Viewpoints: For starters, Justice Scalia, broccoli isn't health insurance

The Sacramento Bee ^ | March 31, 2012 | by Paul Krugman

[Oldeconomybuyer]

...the nation's already badly damaged faith in the Supreme Court's ability to stand above politics is about to take another severe hit...

The "politics" of Obamacare is that no Republican voted for it. Krugman and other Statists demand that SCOTUS "stand above politics" now, but were cheering when Pelosi-Reid-Obama crammed this down America's throat.

[martin_fierro]

That comparison horrified health care experts all across America

C'mon, Paul, you hack. Did you even bother to talk to one?

[Daveinyork]

“But it’s hard not to feel a sense of foreboding – and to worry that the nation’s already badly damaged faith in the Supreme Court’s ability to stand above politics is about to take another severe hit.”

Standing above politics, in Krugman’s pea brain, means also standing above the Constitution.

[Col Freeper]

Vet the media:

[oh8eleven]

by Paul Krugman
Stopped reading right there.

[nhwingut]

Liberal judges actually coaching the stumbling and bumbling Obamacare lawyer = Just fine.

Conservative judges using analogies and hypotheticals = a travesty of justice.

Liberal Hypocrisy.

[Common Sense 101]

Viewpoints: For starters, Justice Scalia, broccoli isn’t health insurance

Generally when I read lamea$$ ignorant arguments like this, I suggest that the idiot forwarding them is purposely missing the point he or she is contending with; however, given the complete sociopathic and intellectual incapacity of this Krugman creature, it is best to simply ignore it and write it off as the pointless ranting of a self-aggrandizing socialist a$$ clown.

[Jeff Head]

You are right. Health insurance isn’t broccoli...AND THAT WAS HIS ENTIRE POINT.

Sheez. The idea is that if the government can force you to buy aone product because you need ot for your health and for regulatory purposes, then they can force you to buy other products for the same reasons.

Broccoli is “good for you” if the new “Health Care mafia” decided brocoli was “good for you” and needed to be regulated, they could force you to buy ot for those purposes too...or any other item that could possibly be fit into those broad categories.

Comversly, if they can force you to buy something for these reasons, they would also inherit the power to ban products for the same reason and tell you what NOT to buy.

Total government...read totalitarian government...at its finest.

AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY
http://www.jeffhead.com/crossroads.htm

THE MAN WHO DESPISES AMERICA
http://www.jeffhead.com/obama-time.htm

[the invisib1e hand]

Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don't make broccoli unavailable to those who want it. But when people don't buy health insurance until they get sick – which is what happens in the absence of a mandate – the resulting worsening of the risk pool makes insurance more expensive, and often unaffordable, for those who remain. As a result, unregulated health insurance basically doesn't work, and never has.

if horseysh!t can be described as "pure", this would qualify.

one wonders how the human race survived for the millennia preceding Barack Hussein Obamas complete forgettable, regrettable existence.

shoulda stayed in Kenya, bwana.

[Steely Tom]

...broccoli isn't health insurance

And health insurance isn't health care.
And a rat isn't a pig isn't a dog isn't a boy.
And the Constitution doesn't live, or breathe.
And we all aren't Trayvon Martin.

[muawiyah]

Krugman's America extends from one side of Broadway to the other, and not too far North or South.

His chief medical informant is his proctologist ~ checks in with him every week to see if there's some new treatment they can use to extract his head!

[Toddsterpatriot]

But when people don't buy health insurance until they get sick – which is what happens in the absence of a mandate – the resulting worsening of the risk pool makes insurance more expensive, and often unaffordable, for those who remain.

Exactly! Which is why we must force young, healthy people to buy insurance they won't use.

So now that they're paying into Social Security that they'll never collect and health insurance they don't want and won't use, maybe they'll get a clue and vote against Obama this time?

[wayoverontheright]

Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don't make broccoli unavailable to those who want it.

What an idiotic statement. The supply of broccoli is just as unlimited as the supply of insurance policies. The purchase of a broccoli spear does not make broccoli "unavailable" to any subsequent broccoli seeker.

But when people don't buy health insurance until they get sick – which is what happens in the absence of a mandate...

Actually the people who don't buy health insurance, and get sick, generally speaking don't buy health insurance even after they get sick, certainly not because they got sick-this is because health CARE, which they receive, is not health INSURANCE.

The analogy fails because lefties cannot grasp that health care is not health insurance.

[philman_36]

The saddest thing about this article is that Paul Krugman actually thinks that his opinion still matters anywhere.

[john mirse]

Dental Care: Does ObamaCare cover routine dentist visits and serious dental surgery like tooth replacement and root canal surgery?

Supreme Court Justices: Are Justices, Senators, and Representatives required to sign-up for ObamaCare, or do they get special treatment and so they are exempt?

