The individual mandate is unconstitutional and illegal. Doesn’t matter what roberts said. He’s wrong.
Exactly. The Founders intended for the supreme court justices to be apolitical and gave life terms to further that goal. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men. Even so, nothing in the Constitution allows the supreme court to make law or ignore the guidelines set forth in the Constitution itself.
Romney would have raised the general tax rate and then structured it as a tax credit. Mathematically it'd be the same. But most people won't say tax credits are unconstitutional.
I don't like the mandate for a number of reasons. But I didn't like the scenario that predated it either. Before the mandate, providers had to provide care whether the person could pay or not. But the government didn't reimburse the providers for the care. That is an unconstitutional "taking" in my opinion. A violation of fifth amendment rights.
Worse, the providers had to raise rates on services to everyone else, to offset the freeloaders. So instead of the general taxpayer paying for the indigent care, it's the other sick people paying for the indigent care. That seems wrong to me. If government orders the care to be provided, then government should pay, not the other sick people.
I think I would like the mandate better if it was structured as a tax credit. And even then we will have people who don't have insurance who can't pay. I think government should pick up the tab. And then collect from those who have the ability to pay.
What's more I think we need to bring back the old anti-trust laws that say you can't charge different ratges to different people for the same service. There has to be a clear cost difference. And I think all healthcare rates should be published in a database on the internet. That way healthcare consumers have price information.
“Doesn’t matter what roberts said. He’s wrong.”
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Amen, unconstitutional is unconstitutional, regardless of what the court says. I can call a tomcat a lion but he will never kill a hyena. How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? The answer is four, not five.