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Today's ruling by a federal appeals court in Ohio, upholding the Obama health care law, marks the first time a Republican-appointed judge has found the most controversial part of the law constitutional.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals was 2-1 on the "individual mandate" -- the requirement that all Americans get health insurance. One of the judges voting to uphold it was Jeffrey Sutton, an appointee of George W. Bush and a former law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia.
This brings to four the number of court decisions upholding the law. Two other courts have declared it unconstitutional on its long march to the Supreme Court.
UPDATE: In 1942, the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress had the power to stop an Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filbert, from growing his own wheat. The court said then that his decision to grow his own, rather than buying wheat on the national market, affected interstate commerce, which Congress has the authority to regulate.
Today, the Sixth Circuit appeals court said the same logic applies to health insurance.
Opponents had argued that while Congress has broad authority to regulate economic activity, it has no authority over inactivity, such as a failure to buy insurance. But the appeals court said today that Congress is actually regulating the market of self-insurance for health care, in which people try to find some way to cover their costs other than by purchasing insurance.
But the court said self-insuring affects interstate commerce, by shifting the costs of the un-insured to people who have insurance, just as the wheat farmer affected interstate commerce by growing and consuming his own wheat instead of buying it on the national market.
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You folks can complain about each others' view of this bill but it doesn't matter. Obamacare does nothing to deal with the problem, only the symptoms. The problem is the cost of CARE. Insurance rates and the cost of insurance are set by how much it takes to cover what is being insured. The cost of medical care continues to climb there fore the cost to insure coverage must go up. I don't care if it's private or public or a combination thereof. As the price of care continues to go up either the premiums to pay for that coverage must go up, the amount and type of care covered must go down, or if it's a government program you have a hole that our tax payer money has to fill (see Europe, Cuba, Canada, etc.) or if it's private the company goes out of business. NONE of the proposals, plans, options, price fixing, exchanges, etc. will change that simple economic FACT. You want affordable health care insurance in this country well the only way you will get it is to have affordable health CARE.
Healthcare is an individual problem, not the responsibility of your neighbors or the government. No different from food, clothing and shelter. Deal with it the best you can. Leave the government out of it.
I just puchased a CPAP machine that I could get online for about $800-900. Buying it with insurance through a specified "dealer" the cost was almost $2000. Now the kicker, it came with a humidifier, a plastic little 3 x4 inch plastic box, to be filled with water, with two holes which was more than likely made in China for $1.00 or two, the charge to my insurance company = $134. Two little 1/2" x1" foam air filters which cost about 25 cents, if that, insurance was charged $16. You're right, where is the outrage in Congress and by this or any administration of the medical manufacturers and suppliers screwing us. They are screwing us a hell of a lot more than any insurance company and yet not one word.
Road Warrior - You just don't get it and that makes you part of the problem. I DO take care of my own health insurance but that's not the issue. The real ISSUE is the cost of health care. Jim gave a good example. But let me try to make it even more clear.
If a hernia operation costs $2000 today whoever is providing insurance coverage needs to collect enough money to pay that $2000 cost and make some profit. If in two years the cost of that same hernia operation now costs $4000, what do you think the insurance provider has to do in order to keep from going into the red? They have to raise their premiums or not cover hernia operations.
NO ONE is dealing with THAT issue. Instead they have people like you arguing over who should have insurance, how much insurance should cost, who should provide insurance, etc. If you bring down the cost of CARE all of that will be taken care of because insurance will be a LOT cheaper.
Another sad day for america and those who died for americans freedom!
dpark, a great day for America and those who died for Amereican's freedom.
WinkWink is getting old and hasn't saved enough for his retirement. I'm sure glad there will be free healthcare when I retire and I like that my fellow hard working Americans will help pay for. Thanks everyone!
Free?
JTM - Why is that a question? People on Medicaid already get free coverage - free to them, not to the rest of us.
In 1942 a man was not allowed to grown his own food; he was dictated that he must purchase food from the national market? That's not freedom, that's communism, that tyranny!
and this administration digs further and further into our pockets and lives. Armed people in the streets? WTF? It's a comin' folks!! The bureaucrats scratch their butts and wonder in amazement why there are militias throughout the countryside popping up daily....this is why. The issue was raised, without Obamacare everyone pays the burden to treat those who don't have insurance and can't/won't pay, the answer is don't treat them. They are adults, they have the choice. Secondly, if they are that damn broke, how are they going to pay for insurance? Answer: Government subsidies which are paid for by the taxpayor thus we are back to square one. Stay the F out of our private lives, get your own house in order before you dictate your screwed up values on the american public.
"They are adults, they have the choice."
Hey Jimbo, I didn't have a choice to get an illness that without treatment would kill me. My friend din't make a choice to get cancer when she was a child. In YOUR free market utopia, no insurance company would cover us because we would cost them too much.