My thoughts:

I believe that ObamaCare is one big mess.

Still, I wish we could do something so that we average people can be covered by some type of health insurance that was affordable and inexpensive.

For instance, average income people could purchase $10,000 to $20,000 coverage, and then the government would kick in with catastrophic coverage once the medical bills were more than $20,000.

$20,000 coverage would take care of routine visits to the doctor and a few emergency room visits per year.

Serious tests and sicknesses---like cancer and heart problems---would be covered by government catastrophic insurance.

People with no income, such as homeless people: We should try to come up with a special program where they can get basic care until they can get back on their feet and pay for some of the coverage.

We have got to do something to help the less fortunate to get health coverage, but sad to say, ObamaCare is not the answer, because its 2,000 plus pages are nothing but pages of confusion after confusion.

[sirchtruth]

Holy Moly!! I've never seen someone miss a point so badly in my life!! This idiot, like so many others in this nation do not understand the simple concept of FREEDOM and FREE WILL as guaranteed by our Constitution.

The point is simple, if Health Insurance becomes a required purchase because Constitutional precepts allow for it, then wouldn't the same logic hold up in any other case for ANYTHING the gov't mandated the public buy?

This would mean the gov't has complete control over our lives when the Constitution was written to ensure the PEOPLE had complete control over the gov't!

The whole point Scalia was making is Broccoli is healthy, therefore would the gov't then have a Constitutional basis to force people to buy it and eat it because it would prevent certain diseases?

[COUNTrecount]

They always argue this way.

A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2]

[NTHockey]

Another a$$hat that doesn’t know that unlimited power leads to unlimited abuse. If the Commerce Clause has no limits, the government can indeed force you to eat brocolli, buy a Chevy Volt, dictate how much alcohol you can drink, what size house you can buy, etc.

I really don’t care what they decide, I REFUSE to obey. I will not fund abortions.

[Colonel_Flagg]

For starters, Justice Scalia, broccoli isn't health insurance

For starters, Krugman, that doesn't make a damn bit of difference. The government can't force a citizen to enter a marketplace to purchase a produce he or she does not want. Period.

[The Great RJ]

No, Justice Scalia has it exactly right. If the mandate provision of Obamcare stands as constitutional, it immensely broadens to power of the federal government under the commerce clause and would allow Congress to pass laws that could mandate that citizens must do something, whether it be to buy broccoli, drive an electric car or have a government regulated thermostat in their homes. Imagine with this new power a liberal Congress could pass a law that all gun owners must buy a government designed liability insurance policy that would make it prohibitive to own a gun. It wouldn't take much of a stretch for Congress to invoke the commerce clause as a reason to ban talk radio. This mandate is a dangerous new expansion of government power that opens the door to absolute tyranny.

[sten]

last I checked, food has a larger daily impact on a persons health then a band-aid

I’m still waiting for the commies to start pushing food as a ‘basic right’ and force all restaurants to stop charging. I guess it’d be too obvious that their commie beliefs are unsustainable

[pieceofthepuzzle]

Yes, he clearly is an idiot, and apparently too much of an ideologue to even see the hypocrisy in his argument about partisanship on the court.

I guess a related question is, why would anyone spend the money for Princeton tuition if Krugman exemplifies the poor quality of faculty there?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

...and health insurance ain’t in the Constitution.

[NRG1973]

For starters, Justice Scalia, broccoli isn't health insurance

Then why did mom tell me I'd be healthier if I ate all my broccoli?

[driftless2]

I don’t necessarily agree with your conclusions, but you did bring up an interesting problem: is health care, or health insurance, too expensive for the average American? I don’t know, but it would be interesting to see how much it cost if current insurance policies were restricted to catastrophic cases and most people paid out of pocket for lesser problems. The fly in the ointment is that nowhere in the constitution does it state that the government must provide any of the necessities. Health care is of great importance, but not any more important than food, clothing, and shelter. If the government can force a person to buy health insurance, they can pretty much force them to buy anything it thinks necessary.

[G Larry]

Hey Paul!
You have NEVER “stood above politics”, because you have no values to defend.

Broccoli is simply a metaphor to make the point that if this Federal mandate stands, then the government can impose ANYTHING.

An insurance card is not the same as “healthcare”.
In fact Obamacare is a mechanism to LIMIT ACCESS TO TESTING AND TREATMENT.

[almcbean]

For starters, Mr. Krugman, light bulbs are not health insurance either, but our government dictated which ones we could buy.

[almcbean]

For starters, Mr. Krugman, light bulbs are not health insurance either, but our government dictated which ones we could buy.

[KarlInOhio]

Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don't make broccoli unavailable to those who want it

Actually, if a lot of people decide not to buy broccoli then fewer farmers will plant it, importers will import it off season and fewer stores will stock it. By not buying it, I might make it more expensive for others to buy and thus price other buyers out of the market depending on how elastic the supply is and what quantity efficiencies are no longer available. For example, compare the price and availability of iceberg lettuce vs. arugula.

