriously... stop and think about it for a bit. Even if the majority of the folks don't want singler-payer, why is it "okay" for someone to advocate that they should do all that they can (ie, shove it down our throats) to achieve this objective? (disclaimer: don't forget that I'm actually for single-payer )
(b) There are powerful inside interests in US healthcare, and none of them wanted universal healthcare.
This shows how very little you understand the US healthcare industry Seb... ask each and every Hospital Organization's CEO and you'll find that they'd prefer some sort of universal healthcare system. This is so that they can be assured that every patient that walks in the door... the organization is getting *something* back. Currently, most large systems only get payments/reimbursements from about 50% of their patient's visit.
(c) It was Obama's preferred model.
He has a very nuanced position... listen to him here:
Ya see... he explains his views over the years about how he would transition a single payer system in the US. At the same time he criticizes his detractors, saying the ACA is not a "government take over" of American health care. (see Individual Exchange / HHS mandate).
Seems he did prefer a single-payer system, but for some reason didn't want to push it. If they knew, what they know now... I'd bet you they'd push & pass a single payer system.
Yes, it was Democrat policy start to finish.
Glad you finally asserted the obvious fact.
The point about how close the policy is to what Republicans had previously is important because it establishes;
No... the point was to lay some of the blame on the Republican's lap for any hardships caused by the ACA.
(d) That Republican opposition to the ACA was political theatre, and not due to any real opposition to the reforms in ACA.
In the end... abso-fething-lutely! Reid/Pelosi cut any Republican input from drafting this law. Therefore, the Republicans basically said, you, you want it, you own it!
(e) The Republicans are now a bit stuffed when it comes to formulating a policy alternative, because they're committed themselves to getting rid of ACA but there's no scope for real reform because ACA is pretty much what they wanted all along.
Nah... they actually have several proposal, but then again, they couldn't do jack gak since the Democrats in Senate & Obama aren't interested in compromises.
Also;
(f) Holy fething gak we've been over this so many fething times before.
Seaward wrote: It's a compromise because a think tank came up with it...
By 'a think tank' you mean the Heritage Foundation, which is the central policy wing of the Republican Party.
We've been through this before Seb...
Lemm break it down for you:
The Republican Party <> The Hertiage Foundation
If anything, the Republican Party is more of Big Business interests...
So... please, drop this line of thinking that some proposal in the 80's from this organization constitute a full-throated support from the Republican Party circa 2010.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: I'm not even going to bother with your accusations of bad faith.
Yeah, that just shows nothing has changed, you still don't get the argument because you simply won't let yourself get it.
But I'll repeat part of my response to you above, because just reposting our argument from the other thread isn't a waste of forum resources at all...
"Which can be witnessed by looking at a case example - Saddleback Church, who's Pastor Rick Warren was one of the earliest and loudest voices decrying the contraception mandate. He even claimed that he'd rather go to jail than pay for other people's contraception. Which was fairly hilarious, because his minstry is in California, which by state law had been covering contraception for employees for years. The idiot was outraged and wanting to risk jail to fight something he'd been happily doing for years.
That's what I mean by trivial. The matter was so minor that he either didn't know or didn't care that he was paying it for years, but then the political winds meant people wanted to make a big deal out of it. And so people starting pretending that it was a big deal."
Seems that the Supreme Court did indeed upheld religious freedom, as we discussed in that now locked thread. To quote your phrase this judgement is now the "law of the land".
When you went back and reread that thread, did you read the parts where I stated I didn't know which way the court was going to rule on this, because I'm not a constitutional lawyer? And that was I was doing was arguing from a simple point of principle, that sometimes you have to pay in to a general pool of funds despite some portion of that pool maybe getting spent on something you personally don't like, even possibly something you find in breach of your religion. That's life and has been such for a very long time, and the fact that this particular instance got dragged before the Supreme Court has nothing to do with the nature of the breach itself, but to do with the political power of the religion that was breached and the highly political nature of ACA.
Oh, and also feth. I know you'd be disappointed if you didn't get to complain about a rude word.
whembly wrote: Gee... wonder why Seb? Seriously... stop and think about it for a bit. Even if the majority of the folks don't want singler-payer, why is it "okay" for someone to advocate that they should do all that they can (ie, shove it down our throats) to achieve this objective? (disclaimer: don't forget that I'm actually for single-payer )
What? If a majority of people don't want it, then it doesn't happen. I also agree that single payer would be best, but as you've found out making it happen is a whole other kettle of fish. So instead you pass whatever you can summon up the numbers to pass... which they did.
