SCOTUS Healthcare Ruling

[SMS]

I think the mandate is a loser all around. I mean, we don't know the ins and outs of it until it goes into effect, but it sure sounds like the way they're "helping" uninsured low & middle income working folks is to force them to buy private insurance and penalize them if they don't. I know some people are jumping up and down in favor of it, but it seems like a Pyrrhic victory for those in support of healthcare reform. If anything it seems like placing an extra burden on those already burdened. How any supposedly liberal person can support that is beyond me.
[/I]?

Actually they are helping those low and middle class folks who can't afford it by means testing...if they fall below certain income level, they get to go into the public program that the rest of us will pay for. So the burden, like most other social programs, is not on the recipient, but squarely on the shoulders of the producers.

I'm not sure what the income cut off is to qualify for the public option....but I predict that cut-off will rise, year after year so eventually we will all be on the public option.

 

[SMS]

I hate to tell you this, Greg, but that's not cynical ... that's just life.

Now, I am off to adjust my taxes so I NEVER get a tax refund again.

True enough...

 

[ignerntbend]

How in the hell did Truman and Eisenhower pay off the debt from WW2?

It probably wasn't through individual mandates.

They did it because we were the only industrialized nation still standing. We weren't confined to just selling each other hamburgers in those days.

 

[Hobbes]

How in the hell did Truman and Eisenhower pay off the debt from WW2?

It probably wasn't through individual mandates.

It was sky high tax rates that paid off that debt and built the interstate highway system at the same time.
The individual top marginal tax rate was 90% and the top corporate tax rate was 65%.

 

[71buickfreak]

As a self employed person in ok, I had insure on for a year. It was cheap, $100 for my wife and I. It also sucked. I had to go to a local clinic, only place that accepted it and they only had nurses, no docs. I did t have to pay for much, but the service sucked. It is managed by the health care authority, medicaid basically. Really not happy with the court. It's time for a real revolt. But it's not like anyone is willing to stand up and take a stand, the gov will just steamroll us and say we were all high on bath salts.

 

[Glocktogo]

Actually they are helping those low and middle class folks who can't afford it by means testing...if they fall below certain income level, they get to go into the public program that the rest of us will pay for. So the burden, like most other social programs, is not on the recipient, but squarely on the shoulders of the producers.

I'm not sure what the income cut off is to qualify for the public option....but I predict that cut-off will rise, year after year so eventually we will all be on the public option.

All except those of us with so-called "Cadillac Plans", who will pay for the health care for those without.

 

[Hobbes]

I think I can see where we're headed here.

Right now I pay nearly $6,000 a year for health insurance premiums.

Soon, I'll be able to drop health insurance and pay the $700 year "tax" for not having health insurance.
If I get sick I'll just buy health insurance real quick(Pre-existing conditions are not excluded) and check into the hospital.

It's gonna suck for health insurance companies though.
Health insurance company stocks, like humana and wellpoint, are getting crushed on wall street right now by anywhere from 3-8%.

 

[RidgeHunter]

Didn't he say he would support it on a state level, but not a federal level? I tend to agree more with that stance. If the blue states and citizens of those states agree that they want state run helf care then they probably have that right. I don't believe for an instant that the federal government has that right.

Sure he said that. He's running on the Republican ticket and needs the votes of Republicans that don't need to hear anything else but "I'd repeal something OSAMABAMA did!".

The state's rights thing Republicans are abusing is going to bite them in the ass one day. They're misapplying it to their own peril IMO. It's usually used as nothing but an excuse for actions incongruous with the ideals of their voter base, or used as an excuse for inaction on a federal level.

I'm not sure what the income cut off is to qualify for the public option....but I predict that cut-off will rise, year after year so eventually we will all be on the public option.

That's what I wonder about - the income cutoff. I know the IRS has a different definition of middle-class than I do, so I don't really foresee them being too lenient here. The way I see it is some (working class) people will be paying a penalty and not be eligible for/receive any benefits from it. I see your point about many social programs placing the burden on those who are not the recipients of the benefits, but I see this as decidedly different than most other social programs in that it isn't deigned with one very specific group in mind. E.G. old people, disabled people, poor mothers, etc.

I don't see the mandate portion of this law benefiting the working class, blue-collar Joe in any tangible way. And I actually see it hurting him. And like Iggy laid out with the Heritage Foundation brainstorming in the 80's - that's a Republican idea if I ever heard one.

 

[sanjuro893]

I think that's a byproduct of all this. Health insurance companies are the "enemy" to many libs. They'll either be forced to become part of the gov't. plan for healthcare, or go belly up.

 

[inactive]

With the revenues from unprecedented post-war economic expansion.

Revenues? Son, why don't you just call them "Taxes" like a good Republican?