What is so unique wrt Arizonans’ health needs???

Nothing, but their higher share, I believe, of older people.

most of whom would be on Medicare. So the un-ACA is directed at those non-Medicare people to get them to purchase a terribly expensive private corporation’s product, “subsidized”, or not.

The GOP governors, in refusing to set up their own exchanges, are moving us closer to single payer public option nationwide. Good.

Boxturtle (And I don’t think in their hate for everything Obama that they even realize this)

Did they ever resolve the issue where, due to drafting error, it appeared that federal exchanges would not enjoy the same tax incentives as state established ones?

What a surprise. The ACA, as it was designed, obligates citizens under penalty of law but absolves those same citizens’ supposed representative governments as well as the related private industries of any such responsibility. The ACA does fuck all to do with furthering even–what was the bullshit phrase used by Brewer?–the “ACCESS” to “affordable health care in this country” much less actually creating better health care. The ACA is a boon for the health insurance industry, again as it was meant to be, and a millstone for the citizenry who can’t afford health care to begin with.

For any of those who have not yet done so, please read Justice Roberts’ majority opinion in support of Obama’s ACA. They are the words of a corporate whore who either doesn’t know about or does not give a shit about the lives of poor people. The ACA is one more mechanism by which Roberts, Obama and their ilk allow corporations to march on a road of bones in pursuit of maximizing the extraction of excess profit.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf

I agree. A federalized system that uses one set of standards is much more efficient than 50 different systems with their own unique standards.

The idea that any “state” has unique health needs is absurd. States don’t get sick, people do, and they generally get sick with things the rest of us have the same risk of getting. Talk about ridiculous talking points.

The GOP governors, in refusing to set up their own exchanges, are moving us closer to single payer public option nationwide. Good.

Shhhhhhhhhhh. I don’t think they know that.

I think Roberts may be the most unqualified Chief Justice we have ever had. If not, he certainly is the biggest asshole.

Excellent post.

This is a fascinating quote by Brewer in what it reveals about the mentality of fundamentalist conservatives and their leaders.

“This has been one of the more difficult decisions of my career in public service.” Bullshit. Supporting an ideological position favorable to one’s political base is difficult?

Or, to take Brewer at her word here, she is presented with a dilemma that requires her to side either with an ideological article of faith or to submit to authority. This may well be the penultimate rock and a hard place for authoritarian ideologues. She ostensibly comes down on the side of ideology.

But not really. Instead, as any good control-addict must, she uses the opportunity to increase her own authority. She only pretends to make this hard choice on behalf of her faithful congregation, playing on their fears of impotence and the locus of “control,” which tells us something about the people who vote for her. Indeed, for Brewer the moment of decisive truth between ideology and authority never has to be met–thankfully for any politician. The law allows states to extricate themselves from the ACA, which was an essential, deliberate aspect of this very corporatist policy.

So Brewer–and all the rest of the corporatist politicians–has her cake and eats it to. She tells her followers about how difficult this was to do. They believe her. And the result is that the quality of life for the vast majority of citizens is devoured. There is much applause and the flashing of practiced smiles revealing bleached teeth.

How does a federal mandate to buy medical insurance get us closer to single payer?

One of the interesting things about Roberts’ opinion is its schizophrenic nature. But Roberts’ opinion HAS to be schizophrenic because it is attempting to obligate one party while exempting another. He at once is insisting that the federal government has only limited powers while ensuring that citizens must submit to that same government when states need not.

This rigged framing further reveals just the sort of contempt this asshole has not only for the citizenry, but also for the whole idea of democracy. What are governments if not instruments of the people? Well, obviously for Roberts, Obama and those like them, government is an instrument for the benefit of the rich (after all these years, Alexander Hamilton’s notion of government decisively wins out).

We see Roberts’ service to the rich and, at least, blindness to those who will be negatively impacted by ACA in another important aspect of his opinion. That some people are too poor to afford insurance is absolutely incomprehensible to him, if we are to believe his words at face value. The owners and their representatives always believe that the peasants can be shaken down for one more penny. Someone with this understanding of life in the US is most surely not a representative of the great bulk of the citizenry but is indeed, by natural inclination, working for the wealthy to who he relates.

