Europe Is Baffled by the U.S. Supreme Court

[piasabird]

So who is defending Europe? The dumb Americans are! Just pull all our troops out of Europe and see what happens.

 

[Moonbeam]

Them damn ingrates

 

[ericlp]

Thank god that retarded fruit bag didn't win...

Anyway... I'll volunteer to be shipped over!

 

[monovillage]

Buy your own ticket.

 

[PingviN]

So who is defending Europe? The dumb Americans are! Just pull all our troops out of Europe and see what happens.

Not much I would guess, feel free to leave at any time.

We want everyone here (in Europe) to have access to health care - regardless whether or not they can afford it on their own. Hell, you Americans spend as much tax money on healthcare as we do in Sweden, but then you add another equally large portion out of your own pockets. Seems to be it all boils down to American conservatism where you'd rather stick your hand in boiling water than not if the constitution said you should.

Times change.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Not much I would guess, feel free to leave at any time.

We want everyone here (in Europe) to have access to health care - regardless whether or not they can afford it on their own. Hell, you Americans spend as much tax money on healthcare as we do in Sweden, but then you add another equally large portion out of your own pockets. Seems to be it all boils down to American conservatism where you'd rather stick your hand in boiling water than not if the constitution said you should.

Times change.

They do change, and there are proper methods for amending the Constitution rather than just twisting its words.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Not much I would guess, feel free to leave at any time.

We want everyone here (in Europe) to have access to health care - regardless whether or not they can afford it on their own. Hell, you Americans spend as much tax money on healthcare as we do in Sweden, but then you add another equally large portion out of your own pockets. Seems to be it all boils down to American conservatism where you'd rather stick your hand in boiling water than not if the constitution said you should.

Times change.

Tell me why we should ignore that which provides the basis for our freedoms? We have a provision that says we have a right to due process and the former president did just as you suggest and ignored it. When people with ultimate authority are given license to do as they please then that generally winds up being a bad thing. There are those who promote the equivalent of a benign dictatorship but that won't happen here. As for costs political propensity isn't demographics, which is something Sweden doesn't understand. There needs to be reform, but adopting someone else's system at the expense of tossing out the Constitution is plain foolish. We ought to be evaluating OUR situation and looking for solutions for OUR needs. BTW, I think that as technology advances we'll be removing our bases and I'm all for that. I think we can cut way back now, but your governments want us there too.

 

[SNC]

The Guardian's Kevin Powell called the debate "surreal" in his Monday column. "Wasn't the point to make sure the richest and most powerful nation on the planet could protect its own people, as other nations do?" he wrote. "If Americans are promised not just liberty but life and happiness, is there not a constitutional right to affordable healthcare?"

If you omit the words "persuit of", then yes the level of confusion is understandable.

 

[freegeeks]

So who is defending Europe? The dumb Americans are! Just pull all our troops out of Europe and see what happens.

Defending against who?

 

[Genx87]

Why should we care what Europe thinks?

 

[monovillage]

Defending against who?

Soviet Union zombies.

 

[Dman8777]

All the constitutional arguments against a mandate are invalid in my opinion. The constitution was written over 2 centuries ago by people who had no idea what the future would bring. At the time, the average lifespan was 30-something years and the average expense for "medical-care" was probably a few hundred 2012 dollars over the course of ones entire life.

A number of the founding fathers were aristocrats with slaves. They did a pretty good job given the circumstances but Americans need to lose this idea that the founding fathers and their constitution were perfect.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have evolved with technology. No one today is satisfied with 30 years of life, for example. One side in this debate wants to adhere strictly to what the framers envisioned but I would argue the current system of healthcare in the US achieves the opposite. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a generalized description of a desirable life. Homeless people with kidney disease who clog up ER's for dialysis (sp?) don't live a desirable life.

You can be juvenile and laugh at old pictures of European men in dresses but when it comes to the bottom line, it's the Europeans (and all other western nations) who have the last laugh.

 

[crashtestdummy]

I'm kind of intrigued by your question, but do not understand it sufficiently. Pls explain furher.

Fern

We alter the free market all the time using tax incentives. If I have a mortgage payment, I get to deduct that total form my taxable income. This is effectively paying me for having a mortgage. The same goes for insulating my house or buying solar panels. All of these are effectively subsidies for purchases that the government finds socially beneficial. Nobody challenges the constitutionality of those breaks. Similarly, it has been already established that congress has the authority to raise taxes. Thus, congress should have the authority to raise taxes across the board by 2%, but offer to discount that hike if you have a raise. I don't see any way in which the government overreaches it's authority on that.

