••• Healthcare law ruled unconstutional - a public OPTION would not have been •••

[breadandwine]

A judge has ruled that the healthcare MANDATE in President Obama's healthcare law makes the whole law unconstitutional. This is probably heading to our good friends at the Supreme Court. The idea of the ruling is you can't force people to buy the plan. But if Obama had had a public OPTION instead, there would have been no compulsion and we might still have national healthcare. And of course, if you had a public OPTION, everyone would choose it anyway because corporate health insurance stinks.

If this holds it renders the signature issue of the Obama presidency dead in the water.

This is the issue that nearly did in Clinton. It seems Obama faces the same crisis.

Obama never made a stink about the right wing GOP violence in the country or the GOP threat against Social Security, which could have kept the Congress from going GOP. Now everyone is going to call him a failed president. What does he have to campaign on now? "I almost gave you corporate health care" ?

In Europe when there is a failed regime the prime minister often resigns and his own party picks a replacement and there are no new elections but the party in power stays in power with a new leader who restores the public support for the same party. But we don't have that. Unless there is a primary challenge the Democratic Party is probably in big trouble. Either the public gets a new Democratic nominee in 2012 or they will take it out on the whole party. The odds are, though, that Obama will get renominated because it is almost unheard of for a nominee not to get renominated by his party and everyone knows that primary challenges usually guarantee victory for the other party. If this ruling stands it is a huge mess for us.


If someone in the primaries challenged Obama FROM THE LEFT and took the nomination we might hold the White House and other offices. It probably won't happen. Very few have the guts to run within the same party against a sitting president and he won't have the enormous financial resources of a sitting corporatist president. We are nearing the kiss-your-ass-goodbye stage. And the Supreme Court will back this up of course. Obama, in one of his endless offers to compromise, said in his State of the Union address that he was willing to improve the healthcare law. The GOP wouldn't have agreed and now it's a mute point because the whole law has been thrown out. The GOP wanted to screw Obama and the Democrats and they sure did.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/us/01ruling.html?hp



PLEASE NOTE -- I HAVE JUST RECEIVED AN EDIT REQUEST FROM MODS here. I am eager to comply. They are saying I am violating copyright. I am not sure which paragraph this applies to. I certainly didn't copy the whole article and the commentary is my own. I don't want a penalty or to violate rules. Can someone help me out here? Which part do I need to edit? Sorry for the inconvenience. What I wrote is not what the Times wrote unless I am seriously in error. I hope mods or other people can tell me what part violates copyright and I will be eager to delete or rewrite it. Please advise me. The writing is my own. But tell me which paragraph is in error and I will do as I am told.

[Johonny]

1. I have no doubt the RW would have found a judge to call

the public option unconstitutional too.

[breadandwine]

4. Maybe. Not as easily. FORCING people to buy something is a lot easier to attack.

....

[ProSense]

14. It's would have been just as easy to

attack. All one has to do is have an agenda

[breadandwine]

15. If it was just as easy to attack, why not get our "money's worth"?

....

[emulatorloo]

21. Because Joseph Isadore Lieberman didn't want you to have it.

[Johonny]

20. history seems to say otherwise

things that seem no brainers now: EPA, integration of schools, civil rights...etc all fought in courts for years after major legislation passed. I have no doubt had public option passes or universal health care, they would have fought it in the courts. It is standard MO. Most "experts" I've seen talk about it seem to think the supreme court will have no problem with the law as is. So far none of the rulings have been very damaging.

[emulatorloo]

23. Media are pushing this story like crazy. They did not push the rulings that said it was constitution

constitutional, at least not that I remember. Anyway I find that kind of interesting.

[breadandwine]

26. Part of the reason it may be interesting is that the media is probably assuming the Supreme Court

will back up this ruling.

And they are probably right.

[breadandwine]

24. I don't know. This is the Supreme Court that says corporations are people.

...

[Johonny]

55. how is getting rid of the mandate bad for corporations?

That's the part of your argument that I dont get. The mandate is the part of the bill they want.

[karynnj]

92. You would still have to buy something even if one of your choices were a public plan.

[The Farmer]

99. How about auto insurance?

They force you to buy that. Republicans seem to have no problem with that! Can you spell H Y P O C R I T ?

[ixion]

13. well, no... they would have framed it as socialism, I imagine

even though that's not what it would have been. The bill was contentious, and I didn't support it, personally, because of the mandate. I would have supported something with a public option instead.

[robinlynne]

2. I find the mandate to purchase insurance disgusting , and I am not a right winger!

i.e. You are so right.

