Exactly. We know that they can do this, because they are doing it and nobody is stopping them.

In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.

Change title to:

"The Obamacare is dead, long live Obamacare"

This is a victory for every citizen.

Wow......

I really did not expect that outcome at all.

Which of these statements befuddle you?:

- Lack of competition due to gov't regulations (at the behest of the big corporations), is what causes high costs.

- Health care is just like turbos and LCD monitors, a thriving free market will produce better service/products at ever decreasing costs. In contrast anything the gov't controls is more like a monopoly, with a reduction of supply and increase in prices.

- The free market is hamstrung by above regulations.

- Health care is not a "right" like free speech.

- Obamacare is merely the expansion of gov't power AND Corporatism.

How does it benefit me? I'm 30. I dont get free coverage from my parents. I get added costs to pay for the rest of you.

Even if I dont get added costs, the health care costs will certainally skyrocket since the third party payer system is out of control.


http://danieljmitchell.files.wordpre...pg?w=550&h=340

As the chart shows, nearly 90 percent of health care costs in America are financed by someone other than the consumer. And when folks get to consume with other people’s money, they have very little reason to care about costs.

The real question is:

If the tax for the failure to comply with the individual mandate is less than your monthly premium, why would you not immediately drop coverage, pay up front for regular minor healthcare checkups and procedures, and then add a policy if/when you need coverage for something expensive, since you can no longer be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions?

A friend of mine just posted this. A fairly persuasive argument, actually...I'm struggling to respond to it.

Calling in the bet, Hustly.

Do your worst, socialist pig-fucker.

This is pretty gay:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1340900865

I'm really looking forward to Pelois, Reid, and Schumer letting me know what kind of care I can pursue the next time I have a health issue.

Your friend is one omnipotent dude.

+1.

I don't understand how it can violate the commerce section and still be constitutional; I know I don't care to pay for healthcare to people who didn't make their health a priority.

I am highly averse to getting involved here.

In essence if you are healthy and NEVER need expensive medical care:

1. you simply pay a small tax
2. you do not exist in a world where sh1t happens.

or you're an average citizen with average health and

1. You already have health insurance and are exempt
2. you buy cheap health insurance that costs around what the small tax would have been and aren't afraid to go get those preventative checkups that save money on medical costs over the long term
3. if some ---- does hit the fan you're somewhat covered

or you're a fat, smoking, tragic case and

1. need the insurance or you'd have died by now and are exempt
2. cost everyone else a lot of money
3. make it hard for me to not believe this annual tax is effectively the same thing as a tax on alcohol and cigarettes-- if you want to kill yourself, do it on your own dime. your poor health raises my insurance costs.

:giggle: Meaning what? I'm rarely caught short for a response?

So, how much will my premium go up to pay for all these people who didn't make healthcare a priority or are exempt from coverage?

Also, at what age will I be too old to recieve treatment through the insurancy policy I'm paying for?

Is there anything at this point that Congress cannot force me to buy as a tax?

So instead of asking the healthy to pay for the sick, we're now forcing the wealthy to again pay for the poor. We're once again providing an incentive for people to stay poor, and we're providing a de-incentive for businesses to produce profit. Pre-Obamacare, it was an incentive to become/remain sick or a de-incentive to stay healthy; but that is more than balanced out by the fact that no one ever really wants to be sick - most people are smart enough to think "I probably shouldn't jump off of my roof onto those large rocks" - or - "My broken ankle hurts when I put pressure on it, perhaps I shouldn't stand on that foot"

The incentive to produce profit is profit itself - in a world where profits are an exact and quantifiable measurement of economic gain, adopting policy which undeniably reduces profits isn't going to do anything to improve our national economic crisis, which is PE#1 on nearly every American's political radar.

Okay, but how is that a response to his argument? To the validity of the SCOTUS ruling? You're making an argument against the original passage of the bill, not whether it's constitutional or not.