Fla. Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional!!!

JMC wrote: .. My way would be to not allow someone that opts out of medical insurance to ever discharge the medical debt through bankruptcy. Kind of like a tax debt since we pay no matter what. Sign up or accept the risk . That would work for me.

I agree JMC. No easy bankruptcy to get out of paying. Make it like child support, garnish your paycheck 15% for life to pay your unpaid med bills. Of course the circumstances and details of each case should be handled by a Bankruptcy Judge to allow for fairness.

Freedom from gov't mandates requires responsibility and consequences.

PrintS, I did buy individual ins. when I was younger. It used to be "cheap" years ago and my wise ol Dad convinced me it was the smart thing to do when I was 22 or so.

Why do child support, student loans, Taxes, traffic fines, etc.... not get eliminated by bankruptcy, but medical bills can be dropped?

LadyJazzer wrote:

PrintSmith wrote: There are no precedents established to address the national Congress requiring citizens to purchase a commodity or face a financial penalty for failing to do so.....

MediCare
Social Security

With some exceptions for Federal workers, Postal Employees, (who self-insure through their own plans), Amish, (who have a waiver because they have agreed not to claim it), we ALL pay into it or face a financial penalty.

The Militia Act of 1792 required citizens to possess certain commodities so obviously the Founding Fathers intended Congress to possess the power to require citizens to possess commodities.

JMC wrote: PS , you have a piss ant point. If you stick the taxpayers ,as opposed to the businesses, then keep the debt. Credit card companies make the decision to offer credit they own it. Health care is different, we will not allow people to die over health care policy. It is very different if you don't see this you are not as smart as I thought you were.

Ain't none of us getting out of here alive JMC, regardless of the quality or quantity of health care we consume along the way. And I know you are old enough to remember the charity hospitals that provided care regardless of ability to pay for that care. Some of them were run by religious organizations, others not, but none of them turned anyone away because of an inability to pay for the care. There are still a few of them around today - St Judes Children's Hospital, started by Danny Thomas, comes to mind. I think there are still about 20 or so Shriners Hospitals around as well. 100% funded by charitable giving prior to some of the funding coming from the federal government. Now the people in this nation think that they pay taxes to provide charity and charity donations in every sector are down. The Shriners are thinking they might be out of the hospital business altogether within 5 to 10 years. The federal policy hasn't provided for the general welfare, it has damaged it, severely, and is set to make the bad situation they created even worse.

LadyJazzer wrote:

PrintSmith wrote: There are no precedents established to address the national Congress requiring citizens to purchase a commodity or face a financial penalty for failing to do so.....

MediCare
Social Security

With some exceptions for Federal workers, Postal Employees, (who self-insure through their own plans), Amish, (who have a waiver because they have agreed not to claim it), we ALL pay into it or face a financial penalty.

And those are not private organizations that are the recipients of those privilege taxes that we pay, are they LJ. Nope. And everyone pays the privilege tax unless they are paying into another government program such as PERA in Colorado. In fact, I pay the federal privilege tax for Social Security and Medicare as well as taxes to the state of Colorado to fund the PERA program for the state workers from which I receive no benefits at all. I am not taxed to fund Social Security and Medicare unless I have a private pension plan, I am taxed to fund Social Security and Medicare regardless of whether I have a private pension plan or not. That is not the case with Obamacare. I am only taxed as a penalty for not participating in a segment of private commerce chosen by the Congress under Obamacare. That is substantially different from the privilege tax levied by Congress to fund Social Security and Medicare on everyone who has the privilege of being employed and the privilege of having employees. Even the 45% of the people who pay no income taxes pay those privilege taxes. There isn't even an exemption from that tax due to low income from employment. You are taxed that 6.5% of your wages regardless of whether you are making minimum wage at a 10 hour per week job or $50 and hour at a 40 hour a week job. That, too, is different under Obamacare.

Split hairs all you like... Bottom line is the Federal Government already has plenty of precedent to move forward. Even Reagan's Solicitor General thinks so.

We'll see...