Roberts is a boon to the owning class and a bane to rest of the citizens for whom his actions are, practically speaking, sociopathic. Roberts is an asshole, a Fascist asshole.

Allowing states not to participate in ACA is not a bug, it is a feature deliberately written into the Supreme Court decision upholding it.

I’m not sure they hate everything Obama. Such hate is, however, a useful political tool.

“Demagogue: one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” –H. L. Mencken

You all overthink this.

Republican governors do not think the ACA will actually make hc more affordable or provide better access to care.

They do not want responsibility when it fails.

FDLers should remember that the formal position of this blog’s founder was that the bill was bad and should NOT become law.

Nicely put otto.
She’s a despicable human being.

Outstanding post. Excellent analysis too.

Roberts COULD easily be the modern-day equivalent of Marie Antoinette, with gonads. Excepting, of coursem that that part has already been cast with Mitt Romney. But, one always needs an understudy.

Assuming you include me in that statement, thank you. Nobody has ever acused me of overthinkiing.

But, honeslty, you probably rather mean most of my colleagues here. Me, I’m ill equipped for that. :-)

ottogrendel: “. .it is attempting to obligate one party while exempting another . .citizens must submit to that same government”

The whole thrust of government now is that the “greater good” supplants individual liberties. It is a time-honored liberal plaint which has been picked up by the conservatives to serve their (different) agenda.

Another example: In my part of the country we have to suffer through an internal highway Border Patrol checkpoint just to drive to the next city. This stricture, a delay in merely driving down the damn highway, guys with guns and dogs, has been justified by the Supremes because it serves a “public concern.” Police Chief Magazine summarizes it:

The [Supreme] Court has allowed certain vehicle checkpoints without individualized suspicion. Whether a vehicle checkpoint is reasonable depends on (1) the gravity of the public concern, (2) the degree to which the seizure addresses or advances the public concern, and (3) the severity of interference with individual liberty.(Brown v. Texas)

We’ve gone from. . .

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

. . .in the Declaration, to emphasizing “general welfare” over “blessings of liberty” in the Constitution –

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Roberts is an asshole, a Fascist asshole.

Right. What amazes me is that there is not a whimper of impeachment directed at Roberts and/or Scalia, Thomas or others. If a couple of these sell-outs on the rule of law were impeached it would go a long ways toward restoring the rule of law.

It doesn’t. Wishful thinking is crossing over into flat-out desperation, and I say that in the nicest possible way. People are frightened (with good reason), and they’re grasping at any straw in sight. Universal health care in the United States is still light years away at best.

She’s a despicable human being.

Jane Hamsher is also on record against the compulsory medical insurance law. If Ms. Hamsher were a governor (not a bad idea) would she then refuse to implement the law in her state and be despicable, or would she forget her opposition and set up an exchange which she couldn’t control to enact a law she doesn’t like? I wonder.

If the Republicans had passed the hc law
We would have taken to the streets on the mandate and Medicare cuts AND the cave on real abortion restrictions

We got a lotta old retired people here.

But this means at least 17 states are gonna have some sorta version of a watered-down “public option” which may be the start of something big (to borrow some song lyrics….)

Like maybe this is the way of getting Medicare For All through the back door, sozusagen??

I can assure that Jane Hamsher and Jan Brewer have entirely different reasons for opposing the law. Jane wanted the law expanded to the point where it covered every single person in the country and went more towards controlling costs. Jan Brewer, when given control of medical coverage, did everything she could to kick people off its rolls and even went as far as denying coverage to transplant patients.

“The whole thrust of government now is that the “greater good” supplants individual liberties. It is a time-honored liberal plaint which has been picked up by the conservatives to serve their (different) agenda.”

I think that is a good observation. If only a genuine greater collective good were being served, it might make the forfeiture of individual liberties a bit more palatable. The excuse in service to the social programs of the New Deal and the Great Society is now employed to further authoritarian issues of “collective security.” Indeed.

What explains the lack of whimper?

Good Question. I can only speculate but me thinks that even the thought of impeachment is off the table. Impeachment would be next to impossible without a strong public movement and a change in the makeup of Congress. But, until something as radical as impeachment can take place the rule of law will continue to be degraded, not only in the Supreme Court but also in all courts, both federal and states.

You’re probably right. Unless a balance of power is affected by an individual office holder being held personally accountable the degradation will continue.