Thread: Constitutionality of Obamacare

That's true now but most of the legislation pending would largely do away with individual state insurance regulation (Baucus' bill seems to be the only exception and as Slate pointed out is very bipartisan--Republicans and Democrats hate it). The first effect of the legislation would be to nationalize health care regulation. This then yields the authority to Congress to regulate health care (under the Commerce Clause) in any way they see fit that stands under the Constitution. Is that circle? Yes. But it is a constitutional circle. There is no Constitutional obligation to be logical.

Originally Posted by commiecat

YOU WILL BE ABLE TO KEEP YOUR PRIVATE INSURANCE.

Assuming private insurance survives. I don't see how it will. BTW, I don't know, but how well does private health insurance do in countries that currently have national health care? Is it a booming industry?

Oh, here's an interesting article: No one wants Quebec's limited private health insurance

No time right now to be sure, but it looks like Britain has only 2 private insurers?

http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/healt...tured-package/

Choice and competition?

Sorry for the

The first link, the article states, it is a limited health care plan, to only three types of surgeries. I don't see how one can compare our proposed, full encompasing, public health care plan, to it.
AXA I believe it is similer to an insurance agent but the insurance companies work exclusivley through them.

Originally Posted by natepaint

The first link, the article states, it is a limited health care plan, to only three types of surgeries. I don't see how one can compare our proposed, full encompasing, public health care plan, to it.
AXA I believe it is similer to an insurance agent but the insurance companies work exclusivley through them.

I believe that the limited care plan in the article is the private plan, not the public one.

So far in the UK I've found Bupa, AXA, Aviva, and PruHEALTH. In the U.S. over 1000 private ins carriers.

Still, even if we can keep a private health plan, we have to pay for both the public plan AND the private plan. Gee thanks for making us a little poorer.

Originally Posted by honedright

Assuming private insurance survives. I don't see how it will. BTW, I don't know, but how well does private health insurance do in countries that currently have national health care?

Oh, here's an interesting article: No one wants Quebec's limited private health insurance

No time right now to be sure, but it looks like Britain has only 2 private insurers?

http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/healt...tured-package/

Choice and competition?

Sorry for the

Whose fault is it if they fold? This is capitalism. I'd love to know what is so flippin' awesome about your insurance company.

From the Quebec article:

Yves Millette, senior vice-president of the Canadian Life and Health Insurers' Association, said no one is buying the policies because they are too expensive.

Wow, there's a shocker. You know how you justify a higher price? Offer more value. Offer better service. Give companies an incentive to sign up with you. Open up your market. If private insurance companies can't figure that out then they deserve to go under.

Also sorry for continuing the OT.

EDIT:

Still, even if we can keep a private health plan, we have to pay for both the public plan AND the private plan. Gee thanks for making us a little poorer.

Show me in the bill where it says that you'll be taxed additionally for it.

I wonder... If this goes through and the govt, decides what kind of surgery and how its done, will you be able to sue Uncle Sugar for negligence, if the dictated procedure goes awry. A malpractice, mis-treatment question.

Sorry, you are right. I misread your post and article.
I'm reading it on my phone while taking a break at work. Unfortunitly the idea of a break here is a very vague, so needless to say I was quite distracted. while reading it.
I would only hope that if the national plan does get passed there is a provision in it that says, weather the or not the Gov. health care plan drives down the cost of private indivdual plans, the Gov. plan will be turned into a private non-profit or not for profit Organization.

Originally Posted by commiecat

Show me in the bill where it says that you'll be taxed additionally for it.

Then how will it be paid for? Debt/inflation?

What really gets me is this in the same speech, Obama said two things:
A) If we don't reform we're ****ed
B) If you like the system you can keep it

So how is that reform? I'd say like 90% of people will just stay with what they've got, and only the uninsured will join up with the national plan. To me thats not reform just more welfare.... if you're gonna overhaul the system, overhaul it. Thats what stuffed the tax code up. Rather than rewrite it, they just add little bits to it and eventually it becomes a massive mess.

Maybe more back on topic, here's what the founders said about constitutionality:

[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of convention, but from the general theory of a limited Constitution. - A. Hamilton

They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. - T. Jefferson

I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that is not the guide in expounding it, there may be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers. If the meaning of the text be sought in the changeable meaning of the words composing it, it is evident that the shape and attributes of the Government must partake of the changes to which the words and phrases of all living languages are constantly subject. What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense. And that the language of our Constitution is already undergoing interpretations unknown to its founder, will I believe appear to all unbiassed Enquirers into the history of its origin and adoption. - J. Madison