Something the Dog Said wrote: The Militia Act of 1792 required citizens to possess certain commodities so obviously the Founding Fathers intended Congress to possess the power to require citizens to possess commodities.

Not at all Dog, those who crafted the Constitution intended Congress to possess the power to organize and discipline the militia. Which is where they derived the power to require members of the militia to show up with a prescribed, and minimal, amount of necessary equipment when called into federal service.

LadyJazzer wrote: Split hairs all you like... Bottom line is the Federal Government already has plenty of precedent to move forward. Even Reagan's Solicitor General thinks so.

We'll see...

Indeed we will. The split decisions in the lower courts all but guarantee that a definitive answer will be coming from SCOTUS. 4-4, with one Anthony Kennedy deciding the issue. I'm fairly confident which side of the question he'll come down on, are you?

You hang on to your GlennBeck-ian alternate reality universe... Actually, I'm quite comfortable with what the outcome will be... I could be wrong, but at this point, I'm not too worried.

PrintSmith wrote:

JMC wrote: PS , you have a piss ant point. If you stick the taxpayers ,as opposed to the businesses, then keep the debt. Credit card companies make the decision to offer credit they own it. Health care is different, we will not allow people to die over health care policy. It is very different if you don't see this you are not as smart as I thought you were.

Ain't none of us getting out of here alive JMC, regardless of the quality or quantity of health care we consume along the way. And I know you are old enough to remember the charity hospitals that provided care regardless of ability to pay for that care. Some of them were run by religious organizations, others not, but none of them turned anyone away because of an inability to pay for the care. There are still a few of them around today - St Judes Children's Hospital, started by Danny Thomas, comes to mind. I think there are still about 20 or so Shriners Hospitals around as well. 100% funded by charitable giving prior to some of the funding coming from the federal government. Now the people in this nation think that they pay taxes to provide charity and charity donations in every sector are down. The Shriners are thinking they might be out of the hospital business altogether within 5 to 10 years. The federal policy hasn't provided for the general welfare, it has damaged it, severely, and is set to make the bad situation they created even worse.

You are living in the past, PS. We need to deal with reality now.The "charity" hospitals sold out years ago, a relic. It is a business run for profit with the taxpayers picking up the unprofitable share.You can't have it both ways. The Catholic hospitals sold out for great profits years ago.

The past is where you have to look for the origin of the problem JMC. The past tells us that it was government intervention in wages that led to businesses starting to pay for health insurance as a way to increase the compensation of their employees without running afoul of the restrictions imposed by the government. The past tells us that after this was started, it was then that the government policies were crafted that exempted any contributions the employer made towards health insurance tax deductible.

We know from the past that Blue Cross and Blue Shield started out as non-profit pre-paid medical plans. You paid your monthly premium and when you had to go to the doctor, you didn't have any out of pocket expenses. When commercial insurance companies started offering health insurance, they were able to offer their policies for less cost than Blue Cross and Blue Shield because they calculated their premiums using experience rating, whereas the non-profit BC/BS plans had to offer community rating due to their non-profit status. This history tells us that community rating leads to higher costs than does experience rating.

We also know from history that the implementation of Medicare during the 1960's was the first step in the progressive plan to lead the nation to a single payer that is the next, and final step, after Obamacare destroys any ability for the insurance model that has existed since the 1940's to operate. History tells us that the legislature initially included language to allow physicians to charge their "usual, customary and reasonable rate" and to bill the Medicare recipient directly so that they physician was paid up front and the patient was reimbursed by Medicare in order to avoid opposition to the legislation from the doctors who provided the care. Now, of course, it is the physician who has to wait for reimbursement for their services and their fee is restricted to what the federal government says they can charge. Both of which drive the cost up for everyone else seeking the services of those doctors, the hospitals and the prescription drugs.

The past is what tells us that the federal government is responsible for where we are today JMC. We can't forget or dismiss the past, the answers to the problems that the government has created over the past 70 years in health care and health insurance don't lie in taking the next ideological step along the progressive path of still more government, it lies instead in getting off of that path entirely because it is following this path, the incremental progressive path, that has led us to where we are today.