Also, Krugman, the real point is that neither broccoli nor health insurance is a power given to Congress in article I, section 8 of the Constitution no matter how important you think one or the other is.

[StAnDeliver]

Kruggie! Your wife still writing your columns?

"When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don't make broccoli unavailable to those who want it."

Actually, they do. If demand is so inconsequential for broccoli, the grocer will stop carrying it.

The 24 million uninsured are not demanding insurance, despite insurance companies efforts to attract their business. The 24 million uninsured are demanding care that the rest of us pay for.

[arthurus]

The left’s mania for “insurance” is the belief that NOTHING can be done equitably or efficiently that isn’t done collectively according to some overall Plan.

[blueunicorn6]

Krugman figured out that broccoli isn’t health insurance? You need to read his whole statement.

“Broccoli isn’t health insurance.....it’s car insurance, and I have a celery deductible. Who wants to see my impression of toast?”

[arthurus]

If health insurance were actually insurance, what we call "catastrophic coverage" only, then medical costs would be a small fraction of what they are now because our medical dollars would go to 100% to medical treatment rather than a very large % to government bureaucrats and private bureaucrats who have to live better than the average and must waste a large % of the % that they suck out of consumers' pockets.

Health Insurance as exists today is not insurance at all. It is a prepayment plan for medical treatment and a welfare plan to maintain government and private organizations and parasites superfluous employees.

[Kenny]

That comparison horrified health care experts all across America because health insurance is nothing like broccoli.

It just occurred to me that Alinsky's rules are being used not be a few but by the majority on the left. First government, hand-picked scholars, and pundits ridicule the target then the msm perpetuates it non-stop.

“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” - Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

It's past time for us to start fighting back. We need to research everyone who is using ridicule to shut out their enemy. Then we need to humble them publicly as they've done to so many others.

Start with Paul Krugman. Does his expertise on the economy extend to law? Does he even understand the question before the Court, that it's not about the economy but our basic liberty? Yes, he and the others know but they're trying to latch onto the broccoli piece to (1) ridicule Scalia and (2) turn Obamacare into an economic argument. They can't win on the freedom argument and they know it.

I am so sick of this but people will never get it if we just generalize about Alinsky's rules, we need to fight fire with fire.

[Hostage]

Yes and having a gun at home where there are children risks lives and is a public health concern.

Therefore, guns need to be controlled as a health concern. (This actually was proposed by the Leftist AMA)

There is no end to this ................

[Anima Mundi]

I thought Breyer said yes, it meant government could compel citizens to buy anything it deemed necessary for the greater good?

[carmody]

Food is no different than medicine because food changes your body. Broccoli and beef and chicken and wine and twinkies all change your body chemistry. Therefore, you could make the case that food is no different than pharmaceuticals.

Take the pill? Eat your broccoli? What’s the difference? Not much. The government could very well declare Twinkies as dangerous as a cigarette. And demand that we pre-approve our grocery lists. Although for some reason they are trying to legalize marijuana. So it’s all very confusing.

[PrincessB]

And anything applies to things outside of health care. I have an 11 year old Ford Focus. I love my car. It runs really well and still gets decent gas mileage. I want to drive it till it dies and I plan to replace it with a newer...Ford Focus. I’d love to have a Fiesta diesel but they aren’t available in the states (96 mpg on the highway!)

At some point my car could be forced of the road because it doesn’t meet “today’s” standards. After some byzantine formula looking at my income, housing, quotas, and all sorts of other stuff, the usual way to figure benefits, I might get the choice of a Chevy Volt and the bus.

It seems a little tin foil hat, but I never imagined a world where I couldn’t decide whether I could pay out of pocket or had to use insurance to get a service. The car insurance argument is moot, since many small accidents are settled out of pocket to keep the insurance companies out of it.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Who gets to decide, if it’s not the same?... Obama?

Rick Santorum? (just for any liberals reading) Sarah Palin?
Better idea, is don’t go there.

At all. Ever. For anything.

[Hawthorn]

>> if a lot of people decide not to buy broccoli then fewer farmers will plant it <<

Correct. But IMO the statement really misses a crucially important point:

If somebody doesn't eat broccoli and other green vegetables, then his HEALTH (not necessarily his health insurance) is likely to suffer. And when anybody's health suffers, the marginal effect is to make health costs go up for everybody.

So to keep health costs low, the "progressive" mindset presumably holds that the federal government has a rational basis to require that everybody engage in the specific type of interstate commerce which deals with green vegetables.

In other words, the controversy keeps boiling down to the question,

Does the federal government have the power to force people to engage in a specific kind of interstate commerce (buying green vegetables) in order to "regulate" another kind of interstate commerce (health services and/or health insurance).

