Broccoli

[Jon Miller]

Listen to yourself, Jon.

If government regulation made it so that only those with income in the top 50% of the country could acquire food, it would obviously be a crime against humanity.

This is the same sort of thing.

Although I disagree with you about those who can pay for the health care being the only ones who can acquire it. This has obvious inefficiencies as seen in South Africa and other places where it is attempted (although it is better than our current system).

JM

[Guynemer]

In many European countries bribing doctors in order to get appointments is a fact of life due to rationing.

Care to back that up?

[Guynemer]

If the government's not paying for it who the hell cares how much we spend on health care? If I want to spend 30% of my money on health care I damn well can if I want to. On the other hand, I have no taste for paying for health care for others.

Wonderful! So I assume you don't have health insurance then.

[regexcellent]

RIT requires me to have it
...and I'm pretty sure my plan would be banned by obamacare due to the deductible.

[Tupac Shakur]

That's why the parliamentary system is so much better. The party in power actually gets to govern.

Yes, but the people governing are all the equivalent of the members of the US House of Representatives.

John Boehner for Prime Minister!

[Tupac Shakur]

do you really believe that either party is capable of developing a sane system?

No, but that's not an argument in favor of Obamacare, which extends the life of our current insane system by forcing the young and healthy to subsidize it. It's probably going to take a crisis for Congress to come to an agreement on a sane system (if that's ever going to happen), and I'd rather get there before the Baby Boomers suck us all dry.

[MrFun]

They might be wealthy people who are willing to pay a lot of money to see a specialist rather than accept whatever their government is willing to offer to everyone. It would be helpful if you provided a link to wherever you read about this.

He hasn't provided any link yet.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What else do you call it when you doom millions to poverty and death due to not being able to afford our extravagant and inefficient health care system?

If we just stole money from sick people and killed them, would it really be different?

JM

Amen!

[The Mad Monk]

Obama takes a shot at Supreme Court over healthcare

U.S. President Barack Obama addresses a joint news conference with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexico's President Felipe Calderon in the White House Rose Garden in Washington, April 2, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing
By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON | Mon Apr 2, 2012 6:45pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama took an opening shot at conservative justices on the Supreme Court on Monday, warning that a rejection of his sweeping healthcare law would be an act of "judicial activism" that Republicans say they abhor.

Obama, a Democrat, had not commented publicly on the Supreme Court's deliberations since it heard arguments for and against the healthcare law last week.

Known as the "Affordable Care Act" or "Obamacare," the measure to expand health insurance for millions of Americans is considered Obama's signature domestic policy achievement.

A rejection by the court would be a big blow to Obama going into the November 6 presidential election.

Republican presidential candidates, who are vying to take on Obama in November elections, have promised to repeal the law if one of them wins the White House.

Obama's advisers say they have not prepared contingency plans if the measure fails. But the president -- who expressed confidence that the court would uphold the law -- made clear how he would address it on the campaign trail if the court strikes it down.

"Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Obama said at a news conference with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Conservative leaders say the law, which once fully implemented will require Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty, was an overreach by Obama and the Congress that passed it.

The president sought to turn that argument around, calling a potential rejection by the court an overreach of its own.

"And I'd just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law," Obama said.

"Well, this is a good example, and I'm pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step," he said.

POLITICAL DEBATE

The Supreme Court justices are expected to issue decisions in the dispute by late June, a time when the presidential campaign season is likely to be in full swing.

"It's not that common for presidents to get into direct verbal confrontations with the Supreme Court," said Georgetown University law professor Louis Michael Seidman. "But it's also not that common for the Supreme Court to threaten to override one of the president's central legislative accomplishments."

A spokeswoman for the court declined to comment on Obama's remarks.

A spokeswoman for Mitt Romney, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, took issue with Obama's preemptive strike and his use of the word "unprecedented."

"What was ‘unprecedented' was the partisan process President Obama used to shove this unconstitutional bill through despite the overwhelming objections from Americans across the country," said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

"Even if the law is upheld, Governor Romney will begin the process of repealing it on Day One in office."

Romney shepherded healthcare reform through the state of Massachusetts when he was governor there. Democrats note that Romney's law was an inspiration for Obama's.

The president, who once taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said the "individual mandate" that requires most people to buy insurance was critical to the success of the healthcare overhaul.

The Supreme Court is looking at whether Congress exceeded its power to regulate commerce in U.S. states with that mandate.

"I think the justices should understand that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to ensure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care," Obama said.

"So there's not only a economic element to this, and a legal element to this, but there's a human element to this. And I hope that's not forgotten in this political debate."

(Additional reporting by Joan Biskupic, Tabassum Zakaria, Samson Reiny, and Steve Holland. Editing by Christopher Wilson)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/02/us-obama-healthcare-idUSBRE8310WP20120402

- The passing vote was 220 to 215
- There is nothing unprecedented about the SCOTUS overturning law.
- Far from being an example of making law, refusing to sort through what works and what doesn't is exactly what you would want an unelected body to do, instead throwing it back to the body that is intended to do that.
- With that, specifically, in mind, do you really want this UNELECTED body focus on anything besides the technical merits of the case?

[Hauldren Collider]

Yes, it was a stupid comment by Obama. How the hell did he become a professor at UChicago?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Have neither of you seen a statement referring to the courts purely made for a campaign?

[Dinner]

A few new questions on this matter for our right wing friends. Please watch this interview with former President Bill Clinton:

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-n...9413/#46929413

A few points:

In the 1790's the Congress required shipping companies to carry insurance on all their ships, employees, and cargo. This was upheld by the Supreme Court.

President John Adams legally required all sailors and seamen to buy hospitalization insurance for themselves. This was also upheld by the Supreme Court.

And, of course, we still have George Washington's requirement that virtually all adult white males buy a fire arm, ammo, and military gear. Definitely upheld by the Supreme Court.

Frankly, anyone claiming there is some sort of constitutional violation here is a liar, an idiot, or a partisan political actor (which makes them a liar but I repeat myself).

[kentonio]

A rejection by the court would be a big blow to Obama going into the November 6 presidential election.

Actually if he played it right it could be an enormous political boon going into the election.

[The Mad Monk]

Have neither of you seen a statement referring to the courts purely made for a campaign?

Have you ever seen another one one this inane?

[BlackCat]

When I had a Heart Attack in 2005, I walked into my GPs office who took an ekg right there...He then walked me over to A Cardiologists Office who immediately admitted me to a The Hospital and I was in the Cath Lab for a stint placement in under 20 minutes. While my Cardiologist was doing an angioplasty on me, a specialist Cardiologist in stint placements came in and placed my stint.

My TOTAL out of pocket expense was $5.00. The PRIVATE COMPANY I worked for supplied this insurance to me and my entire family for $151.50 per month.

You are joking, right ? Do you really think that those $151.50 paid for your treatment ? Wasn't it rather some 1.000 other people that that paid your bill through their $151.50 payments ?

No matter if it's private or public, your bills are paid by others. With public healt care you at least don't have to pay dividend to shareholders of insurance companies.