U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments on ObamaCare

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear the case concerning the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) commonly known to teabaggers and Americans alike as "ObamaCare." It will be interesting to see what this ideologically divided court does with the rulings. The court has instructed the parties to prepare briefs surrounding three main questions:

1. Is the requirement to purchase insurance (individual mandate) allowable under the interstate commerce clause?
2. Did the federal government overstep its bounds by only making Medicaid funds available upon states' acceptance of the new laws and regulations in the ACA?
3. If only the individual mandate is struck down (which is a legal option), does the healthcare law become de facto null and void as it is the primary funding mechanism for getting rid of pre-existing conditions, recission and young adult regulations?

Overall, I feel like the ACA will be held as constitutional. Most appellate courts have held it to be so, including the D.C. Court of Appeals. Here's Reagan's Solicitor General, Charles Fried explaining while, although in a democracy we may disagree on this politically, this law is surely constitutional.



I'm going to do the layman's argument.
Q. Can a government force you to buy something through regulation?
A. Yes, most state governments force people who have cars to purchase car insurance, so that when people get in accidents the costs to both health and property are borne by the people and not the state.
Q. A-ha! I have two points. One that's state governments have more lee-way to impose regulations; and two, I can opt out of the car insurance mandate by not having a car!
A. Here's the crux of why the mandate matters and is legal. Everyone has a body. NO ONE has the ability to opt out of the healthcare market. And if people promised never to move outside of their state, then maybe we could have health insurance administered on a purely state level, but the market of American people move frequently between states and thus the costs and risks of accidents, disease, and age are spread across the nation so it's not outside the bounds of Congress to consider national solutions to national problems. You may disagree with the solution, but that does not make it unconstitutional.

Treading water ctd...

Finally, The Cato Institute, a well-respected conservative/libertarian think tank has called Mitt Romney on his bluff that RomneyCare is any different from ObamaCare.

Treading water

Unless Mitt Romney can be proud of his signature accomplishment in Massachusetts which is his Affordable Care Act (ACA), a conservative free-market solution to provide health insurance to people, he's just not going to make sense.

I'll say it again, Mitt Romney is the Republicans' strongest contender for President in 2012. The question is, can he survive the Republican primary from a party that's still searching for what it stands for post-2008?

I hope it's the Governor Mitt Romney party that wins, but my gut says that the people want it to be the Candidate Mitt Romney party. Governor Mitt Romney won't be able to win the Republican primary because of his success on healthcare and his Mormonism, which many conservative evangelicals deem to be "not Christian."

UPDATE: Daniel Gross has an interesting article on Mitt Romney's legitimate expertise to become the national healthcare implementation czar (a hypothetical position). To read the article on Slate.com click here.

Why the Socialism moniker won't work in hurting Healthcare reform

Let's do a brief thought experiment. Close your eyes and imagine that the healthcare bill does not exist. Imagine that no public insurance exists either, no medicare, no medicaid.  Heck, imagine that the U.S. government and their getting into your biznass doesn't even exist. You live in a perfect libertarian nirvana, where a true free market exists (sans labor because we all know U.S. labor can't compete with Mexican labor). There is only you, your doctor, and your private, for-profit insurance company and insurance plan.

Question one: Are you in the doctor's office, the hospital or in the emergency room?

Question two: Are you paying your healthcare premiums consistently and on time?

If you answered no to question one and yes to question two then right now, your money yes YOUR MONEY is being spent on someone else's healthcare!!!!!! Can you believe it??? Those SOCIALIST COMMUNISTS at BlueCross/BlueShield and CIGNA. They've just taken some of your money and used it to pay for grandma's new hip replacement! For shame.

Insurance is a socialist mechanism.  Many people pay a (relatively) small amount of what their costs will be while they don't have a problem. Their house isn't on fire or flooded, they don't have cancer or asthma, their car isn't in a tremendous accident.  These people pay these small amounts of money and most of them don't end up using all of that money.  The insurance company then takes some of that money and tries to make money on that big pile of money but takes the money from the people who aren't using their allocation at the moment to pay for someone else.  When you get sick, someone who hasn't gotten sick, or hasn't been sick for awhile is paying for you.

