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http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/appeals-ct-obamacare-mandate-unconstitutional

A federal appeals court has ruled that the national health care law's individual mandate is unconstitutional, calling it "an unprecedented exercise of congressional power."

The 11th Circuit, which was hearing the case brought by 26 states led by Florida and the National Federation of Independent Business concluded:

that the individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress’s enumerated commerce power. This conclusion is limited in scope. The power that Congress has wielded via the Commerce Clause for the life of this country remains undiminished. Congress may regulate commercial actors. It may forbid certain commercial activity. It may enact hundreds of new laws and federally-funded programs, as it has elected to do in this massive 975- page Act. But what Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die.

It cannot be denied that the individual mandate is an unprecedented exercise of congressional power. As the CBO observed, Congress “has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.” CBO MANDATE MEMO, supra p.115, at 1. Never before has Congress sought to regulate commerce by compelling non-market participants to enter into commerce so that Congress may regulate them. The statutory language of the mandate is not tied to health care consumption—past, present, or in the future. Rather, the mandate is to buy insurance now and forever. The individual mandate does not wait for market entry.

The three-judge panel that made the ruling was comprised of two Democrats, so this will be hard for the Obama administration to dismiss as the work of a lone activist conservative judge. And this virtually gaurantees that the Supreme Court will take up the case.

Score one for the constitution, I suppose. Is this surprising?

Could anyone explain this to me? I thought that "Obamacare" was supposed to be against the insurance system. And, if it was, why is it met with so much hate?

In the context of the original post, the individual mandate was the government telling you "Get health insurance or else." which is...over their authority limits.

Thanks... but how exactly does that have anything to do with Obama?

I thought pre-Obama you guys had to take the insurance in order to get medical aid of any kind, and the legislation he proposed brought the system closer to what we have in certain european countries.

Obamacare is the derogatory term used to describe the whole health care mandate to insure everyone in the U.S. passed during President Obama's term.


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Destrado wrote:I thought pre-Obama you guys had to take the insurance in order to get medical aid of any kind, and the legislation he proposed brought the system closer to what we have in certain european countries.

Hospitals and doctors have to treat a person regardless of their ability to pay if in critical condition. As for other services, those are negotiated with if you don't have insurance. Otherwise if you do, the doctors think up a number for how much the surgery costs and bills your healthcare provider whatever they think is a good number.

WarOne wrote:Hospitals and doctors have to treat a person regardless of their ability to pay if in critical condition. As for other services, those are negotiated with if you don't have insurance. Otherwise if you do, the doctors think up a number for how much the surgery costs and bills your healthcare provider whatever they think is a good number.

Well, you get to be operated if in critical condition, but what about afterwards? Is there any truth to the stories of people having their lives indebted because of the medical fees? How is the insurance system better? The only good thing I think I see there is the weight it's supposed to take away from the government.

Destrado wrote:Could anyone explain this to me? I thought that "Obamacare" was supposed to be against the insurance system. And, if it was, why is it met with so much hate?

The Health Care bill was to determine a limit to be set on how much one could charge for Health Insurance.

However, the bill ALSO passed into law a requirement for every person in America to have Health Insurance or face a fine, which would be instituted at a certain amount in 2012 and raised to the full price by 2014(if I remember the dates correctly). This fine would also be levied towards businesses(earlier than idividuals, IIRC). It was NOT the Canadian/British National health care style that people thought/feared the Dems wanted.

What it also doesn't address is the fact that for many businesses the fine is less than the cost of paying for health insurance for all employees past a certain point, so it's actually cheaper for them to stop providing employees with health insurance until 2014.

All in all, the Healthcare Bill was a clusterfeth of ridiculous proportions if you actually sit down and read it. The best benefits were the educational reforms for certain states(like Louisiana) tacked on to it to get it passed.

There's a lot of good stuff in the bill, but a lot of problems with it too. The Dems shouldn't have spent a year pandering to the Repubs and watering it down and trying to get bipartisan support. They should have just come up with the best bill they could, invited any Republicans who actually want the US to have the best healthcare in the world to get on board, then passed it. Instead they bent over backwards, dumped the public option so many of us wanted when we voted for Obama, etc.