[breadandwine]

32. I hear you, robinlynne. My point in the OP is mainly what this is going to do politically.

The courts just sabotaged the whole Democratic party. I don't see how as a party we recover from this.


All eggs were in the healthcare basket. Without it, what has Obama got to run on? How does he even say, "Gladys Smith just got her healthcare and it saved her a bundle." The whole law just got thrown out before reason takes over and people find out it's not so bad.

[robinlynne]

42. Wait, this isn't over yet. this is but one ruling. Was it a "Supreme" ruling?

[breadandwine]

43. It will get taken up by the Supreme Court. The right wing Supreme Court.

The ruling will get appealed. Then the right wing thugs on the court will go to work and back the most right wing lower court ruling.

[ProSense]

3. "If someone in the primaries challenged Obama FROM THE LEFT and took the nomination "

"The GOP wouldn't have agreed and now it's a mute point because the whole law has been thrown out. The GOP wanted to screw Obama and the Democrats and they sure did."

Did the NYT write this?

:rofl:

[jaxx]

17. I wondered that too.

The link doesn't match the rhetoric.

[Hugabear]

5. You can find a judge to rule however way you want

As evidenced by the fact that some judges have upheld the constitutionality of HCR, while others have ruled against it.

[breadandwine]

8. The article says this is headed to the Supreme Court.

The buck will stop there ---- with the corporatist right wingers there making the final decision.

[COLGATE4]

81. Which is precisely why the Fla AG filed this suit in Pensacola - he

knew the chances of getting an uber-RW judge were about 95/100. He got his wish (and his verdict)

[Catherina]

6. Hurrah! That mandate is disgusting Rec'd n/t

[Dokkie]

86. +10000

Ax the mandate. Whoever thought it was a good idea to force people to buy insurance (not healthcare) from for profit insurance companies? Its public option or nothing

[AndyTiedye]

7. A Public Option Could Not Have Made it Through Congress

before and certainly not now.

[breadandwine]

10. Agree that it can't make it now. Not so sure it couldn't have made it when we had a Dem Congress.

...

[pnwmom]

28. How? How would we have overcome the filibuster? n/t

[breadandwine]

34. How bout the way we overcame it with the law that passed - through reconciliation.

.....

[pnwmom]

37. Because there was already a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian

that he wouldn't approve the bill going through that way. There were too many parts to the bill that had nothing to do with budgets.

[karynnj]

94. The main part of the law passed the normal way

The consensus was that the various structures set up for exchanges and other things could not be done under reconciliation.

The fact is - the REPUBLICANS not withstanding, HCR passed with 60 votes in the Senate and was passed with the exact same language in the House and went to Obama who signed it. A second bill passed through reconciliation made some changes - but there were rules as to what could be done under reconciliation.

[karynnj]

93. It couldn't - we needed 60 votes for that part - and didn't have them

It was never clear we even had 50. (Dean's list had some questionable yeses - including Lincoln who was very negative about a public option in Finance committee discussions.)

[MannyGoldstein]

45. Yes it would have

Remember when there were 59 votes in the Senate for allowing people to buy into Medicare? Only 50 were needed because reconciliation was used.

Obama quashed this because it violated his deal with Pharma et al.

[breadandwine]

47. This is one hell of a mess.

...

[Name removed]

61. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MannyGoldstein]

63. Harry Truman sez...

"I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

If you dispute my rendering of the facts, let me know.

Regards,

Manny

[dionysus]

67. since everything you post is a smear piece of various kinds against the administration,

I'd like you to outline exactly what your solution is.

[MannyGoldstein]

73. Sure - but first tell me what smears I've posted.

For example, has anything I've posted on this thread not been correct?

I don't think they're smears.

[karynnj]

95. That would not have made a difference on this suit

Only people over 55 were going to be able to buy into Medicare. I think the Parliamentarian would not have allowed that provision under reconciliation.

But - the big point is that THERE WOULD STILL BE A MANDATE - so the court case would be exactly the same.

[notesdev]

9. Duh

the reason they didn't do it as a straight tax is Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making under $250k.

This was the only way to get the revenues while technically adhering to that pledge (even if violating it in spirit).

[breadandwine]

12. There was also a suggestion to BUY INTO Medicare which would not have raised taxes.

That would have been cheaper than corporate care too.

[emulatorloo]

30. Which Joe Lieberman didn't want you to have either

because he was pissed at the House Progressive Caucus, If they liked it, he was against it, even though it was his idea to do that a few years ago

[upi402]

11. Yep, but was it by "Democratic" design? n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

16. There have been 21 challenges, 17 thrown out of court, 2 ruled in favor

of the law as it stands and the one other ruling against it had the mandate as a stand alone clause.