So...private insurance in a capitalist market is operationally a socialist good.  It pools lots of people together without problems to pay for the peeps with problems. Changing the payer of some of those payments from Blue Cross to the U.S. government does nothing to change the fact that insurance is a socialist mechanism.  Also, the larger the pool the more money you have available to pay for the risk. That's why big insurance pools lower costs because there's a higher ratio of healthy people to sick people.  That means more people are paying for a small amount of people's healthcare, which at first sounds really unfair.  However, the benefit resulting from this large pool means that the risk is diluted enough so that the insurance payment can be smaller per person, thus lowering customers' premiums.

So insurance is socialistic whether you were mandated to purchase it (car insurance and now health insurance) or not (life insurance).

Healthcare Bill and Sidecar Amendment pass

This bill was not perfect.  No legislation is.  The bill should have had some stronger tort reform measures and should have had some limited public option to compete with private insurers. What this bill is though is a start.

We can't fix the problems in this country if we just put them off for years down the road because the tough issues to solve never get any easier (healthcare, deficit reduction, energy infrastructure and delivery reform, education). Tonight we saw something unique.  We witnessed a bunch of Democratic Representatives vote for a bill that may put their jobs in jeopardy, and that's a great thing.  Because most of the time, most politicians just do whatever might get them re-elected, but many of these members did exactly the opposite tonight.  They took a chance, because making a difference meant more than keeping their seat.

Next stop...Immigration reform (because it's time to hear the word "Amnesty" being shouted for 8 continuous months regardless of the policy details)

Chris Matthews Hammers it Home

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you're pro-life, you should want the healthcare bill to pass

Although I'm pro-choice, we all want there to be fewer abortions in the United States. T.R. Reid, a great news reporter on healthcare issues throughout the world has a must-read article on expanded healthcare coverage's affect on the abortion rate in rich, modern democracies like ours in The Washington Post.  Key passage:

In Britain, only 8 percent of the population is Catholic (compared with 25 percent in the United States). Abortion there is legal. Abortion is free. And yet British women have fewer abortions than Americans do. I asked Cardinal Hume why that is.

The cardinal said that there were several reasons but that one important explanation was Britain's universal health-care system. "If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it's needed," Hume explained, "she's more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn't it obvious?"

If healthcare is such a good issue for Republicans, they should let it pass

Listen closely to what Republican political consultant Todd Harris is saying.

The politics of healthcare are real dim for the Democrats. If this bill passes, Democratic candidates' (political) blood will be in the streets. So therefore logically, shouldn't congressional Republicans want this huge government takeover boondoggle to pass?  That way they can clean up in 2010 and in 2012 and repeal the bill!  But why are they working so hard to block the bill?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

That's because they know this stuff becomes extremely popular once its passed. Even in this debate, they've campaigned against CUTS to Medicare, which as you all know is a government-run program, cuts that they supported as recently as the Bush administration.

He's trying

Again and again, I keep on trying to hammer out there that it's not what the president accomplishes it's how.  People keep on forgetting that the founders intended for Congress to handle what the country accomplishes (or doesn't accomplish for that matter).

Here's President Obama's letter to Congress concerning healthcare reform and on his openness to key Republican ideas in crafting and shaping the bill.


obamaletter -

Thank You Senate Staff

To both Democratic and Republican Senate staff members,

The last cloture vote was just announced which enabled an engrossment vote tomorrow and I wanted to take a moment and thank you for all of your hard work.

Unlike all of the political BS, you are the ones that scheduled all of the meetings. You are the ones that actually had to read the whole bill and decipher it. You are the ones that made sure that every measure was legal and you probably crafted much of the bill as well.

I've never seen a legislative body work as hard as I've seen the U.S. Senate this past month and I have to say I'm really impressed. 1AM votes and votes on Christmas Eve must not be fun, but for those of us that believe that at least some attempt must be made to insure more Americans, we are very thankful for your efforts.

