The Affordable Healthcare Act in the U.S. Supreme Court -…

On April 05 2012 01:39 DoubleReed wrote:


And in many circles they ARE described as above. So? It's okay to have mixed opinions in a party.

On April 05 2012 01:42 xDaunt wrote:


Let me make this crystal clear:

How are republicans any different than democrats in this regard?

Quite frankly, I think they would be far more ostracizing. That is why the republicans are as monolithic as they are. How do you think it became that way?

On April 05 2012 02:00 DeepElemBlues wrote:


Someone never heard of Ned Lamont vs. Joe Lieberman I guess.

The idea that either party is monolithic is born out of ignorance or partisan presumption. You might as well say that the Democratic Party was "monolithic" from 2003 to 2008 because it opposed George W. Bush down the line the way Republicans have done to Obama. There's a difference between being monolithic ideologically and totally opposing a certain politician for short-term political reasons or because you simply loathe the man.

And besides, at some point you're going to have to own up to the fact that 40% of the country self-identifies as conservative, whatever that may mean to them, and taking a more conservative line certainly didn't hurt the Republicans in 2010. Parties respond to the deep-seated beliefs of whatever segment of the public they think gives them the most votes, most time and effort spent politicking, and most money. In other words, the best chance to win.

On April 05 2012 02:53 xDaunt wrote:
Just out of curiosity, I want to direct the following question to everyone who supports Obamacare:

Do you find it at all disconcerting (if not outright odd) that Obama has been crapping all over the concept of judicial review with his recent comments about the case?

On April 05 2012 03:16 Ettick wrote:
In my opinion, healthcare shouldn't just be affordable, it should be free.

On April 05 2012 03:40 Nouar wrote:
I lost faith over any political action for quite a few years already. Even if someone has an actually good idea, there are so many hurdles that even his own party, nevermind the others, will tackle it to the ground.

You can not heavily change a system anymore in our current democracies, and it's sad. Careers over the greater good. I think it'd be impossible for the US to radically change their system to match a european one ;/ Good luck trying...

About the topic : the obamacare, I found it was a good idea at first, but it was distorted again and again before being adopted, and now... it's too complicated (like everything regulated and political), too inefficient (...), and not enough (but more would be refused by so many politics...)

Sigh..

STILL : about the whole lot of people arguing about the "I don't like it cause it's forced on you and remove your liberties".... Well dear sirs and madams, I don't think you realise how much of YOUR lives was helped by those taxes and systems "impeding" your liberty. You seem happy to benefit from all the advantages provided from this society you live in, yet are so keen on denying to take part in it...
I don't like that. It's egotistical. Go create your own country and live without any govermental aid whatsoever, you'll see the pain it is, lol.

On March 24 2012 11:42 liberal wrote:

I think you are confused about what socialism actually means...

Take a look at DMV, or social security, or welfare, or public housing, or public schools, or the military, or the national debt, and you will begin to realize why Americans do not want more government control of the economy.

Then look at history. Compare North Korea to South. Compare West Berlin to East. Compare the USSR superpower to the USA. Compare old Communist China with Reforming China. Pure socialism always leads to totalitarianism and economic collapse, while the richest and most free nations have historically been capitalistic. Europe is capitalist with high redistribution, which is why they are still mostly economically successful, apart from Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, etc.

On April 05 2012 04:06 Erasme wrote:


Maybe this is old but I'd like to point that new successful country such as Brazil/India/China are not capitalistic.
And maybe the first poster didnt mean socialism in US's way (communism) but more eu's way.

On April 05 2012 04:20 Nouar wrote:
Don't misunderstand me. My comment you bolded was not about *this* specific law. It's the attitude in general I don't like. Refusing a law I can understand, but this attitude, I just don't like it. I know it's just the way a lot of americans think, and most of the times, it's at least understandable (like on economy matters), but on a health issue like that, arguing because you think the law is bad is fine by me, but arguing cause you don't want to help others, I just can't understand.

I might have gone a little overboard about the "create your country" one, but I know so many people who fully supported the HUGE shortage of individual liberties on the patriot act, and counter obamacare just because of this liberty problem. This is just contradictory. From my point of view, this argument is more about a "I take what I can from the system, but don't want to give when I have to"... I'm actually tending more against this reform than anything else, but for different reasons.

The debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act illustrates the impoverishment of our political life. Here is a law that had its origin in the right-wing Heritage Foundation, was first put into practice in 2006 in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Mitt Romney and was solidified into federal law after corporate lobbyists wrote legislation with more than 2,000 pages. It is a law that forces American citizens to buy a deeply defective product from private insurance companies. It is a law that is the equivalent of the bank bailout bill—some $447 billion in subsidies for insurance interests alone—for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. It is a law that is unconstitutional. And it is a law by which President Barack Obama, and his corporate backers, extinguished the possibilities of both the public option and Medicare for all Americans. There is no substantial difference between Obamacare and Romneycare. There is no substantial difference between Obama and Romney. They are abject servants of the corporate state. And if you vote for one you vote for the other.

Protesting outside the Supreme Court recently as it heard arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act were both conservatives from Americans for Prosperity who denounced the president as a socialist and demonstrators from Democratic front groups such as the SEIU and the Families USA health care consumer group who chanted “Protect the law!” Lost between these two factions were a few stalwarts who hold quite different views, including public health care advocates Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Carol Paris and attorneys Oliver Hall, Kevin Zeese and Russell Mokhiber. They displayed a banner that read: “Single Payer Now! Strike Down the Obama Mandate!” They, at least, have not relinquished the demand for single payer health care for all Americans. And I throw my lot in with these renegades, dismissed, no doubt, as cranks or dreamers or impractical by those who flee into the embrace of empty political theater and junk politics. These single payer advocates, joined by 50 doctors, filed a brief to the court that challenges, in the name of universal health care, the individual mandate

“If you are trying to meet the goal of universal health coverage and the only way to meet that goal is to force people to purchase private insurance, then you might consider that it is constitutional,” Flowers said. “Our argument is that the individual mandate does not meet the goal of universality. When you attempt to use the individual mandate and expansion of Medicaid for coverage, only about half of the uninsured gain coverage. This is what we have seen in Massachusetts. We do, however, have systems in the United States that could meet the goal of universality. That would be either a Veterans Administration type system, which is a socialized system run by the government, or a Medicare type system, a single payer, publicly financed health care system. If the U.S. Congress had considered an evidence-based approach to health reform instead of writing a bill that funnels more wealth to insurance companies that deny and restrict care, it would have been a no-brainer to adopt a single payer health system much like our own Medicare. We are already spending enough on health care in this country to provide high-quality, universal, comprehensive, lifelong health care. All the data point to a single payer system as the only way to accomplish this and control health care costs.”

Obamacare will, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. Costs will continue to climb. There are no caps on premiums, including for people with “pre-existing conditions.” The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female workforces can be charged higher gender-based rates. Most of us will soon be paying about 10 percent of our annual incomes to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will pay for only about 70 percent of our medical expenses. And those of us who become seriously ill, lose our incomes and cannot pay the skyrocketing premiums are likely to be denied coverage. The dizzying array of loopholes in the law—written in by insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists—means, in essence, that the healthy will receive insurance while the sick and chronically ill will be priced out of the market.

Medical bills already lead to 62 percent of personal bankruptcies, and nearly 80 percent of those declaring personal bankruptcy because of medical costs had insurance. The U.S. spends twice as much per capita on health care as other industrialized nations, $8,160. Private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume 31 percent of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single, nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year, enough, the PNHP estimates, to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.

But as long as corporations determine policy, as long as they can use their money to determine who gets elected and what legislation gets passed, we remain hostages. It matters little in our corporate state that nearly two-thirds of the public wants single payer and that it is backed by 59 percent of doctors. Public debates on the Obama health care reform, controlled by corporate dollars, ruthlessly silence those who support single payer. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Max Baucus, a politician who gets more than 80 percent of his campaign contributions from outside his home state of Montana, locked out of the Affordable Care Act hearing a number of public health care advocates including Dr. Flowers and Dr. Paris; the two physicians and six other activists were arrested and taken away. Baucus had invited 41 people to testify. None backed single payer. Those who testified included contributors who had given a total of more than $3 million to committee members for their political campaigns.

On June 25 2012 01:04 diplomatten wrote:
In response to the above, it would be incredible irresponsible for the court to make a decision without having read the entire law. That's their job. I have complete faith that what they keep and strike down will be well thought out.