Supreme Court ObamaCare

Dang... Yeah, I remember reading that somewhere..."Jesus hates health care..." I'll look for it...

LadyJazzer wrote: Dang... Yeah, I remember reading that somewhere..."Jesus hates health care..." I'll look for it...

Cancer? Just pray it out...

LadyJazzer wrote: If you work, you pay medicare taxes.

Unless, of course, you work for a state government - in which case you pay no taxes at all towards either Ponzi based program - Medicare or Social Security. And, of course, the government won't let private workers have that same option because then no one would be paying Social Security or Medicare taxes anymore to fund the Ponzi based programs.

If Congress wants to levy a tax to fund health insurance for every resident of the union, they might have that authority, but that isn't what they did - mostly because not even Obama, Reid and Pelosi could have gotten that legislation passed regardless of what bribes they offered up in exchange for votes.

I think the mandate is not constitutional, they should just adjust the bankruptcy laws to not allow medical costs to be discharged.
PS, we agree that gov workers should be in the same system as the rest of us. That is just wrong.

God, I love those generalizations about the "ponzi-scheme" bullcrap...

The 1954 Amendments to the Social Security Act (Section 218):
1. Permitted coverage of state and local government employees who were in
positions already covered by a state and local pension plan, provided a
majority of all employees who were members of the pension plan agreed, in
a referendum, to such coverage.
2. Permitted coverage of ineligibles, in a modification which does not cover the
retirement system coverage group, if direct reference is made to them in a
proper modification submitted for that purpose.

Medicare – Mandatory Coverage
All State and local government employees hired after March 31, 1986, are subject to
mandatory Medicare-only coverage of the FICA tax, if not already covered for full social
security under a Section 218 Agreement. Employees hired before April 1, 1986, have
Medicare coverage only if there was a break in state service and the employee was
rehired after March 31, 1986. The University conducted a Medicare Referendum in July
2005 allowing employees to opt into Medicare-only coverage. Any newly hired employee at
the University who participated in a Medicare Referendum and elected to participate in
Medicare-only coverage must continue contributing to the Medicare-only tax even if there
was no break in state service.

Students enrolled and regularly attending classes and who are employed by a school,
college or university are not subject to Social Security or Medicare taxes.
For more information on how your Social Security benefits may be affected by your state
pension, contact your local Social Security Office or visit the Social Security Administration
webpage at [url=http://www.ssa.gov" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;]http://www.ssa.gov[/url].

Some states have 218 agreements, some do not. The exemption was granted IF the state set up its own Medicare-type system to cover the employees in retirement.

Which means that my statement, "If you work, you pay Medicare taxes" is correct...it just may have another name if it's run by a State instead of the Feds....

So, once again, B.F.D. Enjoy your nit-picking... And shove your "ponzi-scheme.".....

I don't think the general government has the ability to compel your participation in commerce either jmc, but I wouldn't do away with the ability to discharge medical debt in bankruptcy any more than I would advocate doing away with the ability to discharge credit card, housing or other debts. If you don't want people to have the option of getting the debts that they incurred because of bad decisions discharged, we might as well not have bankruptcy courts at all.

we would have a majority of our senior population on medicaid if it were not for medicare. Are you also against medicaid? If so, what is your solution to rising health care costs and getting old? The only alternative I see is to just let them die because they cannot pay for health care. Of course the hospitals would be full since they cannot turn anyone away and then the hospitals become a holding area for sick and poor to die. Then where would everyone else go? and I can only imagine what all those "free services" would cost everyone else. That is not a solution.

LadyJazzer wrote: ... And shove your "ponzi-scheme.".....

Never said it was a "Ponzi-scheme" - but it is a "Ponzi based" scheme in which the current investors pay for the benefits of earlier investors rather than paying into a program that sets their money aside for their own consumption upon their retirement - which is precisely what the state-based programs do and which would be a much better model than the Ponzi based one we have at the moment at the federal level.

Wily Fox aka Angela wrote: we would have a majority of our senior population on medicaid if it were not for medicare. Are you also against medicaid? If so, what is your solution to rising health care costs and getting old? The only alternative I see is to just let them die because they cannot pay for health care. Of course the hospitals would be full since they cannot turn anyone away and then the hospitals become a holding area for sick and poor to die. Then where would everyone else go? and I can only imagine what all those "free services" would cost everyone else. That is not a solution.

Of course, we have to do something for our elders, but what percentage of the budget should it be, 50%? 90%? At the current rate health care costs are climbing, it is out of control. And how many times do we see cases where 90% of the health care money spent on the elderly is the last six months of thier life, and it is a poor quality life.

I just read about living wills and health care, and a higher rate of health care professionals resist excessive measures to keep themselves alive versus the general population. Maybe they are more aware of end of life issues since they see it so much more often. Or they realize so much of what they do is expensive and of limited benefit.

Back on topic: Looks like the Supremes are not going to duck on any of the issues of Obamacare. Good for them, would be much easier for them to kick the can down the road on the tax issue like Pelosi wanted them to.

jmc wrote: I think the mandate is not constitutional, they should just adjust the bankruptcy laws to not allow medical costs to be discharged.

You could have something like garnishing 10%-15% of someone's pay check to pay unpaid medical bills, this would be an incentive to get insured ahead of time. Its probably too late now though, the individual market is so dysfunctional, but it wasn't always that way. I remember buying policies from my 20s-40s and it was no big deal and was pretty affordable. I had a policy when I was in college.

There has never been much incentive to get insured due to bankruptcy and free emergency room service. Its really only if you have some assets to protect.