And yet the ACA is described as Obama’s signature achievement. And that may be true. Rather pathetic.

Once again, the simplest solution (Medicaire for All, Single Payer) is best.

But, but, but… He’s playing 13 dimensional chess

That’s right, go ahead and let the perfect be the enemy of the good unconstitutional.

You bet your sweet bippy!

Jon, your posts today have been truly exceptional.

I hope that this one may be front-paged tomorrow.

DW

The court will hold ACA constitutional for two reasons. 1) They want to protect to massive profits the insurance companies will make off of this law. This court always sides with the corporate interests and 2) doing so will prevent any movement towards single-payer for at least a generation.

In order to get Single Payer and regulated markets to stop the pillaging of America we would have to change about 80% of Congress. And keep it rolling over. Which gets my vote every time. Until we really turn this country outside in we’ll continue dipping into this empty well called free enterprise. That bucket is full of holes, for sure. It’s really that simple, but of course, almost impossible unless public financing of elections, etc. is reintroduced.

Good thing the big blogs and activist groups advocated for single-payer instead of the vaporous “public option”! Oh, wait….

That is certainly the odds-on bet. It will nevertheless be interesting to see where the so-called ‘liberal’ justices come out on the issue. It would be nice just once to see it decided on questions of law, but that is probably too much to ask.

Actually I think going to single payer was dooable. Clearly Medicare affects the budget so the House could have generated reconcilation instructions in the budget. Then they would have needed only 51 votes in the Senate. You take out the age requirements in Medicare and you have single payer and the end of the health insurance industry.

This was not going to happen because the President and both parties have one thing in common. They’re all in bed with the insurance industy. So what we got is the sausage that is the ACA.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So the — I — I want to understand the choices you’re saying Congress has. Congress can tax everybody and set up a public health care system.

Question is, how much?

If President Obama is a constitutional scholar, would he not have some idea that the OCA could be challenged on constitutional grounds?

Too much for this court to be sure.

Obama, August 2009: “We need a uniquely American Health Care System”. I cringed when he said that, I knew he was going to entrench the for-profit health care insurance industry.

Well, it’s uniquely American, alright. It’s being challenged in court and stands a chance of being killed or gutted. On the plus side, if the mandate is struck down but everything else stands, that just might bankrupt the insurance companies.

It’s a no brainer, but that doesn’t detract from my appreciation of your post, Jon. It simply reflects on the character of this administration and it’s dereliction of duty with respect to the public need. What a waste of time and effort and treasure the whole charade has been!

Locally we’re trying to turn the energies of making nuclear monstrosities towards Los Alamos cleanup (badly needed after the terrible fire last year) so why can’t some thought be given to doing the same with health insurance, since that has also gone crazy nuclear? Just shift all those folk into actual healthclinic administration for medicare – no big profits, just actual public service. I know, there’ll be a lot of overlap, so those people can go into an American peace corp – not overseas; here where it’s needed. Do a government program for them, a recycle job that really makes sense. Or make ‘em tax advisors for the poor – I don’t care, just get them out of the health/profit business!

And personally, I am not up for any mandate that requires ordinary people to pay for Dick Cheney’s heart transplant! He’s got enough billions – let him pay for it himself! Ordinary people are never going to be in the market for these excessive treatments, nor, I would guess, do they want to be. I certainly don’t. Sure, we should be taking care of each other, but let’s be reasonable, folk. At some point we don’t all get to be astronauts.

Jon, your title is misleading. What Carvin is saying–which is true–is that Congress has the authority to levy taxes; it does not have the authority (at least, not yet) to force citizens to engage in commerce. This is one reason people need to correct anyone who says that Medicare or Social Security are “entitlements”. They are not. We pay for those programs with a tax known as the payroll tax deduction. Apparently, even Carvin realizes that the logical way to finance a single payer health care system is through tax policy, not the Commerce Clause.

Well, as a WAG, I’d say far less than what folks are paying today to the insurance industry and for high deductibles on visits and .

That’s not really the question, alan. But I guess you know that. The question is, who has the guts in the present decayed system to actually do that.

Less is more. Obviously.

Obama’s obvious hard rightwingy-ness notwithstanding, had he focused on the economy (with a REAL economic team) and not squandered a shit-ton of political capital and time putting together this monstrosity of legalese and gibberish, we might all be a helluva lot better off right now – including him. Yes, I live in fantasyland, but at this point, there’s not much else, save direct action.

“I also suspect such a simple and easy to understand law would also have been radically more popular than the Affordable Care Act.”

You mean more popular with people whose opinions don’t count for much in Washington DC. The insurance companies will make out like bandits with the mandate, so I will fall into a faint if the Supremes strike it down…or maybe I’ll just eat my hat.

Don’t you mean signature failure?

The politicans will be jumping up and down screaming that if the individual mandate is ruled unconstitutional the other provisions are unfair and need to be repealed. This will sail through Congress much like the bank bailout. The question is if Obama has the balls to veto it? Do I have to answer that question?

Of course, as far as progessive are concerned, if he did veto it, it would be the best of all worlds. The health insurance would collapse and it would pave the way for Medicare for all. The conservatives on the court would rue the day they turned the constitution into spaghetti to suit their political views.

should read “visits and medications”

The point was made earlier on FDL (maybe even by Jon Walker?) that Obama’s job as he saw it was to respond to public demand for healthcare reform with the weakest, most industry-friendly bill that could masquerade as reform. Delivering one that contained a poison pill was an even better (to him) achievement. He also made sure to give opponents plenty of time to overturn whatever was passed.