I have absolutely no clue at all what you mean "shove it down our throats". They won a majority in both houses and then passed a bill. All democracy is shoving it down people's throats by that standard. Nor is ACA an extreme bill, as a single payer model arguably would be.
This shows how very little you understand the US healthcare industry Seb... ask each and every Hospital Organization's CEO and you'll find that they'd prefer some sort of universal healthcare system.
Are you going to sit there and argue that Hospital Organisation's CEOs have the lobbying power of the health insurance industry?
He has a very nuanced position... listen to him here:
There's an old rule in economics - people say a lot of stuff and most of the time they even believe it, but if you want to know how they really work you look at what they do.
In this case, I'm willing to look at Obama's talk about what might happen in the future as just that, talk, likely just to appease the more progressive wing of his own party. Even ignoring the unlikeliness that the Democrats will dare attempt major reform in healthcare again after what happened with ACA, who really cares what Presidents think about what legislation will happen after they're gone? Ever heard a speech from a presidential candidate about the legislation they'll set up for the next guy? There's a reason for that
But when we look at his actions, you see a guy who dropped single payer in the very first round of policy formulation, on the mere suggestion that Blue Dogs might oppose it, or that it might bring some moderates over. It's pretty clear it was never something he was ever really going to try for.
Now whether that's because this is the form he wanted for US healthcare, or because his political calculus told him this was the best stepping stone to eventually reach single payer, well that's just talk and speculation, what we do know is what he did.
Glad you finally asserted the obvious fact.
I've been explaining that for a long time now. I explained it in that other thread maybe a dozen times. I don't know, maybe I should start using caps or something.
No... the point was to lay some of the blame on the Republican's lap for any hardships caused by the ACA.
As I explained in the other thread, that was what a few people were doing. But the actual reason to acknowledge the origin of ACA is to understand that the Republican faux outrage had no substance, and now also to explain why the Republican position is now so deeply weird - because they are politically committed to repealing ACA but have no real policy to replace it with - because ACA is the policy they said they'd wanted.
In the end... abso-fething-lutely! Reid/Pelosi cut any Republican input from drafting this law. Therefore, the Republicans basically said, you, you want it, you own it!
Republicans were pretty adamant that they wouldn't deal with Democrats on this at all. Remember the outrage when Snowe let it through the Finance Committee?
Nah... they actually have several proposal, but then again, they couldn't do jack gak since the Democrats in Senate & Obama aren't interested in compromises.
No, there's no reform of substance. There's some minor trivial nonsense - tort reform and the like, but there's nothing that could meaningfully replace ACA.
Doesn't mean you're always right bro.
We've been through this before Seb...
Lemm break it down for you: The Republican Party <> The Hertiage Foundation
If anything, the Republican Party is more of Big Business interests...
What? Um, there's no 'big business' distinction between the Heritage Foundation and the Republicans.
Look, I'll put this as simply as I can - The Heritage Foundation exists for the purpose of formulating the next generation of Republican policy ideas. It has no agenda or meaning beyond that.
So... please, drop this line of thinking that some proposal in the 80's from this organization constitute a full-throated support from the Republican Party circa 2010.
What about the HEART act, which was put up by 19 Republican co-sponsors and 2 Democrats in 1993, just four years after the Heritage Foundation report? That bill had an individual mandate, set minimum conditions for insurance, banned denial of service for pre-existing conditions, and subsidised low income earners to allows them to afford insurance.
But now I guess you'll tell me that bill put to the house by Republicans doesn't represent Republicans....
whembly wrote: Gee... wonder why Seb? Seriously... stop and think about it for a bit. Even if the majority of the folks don't want singler-payer, why is it "okay" for someone to advocate that they should do all that they can (ie, shove it down our throats) to achieve this objective? (disclaimer: don't forget that I'm actually for single-payer )
What? If a majority of people don't want it, then it doesn't happen. I also agree that single payer would be best, but as you've found out making it happen is a whole other kettle of fish. So instead you pass whatever you can summon up the numbers to pass... which they did.
I have absolutely no clue at all what you mean "shove it down our throats". They won a majority in both houses and then passed a bill. All democracy is shoving it down people's throats by that standard. Nor is ACA an extreme bill, as a single payer model arguably would be.
Senator Scott Brown from MA won the open seat during the crafting of this bill, thus breaking the Democrat's filibuster proof Senate. So, Reid/Pelosi passed that bill via a function called the "Budget Reconcilation", which [i]cannot [/i]be filibustered. It was an extremely unusal method to pass a bill that was wildly unpopular at the time. That's what I meant by the dems "shoving it down our throats".
