Two Years On: Obamacare

Playing devils' advocate, the counterargument to that would be that the court can't base rulings on possible unintended consequences or hypotheticals or side-effects. It has to rule based on what the Constitution says. If the resulting ruling causes a system involving one-sixth of this country's GDP to melt down or injects too much blind money into politics or makes people question the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, that's a problem for someone else to deal with on another day.

Of course, the Supreme Court could also do what it did with Bush v Gore and simply say that this ruling pertains to the unique facts of this case alone and shouldn't be used as precedent, or some rubbish like that.

 

I'm not sure where he got his figures, but if Fried is correct in the article linked above, 95 percent of Americans will use some form of health care service during a five-year span. 85 percent of us will use it every year. Essentially, there is no lack of commerce. There is no inactivity. Basically, everyone uses it at some point.

Again, I can't verify the accuracy of those figures. I don't find it that hard to believe that every American uses health care at some point in their lives and if you can find someone who never uses it, that person is surely the exception to the rule.

I also offer this thought for those arguing that we shouldn't be required to carry health insurance: Those who do not carry it surely would not pass up medical attention if they were hit by a car or if they have a heart attack. The hospitals will not turn them away. So, essentially, right now we ALL have health insurance, but only SOME of us are actually paying for it. Wouldn't a bill like this simply ensure that everyone is paying for a service we ALL eventually use?

 

You realize a portion of our tax money goes to make sure the poor can afford food, right?

 

And to grow food, too.

 

No, I'm sure health care is something that shouldn't have winners and losers in a just society. And health care resources can't be any more poorly allocated than what our private system has done. And calling me glib..."everybody dies" is the gold standard of glib.

Adequate health care = an absolute right in our society, and has nothing to do with what's on the dinner table.

 

The thing is that if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house

 

You realize you didn't answer the question?

Does the government have the authority to force people to buy and eat certain things?

 

No, AQB. It forces people who own homes to buy homeowners insurance. And I see no difference between this and what is about to get smacked down by the corporacratic Supremes.

 

Okay, you've proven that the health-care market is unique (which is silly, every market has distinguishing features that make it different from other markets).

Now why does that uniqueness give the government the authority to force people to buy a product from a private company?

 

Well, for one thing, the Constitution grants the state governments all powers not delegated to the federal government.

State governments and the federal government have different powers.

 

Wrong. We already subsidize housing to make sure as many people as possible can afford a place to live.

 

This is the nut cutter of political thinking. One side of this argument would rather have people die to feel better about their own ideas. To me, that's evil.
PS: Boom, the law has subsidies for people who can't afford insurance, just as we have some subsidies for the homeless.
PPS: Yes, the government has the authority to control what people eat. It did so in World War II and the complainers were considered to lack patriotism. The point is, the likelihood of the Congress and President taking arbitrary action that can't be undone by the voters is so remote as to be laughable. These arguments are below you, Ragu. It's talk show claptrap.