Destrado wrote:I thought pre-Obama you guys had to take the insurance in order to get medical aid of any kind, and the legislation he proposed brought the system closer to what we have in certain european countries.

Medical care, like every other good and service, costs money. Doctors get paid, nurses get paid, certain medical products are consumed, etc.

In the United States, the consumer of these goods and services is responsible for paying these costs. So if you break a leg and go to the hospital, they set your leg and send you a bill.

Medical insurance is an instrument that takes away the risk of sudden medical expenses. Instead of paying the expenses of medical treatment yourself, your insurance company agrees to cover the expense.

In exchange for this agreement to cover future medical expenses, you pay the insurance company a set amount. They base this on the chance you'll need medical care and how much that care will cost. Of course, some people will end up paying more than they consume while others will consume more than they pay.

One problem with this is that people who may not have the ability to pay for medical treatment have the right to receive medical care (see critical care, above). These government picks up the tab for these services. People who get services without any risk to themselves are called 'free riders.' One attempt to overcome this problem is the individual mandate, which requires people who otherwise would rely on the guaranteed medical care system to purchase insurance instead. This forces the expense (and risk) for medical care onto those who will be consuming the services.

In contrast are the "universal health care" plans of other countries, such as the UK. In this case, the government picks up the burden for every person's medical treatment. This is paid for by tax dollars from everyone in the country. The concept here is the same basis for any other taxing and spending program. Diffuse the expense across the population and give everyone an equal right to access the health care.

The problem is that it creates an even larger free rider program because, unlike in a private medical market, there is no incentive for individuals to consume fewer medical services. As an analogy, imagine the government decided to provide an open grocer and charged everyone a $10 fee (reasoning that $10/person would cover their expenses). You would have an interest in picking up more than $10 in food in order to get the most out of your fee. Just about everyone else would have the same thought, and therefore the total expense would exceed the amount collected at the door.

biccat wrote:The problem is that it creates an even larger free rider program because, unlike in a private medical market, there is no incentive for individuals to consume fewer medical services.

So you suggest a chronically ill poor person should have the incentive not to pay for their medicine and instead die like the good little not-rich person they are?

No-one except a loon would make himself ill to take advantage of being treated for free.

biccat wrote:The problem is that it creates an even larger free rider program because, unlike in a private medical market, there is no incentive for individuals to consume fewer medical services. As an analogy, imagine the government decided to provide an open grocer and charged everyone a $10 fee (reasoning that $10/person would cover their expenses). You would have an interest in picking up more than $10 in food in order to get the most out of your fee. Just about everyone else would have the same thought, and therefore the total expense would exceed the amount collected at the door.

That is simply not true. The cost of medical care in the uk per person is much lower than in the us, equaly treatment per person is much lower. The reason for this? People in the uk use medical care when they need it, but in the us people get as much as they can, going for treament for ever minor bump graze and sniffle, amd as soneone has pointed out, the doctors then charge the insurence what they can get away with. People on both sides feel that they should get there monies worth.

To attempt to apply symplistic school boy economics to real life is neive at bezt.

Paul wrote:

biccat wrote:The problem is that it creates an even larger free rider program because, unlike in a private medical market, there is no incentive for individuals to consume fewer medical services. As an analogy, imagine the government decided to provide an open grocer and charged everyone a $10 fee (reasoning that $10/person would cover their expenses). You would have an interest in picking up more than $10 in food in order to get the most out of your fee. Just about everyone else would have the same thought, and therefore the total expense would exceed the amount collected at the door.

That is simply not true. The cost of medical care in the uk per person is much lower than in the us, equaly treatment per person is much lower. The reason for this? People in the uk use medical care when they need it, but in the us people get as much as they can, going for treament for ever minor bump graze and sniffle, amd as soneone has pointed out, the doctors then charge the insurence what they can get away with. People on both sides feel that they should get there monies worth.

To attempt to apply symplistic school boy economics to real life is neive at bezt.

I think someone of the people here should watch the movie SickO
UK's health care program is awesome.
Norway's Health Program is even better. hahaha

The United State's sadly is so bad it makes me wanna cry. It is so short sighted.

