Two Years On: Obamacare

Barack Obama in 2008 on to Ellen Degeneres:

“Both of us want to provide health care to all Americans. There’s a slight difference, and her plan is a good one. But, she mandates that everybody buy health care. She’d have the government force every individual to buy insurance and I don’t have such a mandate because I don’t think the problem is that people don’t want health insurance, it’s that they can’t afford it,” Obama said in a Feb. 28, 2008 appearance on Ellen DeGeneres' television show. “So, I focus more on lowering costs. This is a modest difference. But, it’s one that she’s tried to elevate, arguing that because I don’t force people to buy health care that I’m not insuring everybody. Well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t."

 

Nor should they. This is a slam dunk. It should be 9-0. Politics are the only reason it is not/will not be.

 

It's not getting struck down.

 

And this is really what Democrats want.

They don't want "insurance" which sets rates based on risk. They want tax payer supported, government administered health care.

And, they want the "1%" to pay for it, so they get it for "free".

 

Again: Actuarial tables do not adequately measure risk, because people know things that the insurance companies do not. There is an asymmetry of information problem. This is uncontroversial, Insurance Economics 101. I know you want this to be good guys vs. bad guys, but that model doesn't apply here. It just doesn't.

 

You can't really believe this. There is a serious Constitutional question regarding whether or not the lack of commerce is the same thing as commerce, thus allowing Congress to regulate it.

The Conservatives are asking questions about this. They are asking the Administration to make the case.

The Liberals are just rolling over. They're not even interested in the legal basis for the law.

 

It's a tax.

The commerce clause argument is academic. It's an income tax. Therefore, it is Constitutional. Without politics, this is a slam dunk 9-0 case.

 

You're more optimistic than any of the articles or news coverage that I've seen.

 

The media likes conflict. They like a horse race.

I like to be right.

 

Taxes are paid to the Government. This is a requirement that people purchase a product/service from a private company. That's not a tax.

The penalty for not doing so may, or may not be a tax.

They could have written the law as a tax bill, as you've said. And then the Government would pay the bills. That's not what this is.

 

It is a fool's errand to try to figure out how a justice is going to vote based on oral argument.

Now, I do think it's noteworthy that extra oral arguments were planned in this case. But in 99.9 percent of Supreme Court cases, oral arguments mean two things: jack and shit.