... oops, looks like the Romney campaign is going to have to go back to the drawing board.
The individual health insurance mandate is constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday, upholding the central provision of President Barack Obama's signature Affordable Care Act.
The controlling opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld the mandate as a tax, although concluded it was not valid as an exercise of Congress' commerce clause power. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined in the outcome. Source
23 comments:
OK, so the people who can't/choose not to buy health insurance will be taxed---I heard 1% of their income. Who is most likely to NOT have insurance? The unemployed. "Unemployed" means you have no income. 1% of zero is ZERO!!!! Aditionally, the income tax return is how you will "prove" you have insurance. Those who are unemployed---and have no income----will not be filing an income tax return. Therefore, they, and anyone else who chooses not to file (think drug dealers and illegal immigrants), will be able to avoid this tax. So just HOW does this make health insurance "more affordable" for the average, law-abiding American????
Wow, the decision just came down and you have it all figured out. I don't know all of the ramifications and just how it works, but I can tell you this...
My family is diverse, I have folks who don't work who need medical care; I have folks who do work, who can't afford medical care; I have older children who need to be able to stay on their parents insurance until they can become gainfully employed and pay for their own. I have already experienced that affordability factor, just in peace of mind in knowing that the people I spoke of above have the option of getting health care - it makes the fact that I pay and insurance and seldom ever need to use it seem "more affordable" and I am the average, law-abiding American.
So, does this mean that if you CHOOSE not to have health insurance doctors and hospitals can now refuse to treat you? Again, I'm thinking of the unemployed(who STILL won't be able to afford it), and the drug dealers and the illegal immigrants (who will simply choose not to obey this law). Or, to put it more bluntly, when some gang member shows up at the emergency room full of gunshot holes, will the doctors be required to allow him to bleed to death because he chose not to buy health insurance?
OH HAPPY DAY! This household is celebrating!!!
Wellness programs should now be mandated. So should a tax on high-fructose corn-syrup products that contribute to our nations obesity epidemic. This could be good if it makes people more accountable for their own health, instead of using the ER as their primary care provider. Seems more like an entitlement expansion for the party-in-power follwers. The court says it is a TAX. Guess some like paying TAXES more than others.
Rixblix: I do believe you are a bit premature in celebrating. This is not a FREE healthcare program. YOU will have to pay for it, oh, and you will also have to pay for all the people who choose not to get their own.....It's called a TAX HIKE, duh!
I still don't understand why all people (who expect at some time in the future to need health care--and there shouldn't be any that should expect otherwise--be expected to pay for health care now so that they can enjoy it in the future (because they paid into the system).
I have paid for health insurance since I started working in 1955. I rarely if ever went to the doctor--and never was in the hospital until I retired (after 2005). So I paid for over 50 years of insurance that I didn't use. Well, I'm making up for it now (as most will). I just paid in advance--why shouldn't everyone?
That is the problem Sharon. What is the incentive for gangbangers and dope dealers to get insurance that everyone else has to have? Whats going to happen to them? Gonna throw them in jail for not having insurance? Then who pays AGAIN. Bopefully obama willNOT see a srcond term and this joke will be repealed. Obama himself said it wasnt a tax.....LIAR
What is this fixation on gang bangers and dope dealers? Who is paying now for gang bangers, dope dealers or any other individual who does not have insurance?
No one. Or medicaid
That no one or medicaid would equal taxpayers, i.e., you and I.
"What is this fixation on gang bangers and dope dealers?"
Because THEY ARE THE PROBLEM! The people who already have health insurance aren't the problem. It's the people who CHOOSE not to pay for health insurance that are making it more expensive for everyone else! Do you think this law will change that? Do you honestly think that CRIMINALS are going to sign up for "affordable" health insurance, start filing their taxes (yes, that IS the way the law will be enforced), and pay the tax if they choose NOT to buy insurance, JUST because Obama said they should???? Yeah, I'm sure those gang bangers all laid down their guns today and rushed out to buy themselves some healthcare insurance---'cause IT'S THE LAW!!!
Amen Anne. Just anothet shell game by obama and his administration. I dont apologize for being mad because I am grtting stuck again. Dont even get me started on deficit the idiot in the white house is leaving our children
I certainly hope that gang bangers or drug dealers don't make up enough of the population to be a deciding factor. I don't have the faintest idea how all of this is going to work out. I don't know how much my own insurance and health costs will increase (or if they will). I don't know if the working poor will now have access to health care (I hope so because that is the main reason why I would like it to work). Also, just because the Supreme Court ruled that the plan wasn't unconstitutional doesn't mean that Obama care will remain in place--Republicans are already working to dismantle it politically since they didn't win constitutionally.
The truth is that nothing really changed from yesterday to today. None of us know how this is going to work for the future--I guess we will soon find out. That's why I can't say one way or the other how I really feel about it. I hope we all are pleasantly surprised. No, I'm not that optimistic--nothing will please all of us--we are too divided a country for that.
Those who hate the Affordable Health Care Act, should instead lobby heavily the GOP and Democrats in Congress...to give us the same great health care plan THEY and probably the Supreme Court, receive. Oh wait, that might cost Millions MORE than this act.