To paraphrase an infamous former POTUS:

It all depends on what the meaning of "regulate" is.

In other words, is it really "regulation" of one sort of interstate commerce (health services) when the feds require somebody de novo to engage in another sort of interstate commerce (health insurance and/or vegetables). Of course not!

[Hot Tabasco]

It sounds like Krugman is trying to out think Scalia in print.....and that ain't gonna happen.

Scalia used broccoli as an example so that even the stupidist people in this country could grasp the idea. Evidently he was wrong in that regard.....

[aruanan]

So to keep health costs low, the "progressive" mindset presumably holds that the federal government has a rational basis to require that everybody engage in the specific type of interstate commerce which deals with green vegetables. In other words, the controversy keeps boiling down to the question, Does the federal government have the power to force people to engage in a specific kind of interstate commerce (buying green vegetables) in order to "regulate" another kind of interstate commerce (health services and/or health insurance).

Some health professionals seem to believe that the government should sponsor their efforts to counter the self-interested efforts of others (nutrition and diet quacks for example) because they are right and the others are wrong, because they are altruistic and the others are not. It may be true that they are factually correct and genuinely altruistic, and that what they wish to do will have a beneficial effect on many people, but it doesn’t follow necessarily that the government should fund them.

This is a manifestation of a widespread phenomenon brought about by the advent of the secularized state. Instead of viewing the state as a limited means to a limited end, the tendency has been to imbue it, a temporal entity, with the attributes of a transcendent final judgment in which all injustices and inequalities are finally rectified. In this way, the secular state has been categorically, though not personally, deified and expected to act accordingly (something of a diffuse divine right of kings).

This is seen in those who believe the necessary response to a social ill is the passage of a law, especially a federal law, and the enactment of a program, especially one that they can devise and administrate (and that not necessarily for cynical reasons). Those who feel they are on the side of right, certain they aren’t acting against society’s interest, often appeal to the State to aid them in their struggle against evil. Since the spirit of the secular state is money and power, they ask to be endowed accordingly. It’s pathetically naive and dangerous.

Power accumulates power. Government grows until it meets a limit, either a systemic one (Constitutional limits), or a fiscal one (limits imposed by the amount of money it is able to generate or extort from its own citizens or those outside), or a social one (limits provided by massive societal non-compliance or armed insurrection or by other countries’ response to aggression or perceived weakness). Even then it still has great power to drain resources and people from productive enterprise and turn them to its own ends. In this way it is functioning as a parasite living off the body politic.

[aruanan]

Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don't make broccoli unavailable to those who want it. But when people don't buy health insurance until they get sick – which is what happens in the absence of a mandate – the resulting worsening of the risk pool makes insurance more expensive, and often unaffordable, for those who remain. As a result, unregulated health insurance basically doesn't work, and never has.

Paul, you friggin moron, there is no unregulated health insurance anywhere in the United States. And Obamacare has already resulted in making insurance more expensive and unaffordable. So what you fear, doesn't exist and what you prescribe has resulted in what you fear. We need Nobel prize winners like you like we need Nobel prize winners like Algore, Arafat, and Barack Hussein Obama.

[WashingtonSource]

I thought Krugman was an economist. So, now he’s a constitutional scholar, too. So much idiocy crammed into one tiny brain.

[musicman]

"Krugman's America extends from....."

[musicman]

"..broccoli isn't health insurance.."

[eyedigress]

I noticed you didn’t sign in at the YMCA yesterday. Are you OK?

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“The purchase of a broccoli spear...”

Aha, see? That’s the problem right there. Broccoli comes in florets, asparagus in spears. I suggest a two-week stay in Camp Analogy where they will help you rectify this confusion. Don’t worry...analogy rehab will be covered under 0bamacare.

[DrC]

“So to keep health costs low, the “progressive” mindset presumably holds that the federal government has a rational basis to require that everybody engage in the specific type of interstate commerce which deals with green vegetables.”

Failure to exercise imposes a larger cost on society than failure to obtain health insurance. According to the logic of Obamacare, government has the power to force us to exercise to avert that adverse consequence. http://www.aei.org/article/health/healthcare-reform/scalias-correct-the-slippery-slope-towards-compulsory-exercisescalias-correct-the-slippery-slope-towards-compulsory-exercise/

[Grizzled Bear]

People with no income, such as homeless people: We should try to come up with a special program where they can get basic care until they can get back on their feet and pay for some of the coverage.

Christian Hospitals and organizations used to do this. In many areas, they still do. Unfortunately, the Progressive/Communist/Statist collective are working overtime to stop this.

If a private activity can collect donations and provide direct assistance, without government interference, they are able to do the work of Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. The demonic butt sniffers in DC can't tolerate that.