Asherian Command wrote:
I think someone of the people here should watch the movie SickO
UK's health care program is awesome.
Norway's Health Program is even better. hahaha

The United State's sadly is so bad it makes me wanna cry. It is so short sighted.

I was gonna ask about that, is the info shown in the movie legit?
I ask this because most documentaries related to Brazil are either exaggerated or too generalist.

Polvilhovoador wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:
I think someone of the people here should watch the movie SickO
UK's health care program is awesome.
Norway's Health Program is even better. hahaha

The United State's sadly is so bad it makes me wanna cry. It is so short sighted.

I was gonna ask about that, is the info shown in the movie legit?
I ask this because most documentaries related to Brazil are either exaggerated or too generalist.

No its pretty well down and they are legit. People have died while waiting for care.

Mannahnin wrote:There's a lot of good stuff in the bill, but a lot of problems with it too. The Dems shouldn't have spent a year pandering to the Repubs and watering it down and trying to get bipartisan support. They should have just come up with the best bill they could, invited any Republicans who actually want the US to have the best healthcare in the world to get on board, then passed it. Instead they bent over backwards, dumped the public option so many of us wanted when we voted for Obama, etc.

Well...

I think that they wanted bi-partisan support so that if/when this thing goes tits-up they wouldn't get 100% of the blame. These are politicians we're talking about, after all.

Then again, I have been accused of being cynical.

There's also a prevailing belief that bipartisanship is important, but that isn't necessarily true when both parties are largely homogenous on the national level. One could argue that bipartisanship is the result of relatively diverse parties, and that relatively diverse parties lead to a healthy political system, but then claiming that the absence of bipartisanship is bad is merely putting the chicken before the egg.


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biccat wrote:
The problem is that it creates an even larger free rider program because, unlike in a private medical market, there is no incentive for individuals to consume fewer medical services.

Besides the general inconvenience of going to a doctor, taking prescription drugs (which likely have deleterious side effects), dealing with recovery from surgery, or staying in a hospital?

People don't often seek medical attention for self-gratification in same way that they might in your grocer example.

Why would you even post this?

There is nothing new until this goes to the Supreme Court, its just making its way there. Some other court will say its NOT unconstitutional soon enough.

dogma wrote:There's also a prevailing belief that bipartisanship is important, but that isn't necessarily true when both parties are largely homogenous on the national level.

Oh I completely agree.

Still, to the people that think that there is a huge difference all these party games still have an effect.

Polvilhovoador wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:
I think someone of the people here should watch the movie SickO
UK's health care program is awesome.
Norway's Health Program is even better. hahaha

The United State's sadly is so bad it makes me wanna cry. It is so short sighted.

I was gonna ask about that, is the info shown in the movie legit?
I ask this because most documentaries related to Brazil are either exaggerated or too generalist.

Michael Moore is a propagandist, be aware of this going into the movie. He will present facts in a one-sided manner, because he's trying to persuade, not discuss.

dogma wrote:Besides the general inconvenience of going to a doctor, taking prescription drugs (which likely have deleterious side effects), dealing with recovery from surgery, or staying in a hospital?

People don't often seek medical attention for self-gratification in same way that they might in your grocer example.

Paul wrote:but in the us people get as much as they can, going for treament for ever minor bump graze and sniffle, amd as soneone has pointed out, the doctors then charge the insurence what they can get away with. People on both sides feel that they should get there monies worth.

That these same two arguments are presented on the same page is amusing to me.

The US health care expenses is more due to government intrusion into the market (more than half of all spending is federal) than due to the private market.

biccat wrote:The problem is that it creates an even larger free rider program because, unlike in a private medical market, there is no incentive for individuals to consume fewer medical services .

Biccat makes a good point, I mean, I was perfectly healthy, but when I found of that the NHS would pay for my drugs and treatment, I started going out and having unprotected sex with homeless men.

..well, in fairness there's not a lot else to do in Middlesbrough.

It should be pointed out that, while the court struck down the mandate element, they actually reversed an earlier decision that tossed the whole thing. So it's actually a mixed bag.

And of course, it bears repeating that all of this is meaningless until it reaches the Supreme Court.