Dennis: your rhetoric is so boring. Who are you? Mother Teresa reincarnated? Who made you everyones spokesperson?
I would love to see politician's war chests taxed. Let that money help fund their pet projects instead of electing them to tax more of our money. If politicians can get private citizens to help fund their campaigns, why can't they fundraise for their pet causes like schools have to do to get money for incentives?
Not rhetoric; just an opinion freely given, just like yours.
Does anyone know what kind of health plan(s) members of Congress receive?
No Dennis, the GOP actually had/have a viable plan for the health care. Both parties agreed on about 80% of the necessary reforms. Part of the republican was included allowing small businesses to group together to get a better rate (more people equals better rates. Also their plan would open up allowing health insurance to be purchased from other states, allowing more competition to drive down prices. Most importantly tort reform. essential to driving down insurance costs.
The Dems rammed through a bill at the last minute that no one had time to review, even the democratic party. That has the makings of bad legislation. Now, the snideness about costing millions for congressional care, What do you think this is going to cost. The estimated cost is now $1.8 trillion more than Obama originally sold it as. Who knows what it will actually end up being, but these big ticket items are never less than predicted. The 99% say, make the billionaires pay for it. OKay, you take every dime from the billionaires, and the millionairs, and you haven't touched the cost of this plan. You raise taxes on businesses, who in order to stay afloat lay more people off, compounding the problem. Add to that the studies done by AT&T and others who figured out how much it costs the companies to pay for health insurance, or cancel their employees health care and dump them into the "public insurance" and simply pay the fine, it is far, far less expensive. so you have increased unemployment, raised taxes and added more people to the taxpayers burden to pay for the Obama care, but fewer people are paying for it. Solution...humm, have heard that the US should just print more money and borrow more from China, leading to devaluation of the dollar and more and more of our budget to pay for interest on the debt, let alone the principle. With a decreased dollar, the stock market drops....99%ers will cheer. We have toppled Wall Street. Except guess where your retirement money is invested, guess where the state's pension money is invested and the city's and most employers. Now it directly effects you, not the evil billionaires that earned more than you, but YOU.....This the huge flaw in Law that the supreme court upheld. Start doing your own research and stuff your mattress, course the money you stuff it with will be worth the price and use of Charmin.
Both parties agreed there needs to health care reform, but this is not the way to do. And my source as you will ask, personal conversations with multiple of our congressmen/women and their staff who have been studying the bill.
There are laws regulating what elected officials can help fundraise. Nonprofit, charitable organizations are one of them. You should have seen several of our officials at all levels helping to fundraise for St. Jude, Komen foundation, Easter Seals and the like.
What they can do and often fail to do, is to develop partnerships to acheive goals. eg: instead of bilking the taxpayers out of the millions for the hotel, they could and should have explored those developers who could get financing for the project...yes they existed. They can faciliate meetings among groups of people, organizations, etc. to partner with private money and to encourage private enterprise to build these types of projects. Our council gets a huge fail in that regard.
yes Dennis, it is part of their compensation package. If you want the plan then I would suggest you pick up a petition and run for office. If you chose to complain about billionaires having money for developing something that you didn't or investing in something you didn't then invent something valueable, learn to invest. If you spend your time focused on what other's have, then I would suggest your time would be better spent achieving the goals that would allow you to have it. In other words, I don't believe that I am entitled to stick my hand into their wallet than others are allowed to stick their's into mind. and to be clear I am very much a member of the working poor.
I'm in the same boat you are, Anonymous. I make about 35K a year, (after working at same place for about 26 years); wife was making good wage until her company downsized 4 years ago, now she gets barely above minimum wage in retail, not always working full time hours.
But like many others, we manage to keep up on mortgage, car payments, utilities and get 2 daughters through college. (1 graduated in 2009, other will in couple years) Only problem is we're not able to put back money for retirement. Yet.
My comment about Congress health care plans is not original. I have seen it posted in other blogs like Yahoo articles. So I admit jumping on the bandwagon there. I don't recall ever complaining about billionaires, either. So I don't know where that came from.
The reality is that we already have government sponsored health care…it’s called Medicaid/Medicare. And the government ALREADY mandates expenses via both programs. What happens when an uninsured person shows up at the OSF ER? They still get treatment. Who pays for it? The rest of us who HAVE insurance. Is this a perfect plan? Absolutely not. But there are millions of hard working families like mine who have family members with chronic medical conditions who have had to make enormous sacrifices in the name of health care. No more pre-existing condition clauses! No more lifetime caps! Remember back in 1996 when the Kennedy-Kassebaum Act was passed and everyone thought the sky would fall? IT DIDN’T. COBRA, Family Medical Leave…all part of Kennedy-Kassebaum.
I’d also like to say that since ACA was enacted on 9/23/2010, our insurance premiums HAVE NOT INCREASED. My husband works for one of the 2 biggest employers in this area and in all the years he worked there leading up to ACA the increase in our portion of the premium was greater than any cost of living raise he received. Until ACA passed. Our premium has not increased.
The SCOTUS made the right ruling and threw ACA back to the people.
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