The Filibuster

So apparently people on the right and on the left all fight about how wrong the filibuster is when THEY are in power. Here's the thing. Currently the filibuster is being abused and it's been increasing over the past 10 years or so. I still believe the filibuster is an important tool for legislative minorities to stop legislation that they deem really, really bad for the country and in this case, I guess that is health care reform for today's Republican party.

The Republicans are entitled to their filibuster but here's the compromise. You should only get 10 filibusters TOTAL; thats including procedural votes. The filibuster should be available but it really should only be used when the Senate is ready to engross its bill. And I have one final rule, a filibuster should actually be a really annoying process; in order for a filibuster to occur, all senators must be locked within the chamber with only water and basic food available to them (and some slightly cushy chairs for the Senators older than 80), no cots, no sleeping, no breaks.

That's what should be the point of a filibuster. This legislation is soooooooo bad I'm willing to do anything to stop it.

For example, last night the Republican minority did something really classless. They promised to vote en masse against the military funding bill. Yes, you heard me right. Not the healthcare bill, but the Military Appropriations Bill. They threatened a filibuster on legislation THEY SUPPORTED! just so they could delay a final vote on the healthcare bill. They brought 91 year old Senator Robert Byrd out at 1AM for the Military Appropriations Bill. Sure, do that for the healthcare vote but not for stuff you support, that's just not intellectually honest.

Democrats voted for the Iraq War and voted for No Child Left Behind because there were things for them in those bills to support. Trust me, there are things in this bill that will help many small businesses and middle class Republican families obtain affordable healthcare. Republican Senators could have made this a better bill if they had participated fully, but they chose not to even play and it's a crappier bill because of that. As I said previously, I would have rather given up some compromises to Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine than Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, but even they cannot bring up the courage to vote their conscience.

Congress has done its job. The far right doesn't like the bill. The far left (including me on some measures - I would trade major tort reform for a small public option - anyone?) doesn't like the bill. This is a good thing. The political center has been served, and America is better off for it, I just wish Republicans had played a larger role in the debate.

Screw Joe Lieberman

He is officially useless. Against a proposal he championed as Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee in 2000 and supported most recently 3 months ago. Senate Democrats would be better off just giving concessions to Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Just give Maine a couple million dollars or healthcare jobs and be done with it. It accomplishes three main goals.

1. Screwing Joe Lieberman by not stroking his ego. Let him be the little bitter man who's pissed off that no one was interested in him in 2004 and had a challenge from the left and lost his party's nomination in 2006. If he wants to be a Republican, he can be one.

2. Instead of passing a healthcare bill with "just Democrats" you get to say that you passed the bill with "bipartisan support."

3. Maine is a much better state than Connecticut, by a long shot.

Look, usually I'm not into the kinds of people who kick out moderates of their party. I think it's a strategy that is incredibly stupid in the long term. However, Joe was a moderate before this recent shift to the right. Back in 2000, Joe was always hawkish on foreign policy and law and order issues (i.e. drugs and censorship) and a fairly standard middle class liberal on domestic policy (healthcare, union jobs, higher minimum wage, etc.) He is no longer that man and the sad thing is, is that it appears that he's doing it just because he's upset. I don't think you do that dramatic a shift in 3 months when you're not up for re-election.

Court Snowe and Collins and if you get Lieberman on-board next year, that's just another junior Republican Senator on board.

Is there a better way?

Interesting and thoughtful article about medical malpractice and tort reform on Slate.

Why the Democratic Healthcare bill is like a trip to Costco

It might cost a bit more upfront, but it will give us more stuff (coverage) and save us more in the long run. And that's not my opinion, it's the Congressional Budget Office's as David M. Herzenhorn of the New York Times writes in this article. Key passage below.

The Republican bill, which has no chance of passage, would extend insurance overage to about 3 million people by 2019, and would leave about 52 million people uninsured, the budget office said, meaning the proportion of non-elderly Americans with coverage would remain about the same as now, at roughly 83 percent.

The budget office has said that the Democrats’ health care proposal would extend coverage to 36 million people, meaning that 96 percent of legal residents would have health benefits. The Democrats’ bill would cost $1.1 trillion, with the costs more than covered by revenues from new taxes or cuts in government spending, particularly on Medicare.

