Supreme Court Upholds "Obamacare!"

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Sweetleaf
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28 Jun 2012, 11:53 am

Jacoby wrote:

ArrantPariah wrote:

Jacoby wrote:

Yay! We can all pay more for health insurance! Those insurance executives weren't rich enough! Hopefully the SWAT team they send to my house for not being able to pay this 'tax' doesn't kill my dog before sending me to their rape cage.

Sorry, but you're way out of line, once again.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack ... ike-a-tax/

Quote:

It does not apply to individuals who do not pay federal income taxes because their household income is less than the filing threshold in the Internal Revenue Code...

Roberts concludes the mandate functions more like a tax than the “penalty” for not buying insurance the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act labels it as, because in most cases “the amount due will be far less than the price of insurance,’’ and the IRS is “not allowed to use those means most suggestive of a punitive sanction, such as criminal prosecution,’’ to enforce it.

Moreover, he writes, “taxes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new”. For example, “federal and state taxes can compose more than half the retail price of cigarettes, not just to raise more money, but to encourage people to quit smoking.’’ He notes the court has also upheld “such obviously regulatory measures as taxes on selling marijuana and sawed-off shotguns.”

You've been listening to Repubnican propaganda without verifying, once again.

Romney's supporters all have health insurance, and absolutely nothing to worry about.

Those of you who are too poor to pay federal income taxes and also don't want health insurance similarly have absolutely nothing to worry about.

The Repubnican Party is simply trying to get you all riled up over nothing, and their ability to succeed at this will determine their chances to place Mitt Romney in the White House.

Do you know how much health insurance is? Do you know how low the filing threshold is for federal income taxes? For a lot of people health insurance alone costs more than the filing threshold and now the price of health insurance will go up and up and up. Basically if you're a homeless person, you don't have to buy health insurance. Thanks Obama.

They said on CNN that this "tax" will likely be treated as an extension of your income taxes so if you don't pay the "tax", you'll be not be paying your income tax. So they'll put you in prison for not paying your income taxes not for failing to buy health insurance. Some choice.

Now that is just screwed up....How much influence in the government do these insurance companies really have? I mean how the hell did they manage to get the IRS to collect a fee from people that is just added to the income tax for not purchasing their product? Does the IRS than keep this money or return it to the insurance companies as compensation for everyone who doesn't buy insurance?

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marshall
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28 Jun 2012, 11:53 am

Sweetleaf wrote:

Oldout wrote:

Let's not forget there are many in our country and around the world who would just like to have some kind of healthcare no matter what adjective one puts in front. I'm not a diehard liberal, but it is the 21st Century and the US is the greatest nation on earth, so we are told, therefore, we should lead by showing the world healthcare is a human right/necessity.

Well not to bring you down any but some countries already have Universal Healthcare, so technically even if the U.S went that direction we'd not be 'leading' the rest of the world, that would be those countries that already have Universal Healthcare. I guess the U.S is not the greatest nation on earth after all.

Yes. Countries like Costa Rica are ahead of the US. They even treat foreigners there on vacation, for free! My mom broke her ankle on a trip there and she got medical treatment just as good as what you'd get in the US. This is a country that has a quarter of the income per capita as the US. The majority of people are poor by US standards, but they can still get healthcare. Even the squatters living in self-constructed tin shacks with no electricity can get healthcare.

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28 Jun 2012, 11:57 am

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Well Universal Healtcare is rather socialistic........but what is so wrong with socialism?

Universal healthcare is no more socialist than public schools. So either we're already socialists, or we would not become so.
As Seinfeld would say "not that there's anything wrong with that", but I know socialism=bogeyman to a lot of Americans.

TalksToCats
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28 Jun 2012, 12:00 pm

YippySkippy wrote:

TalksToCats - I'm American, and I don't understand why people don't want universal healthcare either. We have public education, and public police and fire departments. The government builds and maintains roads and infrastructure. The government controls post offices. All of that is fine, but for some reason universal healthcare would mean we're socialists or communists?? Don't try to understand us, we're stupid.

Ok, so this made me laugh and I completely agree with you're argument, obviously, from what I posted above - but I'm sure [most] American's are not stupid - as far as I can tell some people against universal public healthcare are very intelligent - so what are the sound intellectual arguments against it? Are there any?

Sweetleaf
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28 Jun 2012, 12:06 pm

YippySkippy wrote:

Quote:

Well Universal Healtcare is rather socialistic........but what is so wrong with socialism?

Yeah those ideas come from socialism not capitalism...thing is there is nothing bad about socialism. I don't know if there are any places with pure socialism however. We do have some socialism mixed in with our system because pure capitalism it turns out does not work very well as it's too unstable.

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simon_says
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28 Jun 2012, 12:47 pm

The comedy is that Mitt Romney is out saying how horrible this is. But, uh, three years ago he wrote an op-ed asking Obama to do it.

Kraichgauer
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28 Jun 2012, 12:57 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

HOO! HOO!
Now the only thing better would be for everyone to be covered by Medicare, and give us real universal healthcare.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Somehow I don't think this bill is going to lead to anything good like that...

I think it very well can be a first step toward socialized healthcare.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

How is forcing people to purchase private health insurance or making them pay more taxes a move towards socialized healthcare...sounds more like a move towards the government forcing people to buy products. I mean if I had my way there would not be 'insurance' there would be Universal Healthcare and everyone would be subject to quality treatment.....not having to go through the middleman or insurance company who can decide not to cover your medical costs even though you are paying for their services for pretty much any reason they see fit.