This leave this one decision as the only one which threatens the entire law.

It seems unlikely that this decision, the most extreme of the 21, would be the one to upheld.


I like the way the Virgina court ruled. Throw out the mandate and only the mandate.

[breadandwine]

19. The issue is not the number of challenges. It's the challenge that gets upheld.

And the Times article says this is going to the Supreme Court, which is all that is needed to screw the law.

Even people like liberal Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who was a big critic of the law, said it was an improvement over no national health care law at all. If this goes to the Supreme Court, anyone want to take bets on what they will do?

[emulatorloo]

25. As always, Justice Kennedy is the swing vote.

[ProSense]

33. "Paul Krugman, who was a big critic of the law" What?

Guys, this is a major program to aid lower- and lower-middle-income families. How is that not a big progressive victory?

Health Care: Game On

Health Reform Myths

Medicare and Health Reform

[breadandwine]

36. You can cherry pick Krugman. But he said he didn't like it but saw it as better than nothing.

...

[ProSense]

40. Link? More

Healthcare: victory for America's soul

[BzaDem]

65. Thanks for the thorough debunking. n/t

[emulatorloo]

18. At anyrate, all the Secs of State involved are Republican Stooges

Other judges have ruled that it is constitutional

[breadandwine]

22. But if the Supreme Court decides to consider THIS ruling, that is all that is needed to kill the law

...

[emulatorloo]

27. Supreme Court will have to settle it eventually

But honestly I have know idea how it will sort out. If it is split, then Justice Kennedy will be the swing vote

[breadandwine]

38. I am not so confident since they voted that corporations are people.

....

[FreakinDJ]

29. Can I Cancel my State Mandated Auto-Insurance now

[emulatorloo]

31. I don't think there are any Republican Secretaries of State to take that on.

:toast:

[kelly1mm]

48. Your answer lies within your question. The State of Maryland could

force me to purchase health insurance because it is sovereign. The federal government on the other hand only has the powers granted to it by the states, one of which is the power to regulate interstate commerce. This judge has ruled that the federal government mandating that someone engage in commerce is not within its enumerated powers.

This really comes down to federalism, a subject that has not really been in the forefront of political thought for the last 50 years at least, but is intellectually interesting.

[breadandwine]

51. Very interesting point, kelly1mm. Unfortunately, one can easily guess

where our right wing Supreme Court will come down on the issue of Federalism, especially as it relates to the health care issue. This is a court some of whom are openly attending Republican and Tea Party meetings.

[kelly1mm]

56. I am torn on this as I am for health care reform but against the mandate.

I can see both sides in that the states (which could do mandates) probably will not due to political/fiscal reasons so that makes the Feds the more realistic entity to do it if they want to keep it with the mandates. They could have (and the SC MAY say that they did) make it a tax instead of a mandate to purchase which would be on firmer constitutional footing but the President and most of the congressional supporters were twisting themselves in knots to not call it a tax - which some courts have used against the justice department lawyers arguing for the law.

I think there will be a very educational debate on the fedralism issue that will set some very firm limits (or basically say there are no limits) on what the federal government can do.

[COLGATE4]

82. Lots of things the Federal govenment does are not within its

'enumerated powers', but, in the case, what was done was done persuant to an enumerated power, i.e. the right to regulate commerce.

[Statistical]

84. Still there are limits to the commerce clause.

The court has found numerous laws to be Unconstitutional despite the broad power of commerce clause.

Never before has Supreme Court said the commerce clause extends to mandating a purchase.

[kelly1mm]

97. I believe this will be the question the SC will have to decide - what is

the limit of the commerce clause. I think the debate will be interesting over the next 2 years as this issue works its way up to the SC.

The SC has struck down federal laws in the recent past concerning guns near schools and domestic violence as being outside of the claimed commerce clause so overturning the law would not be unprecedented. I also feel the issue concerning regulating activity vs. inactivity will be a point of contention.

[Balbus]

75. Your state doesn't make you have auto insurance.

It's only mandated if you drive. And it's your choice to drive.

[Statistical]

83. Sure. Your state doesn't mandate insurance.

Oh yeah mean if you want to keep a car and drive it on public roads. Well in that case you need insurance to protect OTHERS from your NEGLIGENCE.

Of course at any time you can either
a) stop owning a car
b) stop driving car on public roads.


Analogy Fail.

[dionysus]

35. you, and the GOP are now cheering.