“Change” was really the Lie of the Year for 2008. Obama is a stalwart defender of the status quo.

That’s a good WAG.

Here’s some pro-single payer links.

Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($8,160 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources

Myth: National health insurance would require large new taxes. Fact: No increase in total health spending is needed to finance single payer. The increase in taxes required to finance national health insurance would be fully offset by a reduction in out-of-pocket costs and premiums.

http://www.pnhp.org/single_payer_resources/Myths-and-Facts-on-single-payer.pdf

Indeed.However, Obama and lawmakers don’t want single payer because they are
insurers protectors and asskissers of BigPharma,that’s enough,corporations first.The mandate will stand in Supreme Court,it don’t matter how long the argument is gonna be,goverment handouts to insurers prevails.

To complete your argument the courts would have to strike down the 80% Medical Loss Ratio.

Funny how that works, eh?

The inaptly named Affordable Care Act

If he WAS a Constitutional Scholar…his biographer transcribed incorrectly…he was an UNCONSTITUTIONAL scholar!

Agreed. Although it would be great if the mandate was rejected, we can’t expect the court that gave us Citizens United to advocate for people over corporate interests.

Good to see that the court wouldn’t have a problem with single payer. I guess we’ll be seeing a bill for it rolled out next fall, right?

Oh shut up!
You are going to vote for him anyway.
Just go watch TV and when ‘debbie’ sends you the next email, fork over $5 bucks and hope that you win the ‘prize’ of sharing a meal with the great one himself.

Obama’s sub-speciality of constitutional law, as it turns out, is “The National Security Exception to the Bill of Rights: How 9/11 Changed Everything.” An entirely different sub-specialty than the Commerce Clause.

What’s worse is that he gave that speech a year AFTER a Columbia Journalism Review piece called out that phrase as an insurance lobby talking point.

HCAN’s campaign director Richard Kirsch said: “We are looking for a uniquely American solution”…
Alison Vander Zanden, of the Maine People’s Alliance, said: “We’re looking for a uniquely American solution to the health care crisis”…
Sen. Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee (through which health care legislation must pass), said: “We will have insurance companies in America. We’ll have uniquely American solutions“…
AHIP president Karen Ignani said that her group intended to make a significant contribution to the debate over blending public and private strategies “to achieve a uniquely American solution that can work and be enacted.”
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/one_step_forward_one_step_back.php

Sen. Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee (through which health care legislation must pass), said: “We will have insurance companies in America. We’ll have uniquely American solutions’…

How true. In a country where money equals speech, legislation gets written by the highest bidder. Thus we ended up with the Rube Goldberg Health Insurance “Reform” Act of 2010, a pink slime sandwich served by Chef Baucus and his K Street line cooks.

Fortunately, the left blogosphere prides itself in transparency and accountability and will do a robust inquiry into how such a well-financed cipher of a “plan” as “public option” suddenly and completely galvanized the top sites, leading to often sharp-elbowed exclusion of single-payer advocacy during the year-long HCR discussion.

Let’s see ,

Do we have the knowledge to treat conditions that aren’t treated today ?

Do we have medicines to treat diseases that aren’t treated for economic reasons ?

Do we have a big enough population to train enough people to deliver care to every person who needs it, when they need it ?

If we answer yes to those simple questions then the question becomes why do we let the “Free Hand of the Market” murder 50,000 +/- a year because of something called insurance?

Profit hooked up with greed /fear because GREED KILLS, period and we allow 50,000+/- a year to die as sacrifice to the GOD of Profit.

Shouldn’t the headline read almost everyone disputes the intelligence of our legislative and executive branch? I mean after all THEY are the idiots that took the actual option that was legal and viable off the table.

What Carvin is saying–which is true–is that Congress has the authority to levy taxes; it does not have the authority (at least, not yet) to force citizens to engage in commerce

But Congress can force two willing, able individuals not to engage in commerce, the intrastate Marijuana laws enforced by the Supreme Court through the commerce clause, so what’s the constitutional prohibition against one but not the other ?

Correct, those who have knowledge to treat the conditions, develop the medicines, and train enough people to deliver the care are greedy to the extent that they expect to get paid for their goods and services.

So if a couple of die off the rest will pay more than the rest of the developed world to get treatment, sounds like a Mafia Insurance plan if you ask me .

See the magic market is hand is in the bathroom then instead of providing for the entire population. Let’s see 50,000 a year divided by 50 states averages about 1,000 per state and chances are they won’t be one of you loved ones , right ?

when will he realize (or when will the democratic party collectively admit) he’s playing that 13 dimensional chess with republican pieces. He passed the republican idea that was created as a response back when most dems were at least leaning towards wanting a single payer system (with the not-so-coincidental exception of the Clintons. He bent over backwards for republican votes, jettisoning the promised “robust public option” it turns out he wasn’t all that into anyway. Now the biggest cheerleaders for this “single biggest legislative achievement” are worried that republicans on the supreme court will reject these republican ideas just to spite the democratic party’s president? It is– and not like, it just IS– marrying someone who is known to be unfaithful for their money and then being shocked when they’re unfaithful.

50+ million new customers.

Yesserie, even a strong public option would have saved the admin. this mess, unless he wanted the mess to begin with.

*Cue dramatic music*

I’m not arguing against you. I agree that the doctors and nurses who treat the conditions, the scientists that develop the drugs and college professors that teach all of the above should stop being greedy and letting 50,000 people per year die.

Bwahahaha. So true.

Its down to state by state enactment of single payer. Vermont is in the lead, California had it vetoed by the Governator twice..etc.