Now compare this to the individual mandate: If you don't have insurance, when you file your taxes there will be a "penalty" of $625 or 2.5% of income, whichever is higher. The end effect of this penalty is the same as the situation described above. The only real difference is that the implementation has one fewer step.

There are many arguments for why the individual mandate isn't wise, and I think that's where the debate should be. I don't think there are any grounds to claim that it is an unconstitutional overreach of congressional power. There are already well-established equivalents in implementation that are viewed as benign.

 

[dmcowen674]

All the constitutional arguments against a mandate are invalid in my opinion. The constitution was written over 2 centuries ago by people who had no idea what the future would bring. At the time, the average lifespan was 30-something years and the average expense for "medical-care" was probably a few hundred 2012 dollars over the course of ones entire life.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have evolved with technology. No one today is satisfied with 30 years of life, for example.

So should we adopt a Logans Run ideology and end all life at 30?

Carousel would be a Republican's dream would it not?

Oh unless you are a Republican and want to live beyond 30 yourself.

 

[FoBoT]

So should we adopt a Logans Run ideology and end all life at 30?

Carousel would be a Republican's dream would it not?

Oh unless you are a Republican and want to live beyond 30 yourself.

sounds more like something a totalitarian or authoritarian would support, of which there are some in both Democrat and Republican political parties. or perhaps any Statist, those that want the government to control your life up to and including deciding upon your death

 

[Acanthus]

Alas, someone has to pay for that right. I would prefer to keep the "right" to not be forced to pay for someone else's healthcare

You already are. This just formalizes things and stops the poor from going bankrupt when they break a leg.

 

[Fern]

Not much I would guess, feel free to leave at any time.

We want everyone here (in Europe) to have access to health care - regardless whether or not they can afford it on their own. Hell, you Americans spend as much tax money on healthcare as we do in Sweden, but then you add another equally large portion out of your own pockets. Seems to be it all boils down to American conservatism where you'd rather stick your hand in boiling water than not if the constitution said you should.

Times change.

An absurd remark actually. I'll explain.

Our excessive HC costs have nothing to do with "American conservatism", nor the Constitution. And nothing in this HC law addresses those excessive costs.

According to physicians themselves (Former Chair of AMA and the New England Journal of Medicine) our primary problem is a lack of standards or guidelines for physicians in treating patients. Mostly this pertains to the more expensive chronic diseases (e.g., heart disease and cancer) because that's where the bulk of the cost is. The NE Journal has noticed in studies that similar patient (same health, same disease etc) receive wildly varying amounts of care, typically differing by the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There were absolutely no medical reasons for this disparate treatment.

Other professions here have standards, no reasons physicians should be allowed to 'practice' unfettered with other peoples' money.

We have other problems too. E.g., we subsidize Europe's and Canada's prescription drugs. I see no valid reason for that.

I don't think it's so much a political ideological problem. It is a problem of incompetence by our elected politicians (almost none of whom are physicians, and the few who are have complained about being shut out of HC reform) and bureaucrats. They simply have failed to understand the problems and regulate properly.

I do not believe our Constitution prevents a UHC or single payer system. Our Constitution provide several 'tools' for our federal govt to achieve objectives. Some tools are more powerful than others. Taxation is, IMO, the most powerful tool it has. Europe's HC system system rests upon the power of govt to tax, at least it did in France where I lived for some years. But for some reason our politicians decided to use something called the Interstate Commerce Clause ("ICC"), another one of it's tools in the Constitution. The ICC is a weaker tool, IMO, and was designed to facilitate the flow of goods (commerce) across state lines. It is was poor choice by our politicians and, again, borne of incompetence. Had they chosen the power of taxation we wouldn't be having a Supreme Court case now.

Fern

 

[Fern]

We alter the free market all the time using tax incentives. If I have a mortgage payment, I get to deduct that total form my taxable income. This is effectively paying me for having a mortgage. The same goes for insulating my house or buying solar panels. All of these are effectively subsidies for purchases that the government finds socially beneficial. Nobody challenges the constitutionality of those breaks. Similarly, it has been already established that congress has the authority to raise taxes. Thus, congress should have the authority to raise taxes across the board by 2%, but offer to discount that hike if you have a raise. I don't see any way in which the government overreaches it's authority on that.

