The health care bill was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge. Which is what my second-year law student friend MB insisted all along! She said the mandate was unconstitutional because it didn’t include — the public option! She said a government-provided service was necessary to meet that test.
So we’ll see what happens next.
By the way, because of the way the legislation was written, if one part is ruled unconstitutional, the entire bill will go down if judges decide to do so. Competence!
Mandatory Auto Insurance has been found unconstitutional in a number of states, including California (in the 70s even), yet remains Mandatory. I really don’t know how the Insurance Companies let the dumb-as-rocks Tea Baggers get away with this – thrust me, the Insurance Companies want Mandatory “Health” Insurance.
Okay. I’m stunned if it is true that the White House is surprised by Republican US attorneys politicizing the health care bill.
Normally when a new president takes office, he replaces all of his predecessor’s federal attorneys with his own people, state by state across the country. The last four presidents did that, but Obama did not. That seemed especially creepy to me because this bunch of state attorneys general were the very ones who had been shown to have flagrantly politicized their offices. The people who railroaded Don Siegelman, for example, are still in office.
So now I’m supposed to believe the White House is surprised that Republican state attorneys general are bringing cases against health care for political reasons? Really?
On the other hand, I’m glad they can’t enforce a mandate without a public option. That was the part of the bill that seemed feudalistic to me – mandates without cost controls.
How IS it that everyone else on the planet that’s reasonably prosperous has affordable health care but we can’t seem to get it no matter what we do?
hi, someofparts, and welcome to “simple answers to simple questions”.
Today, we’ll answer your question, “How IS it that everyone else on the planet that’s reasonably prosperous has affordable health care but we can’t seem to get it no matter what we do?”
Answer: our system is an ossified relic of the 18th century run by people who serve the interests they’re meant to rein in, so even when you think you’ve won, really you lose.
Thanks for playing!
Brendan, how about a hard question?
In Afghanistan, US troops are fighting and dying alongside NATO partners and foreign allies. Name one of these allies who isn’t a socialist country as defined by their citizens enjoying universal health care coverage for it’s citizens for a cost far below what it costs the US to not have that.
I don’t doubt there is one, but you will have to look down the list of partners towards “Sri Lanka sent monkeys as bomb detectors to Iraq” to find it.
Elena Kagen will recuse herself in any case involving Obama’s Health Insurance Profit Protection act, no doubt. Or…?
If she does recuse, now is the time for the Repubs to get the Supremes to take up the law and uphold this judge’s ruling. They won’t even have to get the majority; a tie keeps the ruling in effect.
However, IANALNDIPOOTI, and don’t know whether having other judgements upholding the law would mean they would have to look at those as well? Or, can Roberts or other conservatives choose their decision?
1. The automobile insurance analogy, applied to forcing people to buy a commercial product, is false. People can exit the market for car insurance by not having a car, and walking, bicycling, taking public transportation, and so forth. However, under the HCR mandate, there’s no way to exit the market at all, unless you count having a chat with your friendly IRS agent.
2. “Competence”? Maybe. It’s hard to imagine that people who draft legislation for a living would miss this. Could be 11-dimensional chess, but who knows? These people are as twisty as corkscrews…
Either way, my takeaway from this latest debacle is “Die, Democratic Party!”
thugs are already pushing to have it skip the interim appeals and go straight to the supremes…guess they know which way the vote will go already. uh, guess i do too.