Delving into opinion, now, at that point I feel it's likely to be ruled that Congress did not overreach, and the law, as a whole, passes Constitutional muster, or rather, what passes for such with our current crop of corporate-lackey justices. I don't believe they've seen a case of unjustly enriching corporations they didn't like in the last 2 decades or so.

Ouze wrote:It should be pointed out that, while the court struck down the mandate element, they actually reversed an earlier decision that tossed the whole thing. So it's actually a mixed bag.

It should be noted that it's not really a mixed bag.

The reason the district court struck down the entirety of the law was based on (in part) the fact that there was no severability clause. This is a clause that's typically inserted into the end of a bill and says, essentially, if any part of the law is unconstitutional, it doesn't doom the entire bill. While the court typically will favor severability, when it's plain that Congress would not have passed the bill but for the challenged portion, that portion would not be severable.

Here, there is strong evidence to suggest that the individual mandate was a necessary element of the entire Act. The president stated as much and the legislative history makes it clear that the individual mandate was necessary and essential to passage of the Act. I think Vinson was right on this point.

Ouze wrote:Delving into opinion, now, at that point I feel it's likely to be ruled that Congress did not overreach, and the law, as a whole, passes Constitutional muster, or rather, what passes for such with our current crop of corporate-lackey justices.

I disagree. As a number of legal commentators, in academia, the bar, and the judiciary have noted, the idea of a health insurance mandate is inconsistent with the concept of a government of limited powers. If there is no limit to what may be regulated as interstate commerce, it raises a question as to the purpose of Article 1, section 8. Or to the states as separate sovereigns.

While you may agree with this concept of Congressional authority, it's hard to argue that unlimited federal power is anticipated, constitutionally.

Ouze wrote:I don't believe they've seen a case of unjustly enriching corporations they didn't like in the last 2 decades or so.

What, like that famously pro-corporation case FCC v. AT&T (written by the Chief Justice)? Or Thompson v. North American Stainless (written by Scalia)? And that's leaving aside what you mean by "unjustly enriching."

Perhaps their pro-corporation bias isn't limitless - AT&T proved that - but look at the bigger picture instead of a few small examples. Kelo, or Walmart or the binding arbitration one.

reds8n wrote:..well, in fairness there's not a lot else to do in Middlesbrough.

What, were just down the road from Diggerland!

Ouze wrote:Perhaps their pro-corporation bias isn't limitless - AT&T proved that - but look at the bigger picture instead of a few small examples. Kelo, or Walmart or the binding arbitration one.

You're the one that asserted they haven't "seen a case of unjustly enriching corporations they didn't like in the last 2 decades or so." Those are two cases out of many where the court goes against "corporate bias." While there are some dividing lines in the court, it's a tough argument to say that they're pro-corporate.

First, Kelo was a terrible decision, but it shows more pro-government and anti-individual rights bias than "pro-corporation" bias. As for Wal-Mart, I assume you mean Wal-Mart v. Dukes? That case was seriously stretching the limits of class certification. I'm surprised it got to the Supreme Court.

Disclaimer: I really dislike class action lawsuits.

biccat wrote:
That these same two arguments are presented on the same page is amusing to me.

Not nearly as amusing as the notion that there is a significant free rider problem that comes with socialized medicine. I mean, if that were the case, one would expect to see significant increases in terms of per capita spending in states that have socialized medicine. Since we don't see that, there isn't much force to the argument.

biccat wrote:
The US health care expenses is more due to government intrusion into the market (more than half of all spending is federal) than due to the private market.

Two things.

First, the fact that the state pays for more than half of all medical expenses in this country does not indicate that state expenditure is the driving force behind price increases. It certainly indicates that state spending enables the medical industry, but the causal variable may be regulation, or generally systemic (in the US government programs tend to mirror the private market).

Second, you're still assuming that the government and the private sector are separate entities, which is hilarious; especially in the context of the United States.

The fact that hte government buys half the health care really just shows that there isn't, and can't be, a free market for health care.

The SCOTUS arguments are going to be interesting. It'll come down to how Kennedy feels that day, and they'll write it up either way, but it'll be still be interesting.

This case is a coinflip. There's no direct precedent so support the mandate. But the commerce clause has been stretched to cover much more remote things.

I still dont' understand why they didn't implement a per capita tax, with a matching credit if you have health insurance.