This shows how very little you understand the US healthcare industry Seb... ask each and every Hospital Organization's CEO and you'll find that they'd prefer some sort of universal healthcare system.
Are you going to sit there and argue that Hospital Organisation's CEOs have the lobbying power of the health insurance industry?
Not in the sense that you seem to think they do.
He has a very nuanced position... listen to him here:
There's an old rule in economics - people say a lot of stuff and most of the time they even believe it, but if you want to know how they really work you look at what they do.
Yeah... not sure you can do that on politicians Seb.
In this case, I'm willing to look at Obama's talk about what might happen in the future as just that, talk, likely just to appease the more progressive wing of his own party. Even ignoring the unlikeliness that the Democrats will dare attempt major reform in healthcare again after what happened with ACA, who really cares what Presidents think about what legislation will happen after they're gone? Ever heard a speech from a presidential candidate about the legislation they'll set up for the next guy? There's a reason for that
But when we look at his actions, you see a guy who dropped single payer in the very first round of policy formulation, on the mere suggestion that Blue Dogs might oppose it, or that it might bring some moderates over. It's pretty clear it was never something he was ever really going to try for.
Now whether that's because this is the form he wanted for US healthcare, or because his political calculus told him this was the best stepping stone to eventually reach single payer, well that's just talk and speculation, what we do know is what he did.
You could argue that... but again, why is it okay for politicians to do that, when the end result (single payer) is so unpopular with the public.
For what it's worth, if Hillary (or another Democrat is elected in '16), the PPACA is here to stay if it survives the legal challenges*. However, if the Republican gains the Senate in '14 and Presidency in '16... it's gone.
Which is a shame because it'll be years before we'd see meaningful changes.
Glad you finally asserted the obvious fact.
I've been explaining that for a long time now. I explained it in that other thread maybe a dozen times. I don't know, maybe I should start using caps or something.
Maybe... I'm deaf doncha know. The point being, you'd say that and then turn it around by saying "yeah, but it's a Republican idea... so, shut up about it".
No... the point was to lay some of the blame on the Republican's lap for any hardships caused by the ACA.
As I explained in the other thread, that was what a few people were doing. But the actual reason to acknowledge the origin of ACA is to understand that the Republican faux outrage had no substance, and now also to explain why the Republican position is now so deeply weird - because they are politically committed to repealing ACA but have no real policy to replace it with - because ACA is the policy they said they'd wanted.
See what I mean?
In the end... abso-fething-lutely! Reid/Pelosi cut any Republican input from drafting this law. Therefore, the Republicans basically said, you, you want it, you own it!
Republicans were pretty adamant that they wouldn't deal with Democrats on this at all. Remember the outrage when Snowe let it through the Finance Committee?
They were willing to come to the table, but were cut off by Reid/Pelosi. The truth is that Reid/Pelosi never had any intention of working with Republicans, except maybe try to get one or two Republicans and call it a "bipartisan" bill. Need I to remind you:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704117304575138071192342664
In the House, Republicans were frozen out from the start. Three Chairmen—Charlie Rangel, Henry Waxman and George Miller—holed up last spring to write the most liberal bill they could get through the House. Republicans were told that unless they embraced the "public option," there was nothing to discuss.
As for the White House, House GOP leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor in May sent a letter to President Obama "respectfully" requesting a meeting to discuss ideas. The White House didn't respond. Mr. Obama's first deadline for House passage was July, and only after public opinion turned against the bill did he begin to engage Republican ideas. Yet in his September address to Congress attempting to revive his bill, he made no concession save pilot projects for tort reform.
In the Senate, a group of Republicans did negotiate with Finance Chairman Max Baucus for months, even as Senators Chris Dodd and Ted Kennedy were crafting a bill that mirrored the liberal House product. GOP Senators Chuck Grassley, Olympia Snowe and Orrin Hatch are hardly strangers to working with Democrats. In 2007, they helped Mr. Baucus expand the children's insurance program over President Bush's opposition.
Senate liberals kept tugging Mr. Baucus to the left, however, and eventually the White House ordered him to call off negotiations. Senator Snowe still voted for the Finance Committee bill, though even she fell away on the floor as Majority Leader Harry Reid insisted on pushing the public option and tried, as Ms. Snowe put it, to "ram it" and "jam it" through the Senate.
Nah... they actually have several proposal, but then again, they couldn't do jack gak since the Democrats in Senate & Obama aren't interested in compromises.