House Republicans, including their leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, have said that they did not intend for their legislation to expand insurance coverage, because they viewed that goal as unaffordable. Instead, they said the bill was tailored narrowly to reduce costs.

According to the report by nonpartisan budget office, the Republican bill would reduce future federal deficits by $68 billion over 10 years, compared to a reduction of $104 billion by the House Democrats’ legislation.

Democratic Senators need to fall in line

Honestly, this is why people vote Republican. If a popular President with strong majorities in both houses of Congress can't get through his own proposal then what's the point?

Republicans fight for what they believe in and they stick together, even if it will cost them personal political capital. Do you think all of the congressional Republicans wanted to vote for Bush's tax cuts? No. Do you think all Republicans wanted to vote for the creation of Medicare Part D, one of the largest -- and unfunded, I might add -- parts of the welfare state? No. Do you think that Rep. Joe Wilson wanted to apologize for his "You LIE!!!" outburst? No, but Boehner and McConnell made him do it anyway. Sometimes you gotta take one for the team and Republicans do that when they've got one of theirs in the White House. And politically, I respect them for that.

But the Senate Dems don't believe in team. They believe in holding onto their jobs and lining their campaign coffers, so they can be ultra cautious for the 2010 elections. That's why you do things in the first year of a cycle, so you have a year to recover and distance yourself!!!

Look, I believe in democracy, I really do. But I believe every president, regardless of party, should get roughly one year of a gimme. Heck, I'll only give the President 10 months to November, but he should receive a rubber stamp from at least his own party to try out his proposals. Obama's policies were voted on by the public and those policies won by a significant margin. Everything that this debate has brought up was talked about in the campaign and Obama's proposals are similar to Mitt Romney's (creating an online insurance exchange for individuals to purchase) and include ideas from John McCain (taxing healthcare benefits above a certain threshold as income). These ideas are hardly radical or revolutionary.

Bush won in 2000, I'll give Repubs that. But he won by a margin of -0.49 percent. Obama won by 7.3% with a majority of the votes. Give him until November of this year, if the ideas don't work that's why we have November 2012.

And if some Republicans and moderate Democrats really think that the public option is socialism then I suggest they start protesting outside of UMass or UDel, because it's the same damn thing. Just sayin'.

Watch Al Franken slay at a Minnesota state fair

This is what happens when you have a real person elected to Senate, not just a regular lawyer douchebag. This is how America needs to have its discourse if we are going to survive as a nation; calmly, with disagreement and with FACTS.

Husband and wife duo James Carville and Mary Matalin square off on health care

Back from vacation. I'm tired but looking forward to the next couple of months.

I think Carville is right here, both politically and policywise. Aside from policy matters, there is no use wasting all of this political capital on something that you don't want in the first place. Also, not having a full vote on this allows scared blue dog Dems to not vote for the thing even if they really support it.



For the record, I don't necessarily support a public option as proposed. I think the government should offer a basic plan that everyone should be required to have or the insurance companies through regulation must be required to offer a basic plan and then people can purchase supplemental insurance on top of it.

I also don't think it's fair to just tax the wealthy. My dad feels that the government should increase payroll tax for all income brackets by 1%. Everyone should contribute funds to something that I believe everyone should have access to.

What we really need to focus on is funding end-of-life care and those who have really complex terminal illness. We can afford regular checkups and the random stitches and illnesses that the large majority of people go through.

Time Interviews Obama on Healthcare Reform

Karen Tumulty of Time, talks to Obama about healthcare reform in a pretty extensive interview.

A careful read illustrates how non-radical President Obama really is. Here he is responding to whether we can afford reform during this recession:

"But I disagree with this idea that because of the financial crisis somehow we can afford to put this off. In some ways I think it's just made it more urgent for some of the reasons you just said: A lot more people are losing their jobs,are vulnerable to losing their health care; our deficits are even bigger, which means the load on Medicare and Medicaid is just going to get worse. If we don't do this now we are going to be in a world of hurt later."