I mean why should someone pay higher taxes or a fine to the IRS as they prefer to call it since apparently tax is a dirty word for not purchasing a product from the private sector. Maybe the insurance companies should pay a higher tax for everyone who decides not to purchase it. Also I can see how the requirement for an employer to buy insurance for their employees could hurt small local buisinesses. I mean because it doesn't matter if they can't afford the cost they either have to pay a fine or buy the insurance.....even if the employees are quite fine without the insurance.

The thing is, universal healthcare's been almost a century in the making. FDR tried it, and it was shot down - and yet, social security managed to get passed. It's been a long, hard road, spanning generations - and I will be the first to acknowledge that Obama's plan is not close to perfect. But as long as there are people willing to fight for healthcare for all, the fight is hardly over.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

simon_says
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28 Jun 2012, 1:13 pm

The dissenting four wanted to toss the entire law. Every scrap of it.

I wonder if they were unreasonable enough to drive Roberts to the left?

marshall
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28 Jun 2012, 1:20 pm

Jacoby wrote:

marshall wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

HOO! HOO!
Now the only thing better would be for everyone to be covered by Medicare, and give us real universal healthcare.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Somehow I don't think this bill is going to lead to anything good like that...

I think it very well can be a first step toward socialized healthcare.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

You mean tyrannical communist/fascist healthcare. :lol:

It seems to some people here the government making anyone do anything is tyrannical. Nevermind that real tyrannical governments don't put nearly as much effort into forcing people do things to advance the common good (such as social safety nets or healthcare) as they put into purging all dissenters from government and locking up people who publicly express disagreement with government. The healthcare bill is not tyrannical because people who disagree with it can easily vote for Republicans who have pledged to repeal it. Nobody is preventing them from doing that.

There is only the illusion of dissent. Do you really think the guy who inspired the law will repeal it? Give me a brake. The corporations run both parties.

Then the best thing to do is form a popular push for a constitutional amendment to break the two party system and introduce more variety. Instant runoff ballots with rankings rather than single votes would be one solution. Another would be to have proportional representation in the house by party platform rather than the current regional winner-take-all congressional districts. The Senate already gives states representation in the federal government. The job of federal government is to manage federal issues, not represent tiny regional special interests. Leave that to state and local representatives.

Tim_Tex
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28 Jun 2012, 1:41 pm

I have concerns about whether efficiency and quality will be affected, as well as whether or not taxes will go way up.

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marshall
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28 Jun 2012, 1:42 pm

TalksToCats wrote:

YippySkippy wrote:

They think it's stealing from one person to give to another. They also assume they will always be healthy and never require emergency care, so why should they have to pay for others? The people who are suffering from lack of affordable healthcare don't really have a voice and can be comfortably ignored. There's also the fact that society would become much less prosperous, anarchic, and outright dangerous to all if those other government roles were abandoned. We can still keep hobbling along as a nation and ignore the healthcare problem. It's not a personal enough issue for the lucky majority who have good insurance and/or no major health issues and they don't want to be burdened with thinking about how to deal with those who are less fortunate. They're more scared of losing their own money thinking the economy is going to completely collapse if government doesn't appease big business 100% of the way. You can't raise taxes or the rich will move somewhere else and ship all their labor overseas! People become frightened they start thinking about themselves only.

TalksToCats
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28 Jun 2012, 1:52 pm

Tim_Tex wrote:

I have concerns about whether efficiency and quality will be affected, as well as whether or not taxes will go way up.

Thanks, I understand the tax argument (I'm happy to pay more tax, but I know lots of people are not) - would you mind elaborating a bit more about the concerns that efficiency and quality will be affected.

TalksToCats
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28 Jun 2012, 2:02 pm

marshall wrote:

So some of the arguments against universal healthcare are of the I'm ok, so that's ok variety.

Again, I disagree, but I sort of understand where these arguments are coming from.

It's bit like the arguments we frequently have in the UK about what levels of reductions in freedom we should have under anti-terrorism legislation - along the lines of if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to fear (with people assuming they are unlikely to ever be falsely accused).

We have the you can't raise taxes or the rich will move argument frequently about things in the UK too (again I disagree - but I'm not exactly sure what the evidence is for or against this - but it's a very common argument.)

Sweetleaf
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28 Jun 2012, 2:12 pm

simon_says wrote:

The comedy is that Mitt Romney is out saying how horrible this is. But, uh, three years ago he wrote an op-ed asking Obama to do it.

Well its all a game so this is not surprising in the least. I mean the election has probably already been decided......the ongoing drama is just to keep people divided. I mean obviously its either the democrats are evil and the republicans will save us this time around, or the republicans are evil and the democrats will save us this time around so you gotta follow that drama and vote for the lesser of two evils dammit.

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Sweetleaf
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28 Jun 2012, 2:13 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

HOO! HOO!
Now the only thing better would be for everyone to be covered by Medicare, and give us real universal healthcare.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Somehow I don't think this bill is going to lead to anything good like that...

I think it very well can be a first step toward socialized healthcare.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

And who are these people willing to fight for healthcare for all, obviously not Obama and as far as I can tell the Federal Government in general does not seem to care too much.

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Kraichgauer
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28 Jun 2012, 2:48 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

HOO! HOO!
Now the only thing better would be for everyone to be covered by Medicare, and give us real universal healthcare.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Somehow I don't think this bill is going to lead to anything good like that...

I think it very well can be a first step toward socialized healthcare.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

And who are these people willing to fight for healthcare for all, obviously not Obama and as far as I can tell the Federal Government in general does not seem to care too much.

People like you and me, buddy; people like you and me.
As you're pretty articulate, and still have your whole life ahead of you, you've got a better chance than me to get into office and shake things up.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

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