If protecting the weakest and sickest is "screwed up", I question your values. I question your humanity. I question your soul. Do you have an answer?
How much you want to bet that the Supreme Court will rule ObamaCare unconstitutional next year? Just remember Obama called Justice Anthony Kennedy an idiot at the state of the union address for writing the majority opinion on campaign financing. Kennedy is the key and deciding 9th vote.
Today's ruling by a federal appeals court in Ohio, upholding the Obama health care law, marks the first time a Republican-appointed judge has found the most controversial part of the law constitutional. This brings to four the number of court decisions upholding the law.
Hey republicans, in your face with a can of mace, make you cry all over the place.
Wow that is as mature as what we can expect from societal parasites? The Ohio Judge forgot ( I a certain conveniently) that FDR whole WPA program was declared unconstitutional, including the ruling that a man cannot grow his own wheat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
beerjoust - please stop letting the babysitter do the typing.
So Now the NAZI Dictator in the White House is basically stating we cannot grow our own vegetables and fruit with out his permission to?
To cite such a ruling for this ridiculous health care rip off just reveals how little the liberals and their demonic puppet masters really think about freedom.
Obama and the DNC are Nazis!!!!
NAVYBET; Nazis, eh??? And you are an imbecile and a mindless jarhead to boot.
Ozzie Boy Were you in the Marines, if not, you are not entitled to call us jarheads.
"individual mandate" -- the requirement that all Americans get health insurance..............
Sorry, I am not agree with the court decision here.
How?
In my opinion, if you don't think that the individual mandate should take affect then it should be required that hospitals deny care to anyone who does not have insurance. It's not fair if I have it, then someone who doesn't have insurance gets care and we that do have insurance pay for it in our premiums.
So it's either we have a mandate and it's required that hospitals see every patient or we don't have a mandate and hospitals are ordered not to see any patient without insurance.
Not that I agree with what I'm about to say, but I can't let this one go by...
Why have a mandate at all? You talk like government MUST decide for us and for hospitals one way or another. Why? Shouldn't the choice be ours and shouldn't the hospital have a choice as well?
VIPP, You are wrong .. Michelle Obama had to surrender her license to practice law for dumping patients. Emergency patients cannot be turned away.... period.
1) How can someone lose their license to practice law for dumping medical patients?
2) She didn't "surrender" her license - she requested her license be placed on "inactive" status. Which means she didn't have to pay Bar Association dues, carry malpractice insurance, and attend CLE classes. When you're not anticipating returning to active legal practice for a long time, this is how you do it to avoid paying for things you aren't using.
Seriously, using Snopes before you post is a good idea.
JMurray...I'm dealing with reality here. If the hospitals left babies outside to die because they were refused for not having insurance it wouldn't be long before government did something about it.
Navy...I'm not wrong. Hospitals are required to see any person in the emergency room. They have to...
With all of that said...if hospitals are required to see patients then it should be a requirement that everyone has insurance. If there is no mandate then those with insurance pay higher premiums for those uninsured hospital visits. Thats not fair....the only way to make the system fair is for everyone to hold some sort of insurance. Done.
As I recall from my years as a hospital tech. the only hospitals that absolutely have to treat walk up patients are not-for -profirt hospitals. That would be religious-based, charity-based, or public institutions. These receive a special tax status which reqires them to treat walk-ups , most kinds anyway. And being made to do something for the good of the country, there is precedence in military drafts we`ve had. And traffic laws,sanitation laws, zoning laws, etc
We have the best government that $ can buy.
If it goes to the Supreme Court and it ends up being a 5/4 decision (conservative/liberal or vice versa), this country will remain divided and become more hostile.
The best thing the Supreme Court could do in the short term is to not touch the case for two years or so until it "ripens."
Suppose you feel the same way about homeowner's insurance, car insurance, taxes on vehicles and buying car tags?
You are not required to have any of those you know. Many people who live in big cities never own a car, never get a driver's license, never own a home and they aren't required to pay those things. Are you saying they should be required to since after all there are folks out there driving without insurance and the rest of us wind up paying for them when they get into an accident. Should that be "shared" by the rest of society as well?
ALL HUMAN BEINGS HAVE BODIES, IDIOT...your point therefore is moot!!!
I believe that the 1942 decision in Wickard v. Filburn was a politically motivated overreach of Federal power into intrastate commerce. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1938 was, in my opinion, an unprecedented power grab by the Federal government under FDR. Instead of trying to control commerce, that is, the buying and selling of goods, by setting price limits for specific markets or some similar mechanism, it reached into the individual states's purview and tried to limit the otherwise lawful activity of individuals. This was never the intention of the Founding Fathers.
