Posted on 07/05/2012 3:51:04 PM PDT by MichCapCon
The real question before the Supreme Court in the "Patient Protection Act" challenge was: Does a Constitution restricting government to limited and enumerated powers actually mean anything, or are we now subject to the whims of temporary majorities elected to Congress?
It’s hard to read this decision as anything but the latter. The primary constraints on federal power now are political, not legal. For Americans, the world has changed.
What do the law's provisions mean for you?
For starters, employer-provided insurance is an endangered species. For political reasons, the penalty the law imposes on employers who don’t provide insurance was made much lower than the cost of insurance, which will now be much higher due to the law’s insurance policy coverage mandates. This means it will make much more sense for employers to just drop their coverage and let employees go to the government "exchange" for insurance.
So, pretty soon you will probably get your insurance through that government exchange. It will offer a limited selection of government-approved "Cadillac" policies — from a base-level Cadillac to a loaded version — at very high prices.
Because the cost will be so high, families with incomes up to four times the poverty level will get a subsidy, the exact amount depending on how much you earn. The exchange will look up your income information in the IRS database and determine your subsidy. You will have to pay the unsubsidized amount, or else not obtain coverage and pay a penalty, called a "tax" under the Supreme Court's ruling.
Once you have that Cadillac policy, your incentive will be to use as much health care as you can, and make no effort at all to seek the best deal. That’s not too different from the status quo, unfortunately, except insurance companies’ ability to manage those costs is sharply curtailed by limits the law imposes on their administration costs. All this is why this new entitlement’s costs will be so much higher than advertised.
How much more? Easily two or three times the advertised "trillion dollars over 10 years" price — and maybe much more than that. When Medicare was created in 1965, it was projected to cost $12 billion by 1990. In fact it was $107 billion. There’s no reason to expect anything different with this new entitlement.
Because such levels of spending are unsustainable, the law authorizes various forms of health care rationing, and will generate many more. Direct rationing will be imposed through an Independent Payment Advisory Board, the so-called "death panel,” whose decisions are almost impossible even for Congress to challenge.
Indirect rationing will occur through the almost inevitable "lowballing" of reimbursements paid to health care providers, as is done now under Medicare and Medicaid: It's the politicians' first response when costs skyrocket out of control.
Providers will respond in turn with, among other things, longer waiting times to get treatment, which is the norm in other countries with government-run health care systems. This is the reason there’s a good deal of “medical tourism” from Canadians forced to wait two years or more for things like hip replacements and other procedures, often in great pain.
Many Americans may eventually be forced to do the same. Wait-times have also grown in Massachusetts, which imposed the prototype for Obamacare several years ago.
I paid into it for years....years and years. When I turned 65....wham....they took $96 a month out of my SS check for a medical premium. Of course, it doesn't cover everything, so I have to purchase a supplement.
And of course now....all SS payments will be electronic giving government access to your account.
Bye, bye freedom!
And I'm being realistic not sarcastic.
We can replace our best rotating oil drills with 250 year old colonial grave hardware and triple our oil output now.
Not to mention this Obamacare will turn the U.S.A into a socialist country . Socialism/government doesn't work. Why don't democrats including Roberts, Obama, Reid, Pelosi see this?
Healthcare will be precisely like many of the various states workers compensation programs. Have a friend who had a very serious otj injury. Initial denial of course, then doctor resubmitting medical findings, then allowed claim but denied doctor recommended treatment, met with WC doctor, tried his treatment, didn’t work, blah blah blah. One and a half year later, another WC doctor finally approved what the first doctor wanted to do in the first place.
If insurance reform is what you want then it can't be entrusted to just one political party. The result is chaos and confusion and the opposition party will just dig its heels in deeper.
Democrats politicians, laywers, and lobbyists met behind closed doors and brought forth a mammoth 2500 page document we "had to pass it to find out what is in it." This is insurance reform? Please!. I wouldn't trust only Republicans with the task of healthcare reform. I certainly don't trust Democrats.
Reform, if you want it, needs to be a joint effort of Dems and Repubs working together, with no lobbyists and as few lawyers as possible. Both sides need to understand they may not get everything they want.
Reform, if you want it, needs to be a national effort not unlike the 1960s when JFK challenged America to walk on the moon by the end of the decade. Healthcare reform may well span several administrations. I don't know.
I do know that this back and forth of which party has the better reform plan is just political theater.
They are indeed “legal”..and thats precisely what the Second Amendment does...is enshrine the cartridge box as a legitimate alternative as the soapbox and ballot box cease effectiveness.
That’s the reality of the Second. It is the ultimate affirmation of man’s God gifted freedom.
the run at the Second...hard..has just begun.
The "Elite" in socialist systems do very well for themselves while the masses suffer. They all know exactly what they are doing.
If there was ever any doubt, the 16th Amendment has now been exposed for the trojan horse which it has always been. It is effectively a gaping breach that was opened in the Constitution which grants Congress virtually unlimited power, under the guise of taxation. It is an open invitation to making We the People abject slaves to our federal government, and it has always represented such a threat.
Accordingly, if the People want to remove this power from the federal government (and we should) then the 16th Amendment MUST be repealed. In the interim, the People should take the initial step of removing from office all those traitors who have dared to blatantly exercise such arbitrary power, starting with the November 2012 elections.
Notwithstanding the ruling, Chief Justice Roberts could have joined Scalia et al to overturn the sloppily written and dishonestly passed ACA, and I believe this is what he should have done. Instead, for whatever reasons, he chose to become activist and rewrite or reinterpret the ACA into a Constitutional format, which was, regrettably, within his judicial purview.
Regardless, it should now be clear to all that the 16th Amendment is entirely incompatible with the concept of limited government, and it always has been. Roberts has simply shrewdly exposed this fact for our edification, and I hope the People are aware enough to vote accordingly in November.
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