No, there's no reform of substance. There's some minor trivial nonsense - tort reform and the like, but there's nothing that could meaningfully replace ACA.
The Dude says:
I was in favor of incremental reform. You believe in the whole shebang.
Doesn't mean you're always right bro.
We've been through this before Seb...
Lemm break it down for you:
The Republican Party <> The Hertiage Foundation
If anything, the Republican Party is more of Big Business interests...
What? Um, there's no 'big business' distinction between the Heritage Foundation and the Republicans.
Heh... yes there is. The Chamber of Commerce for one.
Look, I'll put this as simply as I can - The Heritage Foundation exists for the purpose of formulating the next generation of Republican policy ideas. It has no agenda or meaning beyond that.
Incorrect... replace the word "Republican" up there with "Conservative". Important distinction.
So... please, drop this line of thinking that some proposal in the 80's from this organization constitute a full-throated support from the Republican Party circa 2010.
What about the HEART act, which was put up by 19 Republican co-sponsors and 2 Democrats in 1993, just four years after the Heritage Foundation report? That bill had an individual mandate, set minimum conditions for insurance, banned denial of service for pre-existing conditions, and subsidised low income earners to allows them to afford insurance.
Dude... I'm not saying the Heritage doesn't get stuff done. They're a lobbying group after all.
But now I guess you'll tell me that bill put to the house by Republicans doesn't represent Republicans....
Sure Seb... whatever.
*Back to current legal challenges that ObamaCare faces... there's one that would effectively kill it. It's Halbig v. Sebelius, and it's has several major implications.
The first is it's impact on the viability of the Federal Government's healthcare.gov exchanges:
1) The text of the ObamaCare law makes subsidies available only to one who enrolls in a health plan “through an Exchange established by the State under [section] 1311.”
2) The ObamaCare law says that if a State does not establish the exchange, “the [HHS] Secretary shall . . . establish and operate such Exchange within the State.”
3) Follow me here: when the HHS Secretary establishes an exchange, the exchange was established by the HHS Secretary.
4) The HHS Secretary is not a “State.” A State is defined in the ObamaCare law as “each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia.”
5) So when the exchange was established by the Secretary, it was not established by a “State” and thus, anyone purchasing Insurance through a non-State source (ie, healthcare.gov), they would be ineligible for any subsidies.
The second is a more generic of whether this court would rule this case with Textualism or with the “Intent” arguments.
sebster wrote: Yeah, that just shows nothing has changed, you still don't get the argument because you simply won't let yourself get it.
But I'll repeat part of my response to you above, because just reposting our argument from the other thread isn't a waste of forum resources at all...
"Which can be witnessed by looking at a case example - Saddleback Church, who's Pastor Rick Warren was one of the earliest and loudest voices decrying the contraception mandate. He even claimed that he'd rather go to jail than pay for other people's contraception. Which was fairly hilarious, because his minstry is in California, which by state law had been covering contraception for employees for years. The idiot was outraged and wanting to risk jail to fight something he'd been happily doing for years.
That's what I mean by trivial. The matter was so minor that he either didn't know or didn't care that he was paying it for years, but then the political winds meant people wanted to make a big deal out of it. And so people starting pretending that it was a big deal."
So you're back to your argument that because one person running a religious based workplace was ill-informed then any other religious employer cannot act in accordance with their faith, because obeying central tenants of their faith is "trivial". You did something similar with the JW example too.
What could be said to be more trivial is arguing that you do not have employer access to 4 types of contraception (limited to abortificants) while still having access to 16 other types.
sebster wrote: When you went back and reread that thread, did you read the parts where I stated I didn't know which way the court was going to rule on this, because I'm not a constitutional lawyer? And that was I was doing was arguing from a simple point of principle, that sometimes you have to pay in to a general pool of funds despite some portion of that pool maybe getting spent on something you personally don't like, even possibly something you find in breach of your religion. That's life and has been such for a very long time, and the fact that this particular instance got dragged before the Supreme Court has nothing to do with the nature of the breach itself, but to do with the political power of the religion that was breached and the highly political nature of ACA.
I did. It didn't stop you making the argument that contraception should be provided by religious employers under the ACA. You argued principles and false comparisons such as taxes. I pay the government my taxes, I do not know what the money gets spent on. It could all go towards fixing potholes. It could all go to a Tomahawk. I'll never know. The difference is that I am not being forced to provide a specific item/service that conflicts with my beliefs. I also re-read the parts where you were incredibly dismissive of the notion that anyone could object to the ACA because of their faith, and that "the law of the land" should be respected. And it has. You can try and deflect the ruling it that it was Big Religion and partisanship, but we know that isn't the case. We have Constitutional rights for a reason.