One of the most important freedoms desired by the framers of the Declaration of Independence was economic freedom. Our farmers and merchants found the economic controls of Great Briton, which required that certain goods produced here be only sold to British companies and most goods imported from abroad be imported from British companies, such as the monopolistic East India Company, to be extremely onerous. The Commerce Clause of the US Constitution should always be interpreted with this history in mind.
To forget this history, as President Obama has done, will almost always raise an outcry from the American public.
To force people to buy a product, any product, violates this history.
While I agree that our health care payment system is broken, forcing people to buy insurance is the wrong way to solve it. It would be far better if each state came up with its own solution, such as Massachusetts and Hawaii have done, with varying degrees of success.
One step in the right direction might be to require doctors and hospitals to create and post a list of fixed prices for most services and then live with those prices, even when complications arise. This would allow the consumer to choose, hopefully wisely, which provider to utilize. Currently, when someone goes into the hospital for a procedure, they have almost no way to know what the final bill will be. Hospitals often pad the bills by charging for services and supplies not rendered.
Wickard v. Filburn (Filbert) was bad constitutional law in 1943 and remains bad law today.
The "de minimis effect" test which it wrote into Commerce Clause jurisprudence (Congresws can regulate anything that has any effect, however small, in interstate commerce) abuses the Commerce Clause and undermines not only individual liberty but responsible constitutional jurisprudence.
Based on it, there is no limit on what Congress can "regulate." The whole concept of Interstate Commerce falls apart.
I for one hope this decision is an aberration (as it should be). If Congress can force the purchase of a service, there is no liberty.
This is not surprising. After all if killing people by launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, using remote controlled drones and having our bombs dropped by other countries are not considered "hostile" acts then I guess the government forcing every U.S. citizen to purchase a product from a private company can be considered constitutional. Just like when the progressives claim people who are in the country ILLEGALLY are not breaking the law. Progressives can not be trusted. They are devoid of intellectual honesty and have no entegrity. For progressives the end always justifies the means.
Obamacare is about nothing but more government control of our lives. It will be interesting to see if the progressives will support the future laws dictating what and how much we can eat, how much sleep you must get, how much and what programs we can view on television and that we do mandatory exercises every day. If you don't believe most of those laws will exist by 2020... Then you are not paying attention.
Obamacare sets the precedent that anything you do (or don't do for that matter) that could impact your health can be fully regulated/mandated/controlled by the federal government. They have already started to accelerate doing away with all personal freedom. For example: we will soon only be able to legally purchase flourescent light bulbs made by G.E. for use in our privately owned houses. (I wonder how long it will be before only kitchen and laundry appliances made by G.E. are considered "green" enough to legally own?) The feds have already taken over secondary education, the financial industry, the housing industry and half of the American automobile industry. And apparently the federal government can now mandate where a private company can and/or can not build a new facility. Just ask Boeing. These are only the latest entries on a long list of assaults on our freedom.
The seed case is why this law will be upheld. In 1942 the Supreme Court greatly expanded the power of the federal govt by saying that the govt could not only regulate the interstate commerce that existed but that they could force people to participate in interstate commerce bc if everyone chose not to participate it would, in the aggregate, adversly affect interstate commerce. The Supreme Court will never overrule that case bc it is the main basis for the expansion of the power of the federal govt over the last 70 yrs or so. I, myself, think they should overrule the case as I believe that forcing individuals to participate in interstate commerce should be beyond the power of our govt but rest assured it will never happen bc once a govt takes control of a thing it never releases it and to change the authoriy granted the govt under the seed case will open up the govt to all sorts of lawsuits regarding matters presently controlled by the fed specifically based upon the authority of that case. Big brother owns you and me bc of that case.
Goat Rancher,
It's this easy. I have to pay for other people who get hospital care because they don't have insurance than hospitals should be required to deny any patient who comes to them without insurance. That would be fair...but I don't think anyone wants to see people dying outside of hospitals.
So the mandate makes sense....because nobody can gurantee their safety and because we require hospitals to except patients no matter what than it should be law that every individual be insured.
One of the first things one learns in Law School is that when it comes to the Commerce Clause, Congress' power is Plenary.
It was ridiculous then and it is ridiculous now.
I am glad to hear that! Hooray! BTW, the 6th Circuit Court is "very conservative." I doubt that the Robert's Court will be able to overturn it even with Blowhard Scalia, CJ Roberts, "Scalito," and "House Daddy Thomas." BTW, the house daddy has not yet written a legal opinion.
Five Ways the Obama Administration Is Circumventing Congress
1. Environmental Regulation
2. Labor Law
3. Immigration Law
4. Selective Enforcement of Federal Law
5. Regulating the Internet
Where he can't legislate, he will regulate.
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2011/06/29/five-ways-the-obama-administration-is-circumventing-congress/
The tea party republicans appear to be really ignorant with regards to government mandates telling us what we can and can not do. Or they may not be ignorant but are depending on enough of the people to be ignorant so they can get their way.