[Kingofalldems]

39. Didn't Joe Lieberman help stop the public option?

[breadandwine]

41. This is about more than just bean counting on Capitol Hill.

Obama never sold healthcare to the public the way a true leader might. The first step was not counting votes but making a huge national stink about all the people who are getting screwed under the original system. We just had a report that a person with grave medical needs was screwed out of insurance coverage because the insurance company found that they had underpaid one month by 2 cents. Why didn't Obama make more of a stink about things like that? He was too busy selling a particular plan instead of building up public sentiment I think.

[ProSense]

44. "The first step was not counting votes" The next step is

is not trying to rewrite the history of how the public option didn't pass.

The next step is to strengthen the bill and implement it.

The fastest way to single payer for most states is going to be through the health care law, which provides federal funding.

[breadandwine]

46. Whatever. But you can't strengthen an existing law if it is fully struck down by the courts.

...

[ProSense]

50. Two stupid opinions out of dozens is not struck down.

That appears to be wishful thinking.

[AndyTiedye]

79. Yes. Lieberman Voted with the Repigs to Kill the Public Option

[Bluebear]

49. We'll fix it later!!!!!11

[LooseWilly]

52. If the requirement to spend 80 cents on the dollar on care works, mandate won't be needed- right?

Wasn't that the argument made about how the mandated insurance wouldn't come with skyrocketing prices?

Well, if it works, then it'll be like having the public option without a mandate. Right?

So who cares?

Personally, I hope the mandate is killed. If the 80 cents bit works, maybe I'll buy in... but without the mandate I can't be forced to buy in if it doesn't work.

Win—Win. :)

[TheKentuckian]

78. The MLR is never going to work. One it is set where the industry says they are anyway

and two it encourages them to just push as large a stream as possible, which is again the model they work on now.

We traded committing ourselves to the insurance overlords for them having to take our money. Call it an achievement if you'd like but I have only the gas face for the whole crookery.

[breadandwine]

53. Weiner makes my point ---

Weiner Reacts To Health Care Ruling: "We know this: the public option is constitutional."


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x317326

[ProSense]

54. And the point is still moot

If the bill had contained a public option, it would still be challenged by Republicans.

[UpNorthSusie]

57. Playing With People's Lives

The entire point of "Health Care Reform" was to help the disadvantaged and the middle class be able to get health care that they desperately need.

I have health problems that will take my life. But I have no health insurance, no money and no help from my state or country. The state (MN) turned me down because we made a thousand dollars over their guidelines. That's a thousand dollars that we use for food, house payments and repairs to our semi-truck. There is no money left over.

What can we do? I'm sick of the talk from the right that we're just a bunch of bums and that we'd find a way to misuse it. Any one care? Any answers?

Up North Susie

[dragonlady]

58. With a public option there would be no compulsion?

The mandate in the law means that you must buy some kind of health insurance, whether it be the public option or some other plan.

[breadandwine]

59. Not as I understand it.

You could have an option to get into a public health system like Medicare. It doesn't have to be compulsory at all although you could also write a law that makes it compulsory. But not essential to the concept of an OPTION.

[greatauntoftriplets]

60. Hi.

The moderators didn't realize that this was your original writing, but thought it was an excerpt from the article. There is no need to edit. Our apologies.

greatauntoftriplets
DU moderator

[breadandwine]

64. Thanks very much.

....

[Catherina]

62. Obama must really hate that the judge used his own words against him

Judge uses Obama’s words against him


In ruling against President Obama‘s health care law, federal Judge Roger Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s own position from the 2008 campaign against him, arguing that there are other ways to tackle health care short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.

“I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that ‘if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,’” Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of the 78-page ruling Monday.

...

The footnote was attached to the most critical part of Judge Vinson‘s ruling, in which he said the “principal dispute” in the case was not whether Congress has the power to tackle health care, but whether it has the power to compel the purchase of insurance.

...

During the presidential campaign, one key difference between Mr. Obama and his chief opponent, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was Mrs. Clinton‘s plan required all Americans to purchase insurance, and Mr. Obama‘s did not.

...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/31/judge-uses-obamas-words-against-him/

[ProSense]

66. "Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote "

The RW Washington Times would find that relevant, but it has nothing to do with the constitutionality of the law. Obama never claimed that a mandate was unconstitutional. Children's health care is mandated.

This is pure political posturing.

[Catherina]

69. Busy day today? n/t

[ProSense]

70. ? n/t

[dionysus]

72. she has to keep busy posting facts when so many lies are being spread.

:shrug:

[Hydra]

88. Oh, that's going to leave a mark

I'm continually amused at how President Obama seems to think he can say one thing at one point and then say later that he never took that position, and expect that not to blow up in his face.

[cbdo2007]

68. Obama writing us each a check for $1 Million isn't unconstitutional either....but that doesn't

mean it has any liklihood of happening.

