Health care mandate ruled uncostitutional, but severable

Congratulations to the 11th circuit court of appeals in Florida, who today ruled that while the mandate was indeed unconstitutional, it can also be removed from the total legislation without compromising the act overall.

The mandate was the piece that the insurance companies were banking on, complaining only that it wasn't implemented fast enough for their greedy asses.

Read more here... http://nothingright.com/archives/1114

free er care. To have everyone carry ins, and have it subsidized for those who can't afford it, is still the best short of Medicare for all.

How the hell are insurance companies going to afford to cover people with pre-existing conditions without the individual mandate? Answer--THEY CAN'T (unless they astronomically increase everybody's premiums!!!)! Without the mandate provision, insurance companies will have a good argument to lobby Congress to allow them to once again deny coverage to people who have pre-existing conditions.

That would pass the constitutional test as well.

....except conservatives will never agree to it. They'll start screaming about "tax-loving" liberals, big government, and socialism, and the American people will say "OMG....we can't possibly do that or we'll become an old Eastern European-style nation!"

And have universal free healthcare for all, without a single tax increase or "revenue enhancement".

The purpose is to prevent the insurance companies turning anyone away. That means, in turn, they have to be able to stop people holding no insurance coverage until they are suddenly diagnosed with an expensive problem and then buying insurance they know they can claim on at once. So, if forcing everyone to have insurance is unconstitutional, how are you going to distribute the extra money the government gets from your income tax rise in such a way that it's fair? Since the income tax rise hits people who both do and don't buy insurance, those buying insurance will see this as unfair. It may encourage them to give up insurance, so that they don't pay for themselves and for those hoping to game the system. So you may end up with a lot more people not using insurance, since this government money will be used to make the insurance companies insure new customers.

In the end, it could end up with a 'medicare for all' situation, with income tax basically paying the whole premiums; but with an inefficient, profit-taking insurance sector squatting in the middle. And if your purpose is to push the system towards Medicare-for-all, then you should say that rather than just say 'taxes solve this'.

United healthcare posted first quarter earnings of 1.5 billion, they will certainly suffer.
Cigna struggled in the second quarter and only profited 400 million.

The ones who will suffer because of this mandate repeal will be their precious shareholders.

Healthcare, all aspects of it from insurance to provider, should be non profit, care based, not shareholder based.

Their CEOs and executives will still make their millions, but those who actually need care will get more of it as well.

...I'm not trying to defend the insurance companies, however insurance companies are not the root of the problem here. The root is the cost of medical care is cost-prohibitive. THAT'S the main issue which cannot be resolved REGARDLESS of whatever type of health care reform is enacted by the government.

I agree that the delivery system is flawed, but a great deal of that is because the system is profit based, not care based. The only time I have worked for a non profit health care organization, the mindset was completely different. Any money above the zero line was invested back into the community, and it allowed us to actually maintain and even lower costs to the end user.

The biggest flaw of our health care system is the profit based model, and the biggest culprit is the insurance carrier, followed by the providers, who have been taught and trained in their model by how private insurance has polluted the system.

There is never one culprit, but if you are going to target one to begin rebuilding the system, that is the place to start.

That's how every other developed country does it, even those with mostly private insurance. That's why my husband was able to get an emergency root canal in the Netherlands in 1996 for $25 American.

We all want affordable healthcare, but $25 is just a joke for a root canal. 2 professional work on your tooth for half an hr with state of the art equipments and at the end you think they deserve $25? I just sorry for the poor dentist who would have to do 1000s of this every month to eek out a living or the suckers who are unknowingly subsidizing your husbands root canal.

Btw I have had 2 root canals and 2 crowns myself and I paid the $700 ish and $300 for it, so am talking from experience. And most importantly I have learned from my costly experience to appreciate good dental hygiene. Today, I no longer drink soda and brush 3x a day.

--had his/her education completely paid for by the government, and where the costs of all his/her inputs like drills, novocaine, X-ray film, etc. are also kept down by government regulation.

Clearly, without copying the whole system, you can't copy just the consumer price controls. BTW, there was a very nice German car in the building's reserved parking space, so the setup clearly worked out OK for this particular dentist.

from increased premiums instead of their well paid for mandated increase of customer pool.

--everybody's premiums for many, many years.

afford it? And could we then just remove the insurance co. because of expensive overhead cost issues?

....will cut short their summer recess to come right back to Washington and enact a public option. :eyes:

Heck, I knew you could not force American citizens to buy a product. Car insurance is simply not the same thing. Higher taxes will have to work. I just did not understand why my constitutional law professor president did not know it. When we controlled every branch we should've just done what we needed to do. But, the only jobs they were interested in saving were their own...tsk, tsk, tsk...

:bounce:

Since we are tying our constitution to our corporations anyway, might as well change it to some hybrid version.

raise my payroll taxes please.