As was pointed out there are already federal and state mandates that requires us to do certain things or we will be penalize in some fashion. As one of the smarter ones in this forum noted the state governments mandate that we get car insurance or you can not get a tag or in most cases even buy a car. In other words you will be penalized. Isn't this mandate infringing on our rights. Shouldn't I be able to buy a car if I have the money. Why aren't the tea party protesting state and other federal mandates?
The tea party appears to be a bunch of simple minded people (LOL Bachmann & Palin) who operate on scare tactics and personal attacks. If the republicans would have participated in the process instead of trying to blow it up we would probably have had a better health care law product. It's unfortunate that they operate from a position of hate, ignorance and my way or the highway.
There is a big difference between the individual states mandating something and the Federal government mandating the same thing.
As to buying auto insurance, driving is a licensed privilege, not a right. Having auto insurance is a requirement for that license. There is no law requiring a non-driver to have a driver's license.
Are you people serious? The Government couldn't run a whore house. Now you want them in charge of you freakin healthcare??? Look at every program we have that they have screwed up. Medicare, Social Security the list can go on and on. Now this country is one step away from going bankrupt! All because they don't know when to quit!
The system we have needs to be changed I agree, but change it by voting in people who understand business and quit sending lawyers.
TCEWING; So, you're advocating that we privatize the military too??? Cause "government can't run a whore house"???
That's funny, Dwight Eishenhower built the interstates in this country and did a pretty darn good job. You might want to ask yourself whey EVERY other advanced, industrialized nation in this world has socialized medicine, Every one. And "Obama Care" in not even socialized medicine though I wish it was.
What is your suggestion for the 50 MILLION Americans who lack decent health care??? Should they all go crawl under a rock and die??? Is that what you suggest???
Dwight Eishenhower!!! Really You have to go back that far to find your role model. How sad. Let me tell about health care Ozzie boy! I became a American in 95' born in Canada. Canada has socialized medicine. My father needed a heart bypass 3 years ago and guess what they told him? You've lived a good life go home and be with your family. He was only 66. Thank god my parents were smart enough to by Blue Cross insurance just in case something like that happened. He came across to Seattle and had his bypass. Don't talk about crap you know NOTHING about. There is free health care now. Have you heard of county hospital? Last year when I was out of a job I needed knee surgery. It was free. Now I have a job and pay 60% of my health care and couldn't be happier.
Guess what your 50 million without health care... I'll bet you more than half of them are not Americans!
And your stupid comment about our military... Thank god congress only funds them. They leave the job of running it to the pro's!!!
Three judges? Might as well have said three morons! No way is this law constitutional...no way. I don't care what party the judges are in...they need to re-read the constitution and start following it.
Translation: He didn't read it like I would, so I'm going to complain he didn't read it at all.
This guy's pedigree and record as a state's rights, strict construction, separation of powers jurist puts him in the same camp as Antonin Scalia (who he clerked for). And you're telling me you know how to read the Constitution better than he could?
I'm at a point where I do not give a s--t about future effects of any of this.
Give me my freebies now and let the chips fall where they may.
Puddelduck, you are a total moron.. We will not get anything cheaper or better from the government... For example, did they not sya that everyone's health insurance premiums will go down if this bill was passed? Yes. Did the premiums go down, Um.. NO ~!!!!
MONICA: There's a moron around here but I doubt it's PuddleDuck.
You are of course aware that the major factions of the health care bill have not even gone into effect yet? I mean, you are aware of that and are taking that into consideration.
If you had any intellect you just might ask yourself why all the European countries who have socialized medicine can provide superior healthcare FOR LESS $$$ THAN WE CAN. How come Monica???
Because they used other people's money which, in the case of Greece and Portugal, has finally run out.
The argument that Congress can't regulate "inactivity" is so bogus - if someone can guarantee that they will NEVER require medical care that is more expensive than what they can pay for - out of pocket, cold hard cash... Okay, I know hospitals accept MC, Visa, AmEx... that's fine, but it's paid for!... then fine, that equates to "inactivity" because you've covered the expense yourself. So don't get cancer, emphysema, brain tumors...don't have a car wreck or fall off your ladder and suffer TBI... unless you are Warren Buffett or Donald Trump! If you don't have a written guarantee from God in your pocket that you will never be seriously injured or ill, then you're otherwise human and you WILL engage in this "activity" called health care. And if you're not Warren Buffett or Donald Trump, your illiness or injury is going to cost ME money! Therefore, your ability to pay for your illness and injury through insurance coverage is open to regulation and can be made mandatory. If you ride a motorcyle without a helmet and break your neck and smash your head like a pumpkin falling off a truck, I don't want to PAY for your stupidity for the rest of my life.