[Cali_Democrat]

71. What's with the 6 dots in the title?

[slay]

74. Would 4 have been better?

[Statistical]

85. Because 5 dots would be uneven. DUH!

[Faryn Balyncd]

76. The public option is not only what American want, it is what is needed to fix perverse incentives

....of the current system.


(Actually what is needed is a single payer system, but a public option which provides access to fairly priced medical services will, in fact, result in increasing numbers of Americans choosing the public system.)

[breadandwine]

77. I think a public option would lead to a near-single payer system anyway.

If everyone could get Medicare, for instance, or if everyone could even just buy into Medicare, what would the insurance companies do? Say, "Um, we offer health care for more money than Medicare because we have to skim money off the top for profit, but love us anyway!"

Given the CHOICE, everyone would pick Medicare over private insurers because they only live to suck your blood.

Incidentally, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan preferred expansion of Medicare over President Clinton's healthcare plan. For me the argument is simple. The public knows and trusts Medicare so how could the right wing attack it as effectively as a new system people don't understand? Why invent something brand new when expanding an existing system would be so much less frightening to the public?

[AndyTiedye]

80. Because We Got Stabbed in the back by Lieberman, Again

[breadandwine]

87. Part of the problem is that Obama is not leader. He is a bean counter of votes.

The idea that you can lead a nation with or without the necessary votes on Capitol Hill but without being a true leader, that is the problem.

[AndyTiedye]

89. You CAN'T Lead the Nation Anywhere Without the Votes

The Repiglickins vote in lockstep. Lieberman is from the insurance-company state. They own him.

You can blame that on Obama if you want, but there isn't a Democrat alive (or dead)
who could have induced the Repiglickins or Lieberman to vote for any kind of public option.

[breadandwine]

90. Speaking of incentives, one should mention that healthcare has "inelastic demand."

That's an economic term that is a wee little embarrassment to the supply-and-demand crowd.

It means that no matter what the cost, you can't just not pay. If the price of burgers at McDonalds went up, you would just stop eating burgers. But you can't just stop taking needed medication or saving your life. So the demand is "inelastic." That means the industry can charge you a fortune and get away with it even if the cost is minimal.

[karynnj]

91. There would still have been a mandate had there been a public option

You are confusing having a public option with single payer. All the public option would have done was to have an additional choice which was a program run by the government. You would still have to buy it.

[breadandwine]

98. I'm saying de facto. I'm saying it would be similar in many respects

especially in the sense that it would force anyone trying to compete with it to stop ripping people off so much.

[du_da]

96. The best thing Obama can do with this

is to refocus the health care argument around items that the voters like and limit it to just that without all the extra stuff. They would be ok with a public option for example, so long as they aren't forced to take it nor that it gets preferential treatment via legislation. Public option is good in the people's eyes, because the people always like more choices, but for them to buy off on it as a legitimate option it has to be able to compete on its own merits. Add to that the features of the health care bill that people like such as removing preexisting conditions, but do so in a negotiated method both to gain support and to illustrate that the people's concerns were heard such as limiting a preexisting waiting period to a few weeks or at most a couple months. When people are concerned about this being taken advantage off, what they have in their mind is someone who broke their leg and is calling the insurance company to establish coverage while their buddy drives them to the hospital. What concerns the insurance companies though is the "I just got cancer" crowd. With a short term gap the incentive still exists to maintain insurance for emergencies without it being a mandate and without bankrupting people with expensive uncovered long term care.

If done right Obama can come out on top this way because he would playing to the opposition's hand but doing so with a loaded deck. The Republican's put themselves on the line by saying not only would they repeal but if successful they would work to put in place the parts the people like. They said this because they assumed it wouldn't get repealed of course. But they would be castrated if they backed out on that one if given the chance.

Then Obama turns around and runs his re-election on the claim of listening to people and gets more or less what he wanted out of it in the first place. Maybe he wins maybe he doesn't but then he would have a fighting chance, which is better than his chance with the entire bill going down in flames and not getting his name attached to something the people see as a reasonable replacement.

[breadandwine]

100. President Kennedy used the bully pulpit to argue for lots of things that only passed under Johnson.

Because Obama won't fight for things for the future and is obsessed with getting something passed now, even if it's Republican, he is not laying the groundwork for the future. And the tragedy is that he is still sucking up to the GOP and has learned nothing. It seems that that myopia will continue. It also seems that no one in the Democratic party will challenge him, which is probably the only way to force him to be progressive. The problem is that a leader moves people, not just fellow politicians and Obama is not a leader.