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 whembly wrote:

Heh...

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.

 cincydooley wrote:
I think this is incredibly short sighted.

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?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:
Yet not a market-based solutions.

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.

 sebster wrote:

 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?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1230/555417.page#6416238

 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.

 sebster wrote:

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.

Doesn't mean you're always right bro.




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 sebster wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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....

 sebster wrote:

 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.

Across various polls, the public almost never had a majority supporting the healthcare law:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html

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.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

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.

 dogma wrote:

 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'll wait...

You also left out legislation that has been unilaterally deferred and amended, with no oversight.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You also left out legislation that has been unilaterally deferred and amended, with no oversight.

Hey now. Was oversight on this. Mid Terms coming

 Jihadin wrote:
Hey now. Was oversight on this. Mid Terms coming

Perhaps consequence, but not oversight

 whembly wrote:

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.

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

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...

 whembly wrote:

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.

Well, no, you said this:

 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"

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".

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

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.

Well, no, you said this:

 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"

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".

What is that meant to illustrate?

Going to hazard a guess.

ACA was slammed through House and Senate while under Democrat control.

 Jihadin wrote:
Going to hazard a guess.

ACA was slammed through House and Senate while under Democrat control.

 Jihadin wrote:
Going to hazard a guess.

ACA was slammed through House and Senate while under Democrat control.

So, exactly the same point Whembly made a couple pages ago which I have been continuously refuting?

 dogma wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Going to hazard a guess.

ACA was slammed through House and Senate while under Democrat control.

So, exactly the same point Whembly made a couple pages ago which I have been continuously refuting?

Doesn't mean you're right.

 whembly wrote:

Doesn't mean you're right.

The first rule of debate is that you will never convince your opposition that they're wrong, merely demonstrate it to other people.

Senate
57 Democrats + 2 Independents
41 Republicans

House
255 Democrats
179 Republicans