Anyway, I'm glad this case is now settled and you at last have your answer as to how the Supreme Court would rule.
I did. It didn't stop you making the argument that contraception should be provided by religious employers under the ACA. You argued principles and false comparisons such as taxes. I pay the government my taxes, I do not know what the money gets spent on. It could all go towards fixing potholes. It could all go to a Tomahawk. I'll never know. The difference is that I am not being forced to provide a specific item/service that conflicts with my beliefs.
I don't know how tax assessment work in your locale, but you definitely pay taxes under FICA*, which means you are being forced to direct a portion of your income to a set of very specific programs. Now, these programs may not conflict with your beliefs, but I know for a fact that they conflict with those of a fair number of people living in the US (people complain about Medicaid spending all the time). The point being: yeah, you can determine where your tax dollars go (in broad strokes) provided you're willing to do the research needed, and precedent exists that will require people to send them to programs they don't like.
*Unless you're not employed.
whembly wrote: It was an extremely unusal method to pass a bill that was wildly unpopular at the time. That's what I meant by the dems "shoving it down our throats".
No it wasn't, its been done many times before. The argument your referencing is that such significant legislation has not often been passed through the Reconciliation process and that only Democrats have done so, which is nonsense on its face given that major alterations to the tax code have been passed by way of Reconciliation under GOP majorities.
whembly wrote: It was an extremely unusal method to pass a bill that was wildly unpopular at the time. That's what I meant by the dems "shoving it down our throats".
No it wasn't, its been done many times before. The argument your referencing is that such significant legislation has not often been passed through the Reconciliation process and that only Democrats have done so, which is nonsense on its face given that major alterations to the tax code have been passed by way of Reconciliation under GOP majorities.
I'm sure you can show me other legislations that was passed this way... right?
Find me another passed law via the budget reconcilation process AND an entire opposing party not vote for it.
I'm sure you can show me other legislations that was passed this way... right?
Find me another passed law via the budget reconcilation process AND an entire opposing party not vote for it.
I'll wait...
The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 was passed via reconciliation despite only having two Senate Democrats in support of it.
Anyway, you're moving the goalposts. I never spoke to whether or not the entirety of an opposing party voted against a given bill that was passed via reconciliation. Indeed, I very specifically referred the reconciliation method of bill passage as being familiar to the US political process, and dismissed your argument on the basis that it mirrors one made by GOP that is wrong on its face due to the face that GOP majorities have passed sweeping legislation via the same method.
What you're doing right now is attempting to deflect criticism from a claim you made on the basis of one several pundits have wrongly made.
I'm sure you can show me other legislations that was passed this way... right?
Find me another passed law via the budget reconcilation process AND an entire opposing party not vote for it.
I'll wait...
The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 was passed via reconciliation despite only having two Senate Democrats in support of it.
Anyway, you're moving the goalposts. I never spoke to whether or not the entirety of an opposing party voted against a given bill that was passed via reconciliation. Indeed, I very specifically referred the reconciliation method of bill passage as being familiar to the US political process, and dismissed your argument on the basis that it mirrors one made by GOP that is wrong on its face due to the face that GOP majorities have passed sweeping legislation via the same method.
What you're doing right now is attempting to deflect criticism from a claim you made on the basis of one several pundits have wrongly made.
No...all I said that the way it passed was unusual. As in, it's not a frequent occurrence. You had to go back over 10 years to find something even close to what happened with the PPACA.
It's amazing how you're not puking now with how hard you keep spinning this...
No...all I said that the way it passed was unusual. As in, it's not a frequent occurrence. You had to go back over 10 years to find something even close to what happened with the PPACA.
It was an extremely unusal method to pass a bill that was wildly unpopular at the time. That's what I meant by the dems "shoving it down our throats"
The legal and procedural structures for bill passage were identical, and many bills were passed under reconciliation prior to the current state of regulation; so it was not "extremely unusual".
No...all I said that the way it passed was unusual. As in, it's not a frequent occurrence. You had to go back over 10 years to find something even close to what happened with the PPACA.
It was an extremely unusal method to pass a bill that was wildly unpopular at the time. That's what I meant by the dems "shoving it down our throats"
The legal and procedural structures for bill passage were identical, and many bills were passed under reconciliation prior to the current state of regulation; so it was not "extremely unusual".
)
you, you want it, you 