Now compare this to the individual mandate: If you don't have insurance, when you file your taxes there will be a "penalty" of $625 or 2.5% of income, whichever is higher. The end effect of this penalty is the same as the situation described above. The only real difference is that the implementation has one fewer step.

There are many arguments for why the individual mandate isn't wise, and I think that's where the debate should be. I don't think there are any grounds to claim that it is an unconstitutional overreach of congressional power. There are already well-established equivalents in implementation that are viewed as benign.

You are on the right track.

Congress, or the federal govt has several Constitutional powers available to it. The most powerful being taxation. Initially our FF granted this, via the Constitution, in only a very limited fashion (indirect taxes). They feared the power of this tool in the hands of govt. It was only much much later in 1913 that we gave the govt the power of income taxation.

I believe the power of income tax provide an easy path (in terms of the Constitution) to UHC.

(However, drop the "penalty" part. For technical legal reasons and theories of taxation I won't go into here that will run afoul of tax and drives us back into a Constitutional problem.)

The grounds the current HC bill is unconstitutional rests upon the manner in which Congress cobbled this together. The "penalty" sabotages them from relying upon income tax. Otherwise, they have chosen to rely upon the ICC. It's a stretch (actually more like a perversion IMO) to claim the ICC provides Congress the power to enforce UHC via a mandate. If it wasn't a stretch we wouldn't have a SCOTUS case. If it's a perversion it'll be struck done.

Fern

 

[LunarRay]

Scalia is right, I think... IF Government can mandate health coverage they could mandate eating broccoli and isn't that exactly what government ought to be able to do? They mandate including fluoride in our drinking water in various locale. The SCOTUS is charged with determining IF Congress has that power and define under what provision it exists.

A finding that Congress does not then places the entire 2700 page law in jeopardy because the Mandate bit seems inextricably linked to the rest... Europeans are not looking at the roll of the SCOTUS but, rather, they are focused on the rights of the people and that SCOTUS should abrogate their responsibility in favor of those rights.
To me this is exactly what we don't want SCOTUS to do. Regardless of who looses or wins in this it must be lawful. We don't want SCOTUS to legislate and I would see them doing exactly that if they find based on some willy nilly rationale.

I want Universal Health Care. I want everyone covered but I want it done based on the Constitutionality of the Act..
Europe ought to ask why Congress may not have the power or explain why it does. Anything else they opine is nice but it is not provided with the underlying legal theory.

 

[silverpig]

Scalia is right, I think... IF Government can mandate health coverage they could mandate eating broccoli and isn't that exactly what government ought to be able to do? They mandate including fluoride in our drinking water in various locale. The SCOTUS is charged with determining IF Congress has that power and define under what provision it exists.

A finding that Congress does not then places the entire 2700 page law in jeopardy because the Mandate bit seems inextricably linked to the rest... Europeans are not looking at the roll of the SCOTUS but, rather, they are focused on the rights of the people and that SCOTUS should abrogate their responsibility in favor of those rights.
To me this is exactly what we don't want SCOTUS to do. Regardless of who looses or wins in this it must be lawful. We don't want SCOTUS to legislate and I would see them doing exactly that if they find based on some willy nilly rationale.

I want Universal Health Care. I want everyone covered but I want it done based on the Constitutionality of the Act..
Europe ought to ask why Congress may not have the power or explain why it does. Anything else they opine is nice but it is not provided with the underlying legal theory.

So the government can make you pay for roads, for anti-drug enforcement, for a bunch of guys to go kill Iraqis, for schools for other people's kids, but they can't make you pay for healthcare?

 

[Fern]

So the government can make you pay for roads, for anti-drug enforcement, for a bunch of guys to go kill Iraqis, for schools for other people's kids, but they can't make you pay for healthcare?

I suspect they can.

But, and I think I've explained this pretty well already, it's HOW they make you pay for it.

Congress chose the wrong way.

Fern

 

[monovillage]

Europeans are baffled by soap and water and regular showers, no surprise the Constitution confuses them.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

So the government can make you pay for roads, for anti-drug enforcement, for a bunch of guys to go kill Iraqis, for schools for other people's kids, but they can't make you pay for healthcare?

Can your government make you carry a firearm or be financially punished?

 

[LunarRay]

So the government can make you pay for roads, for anti-drug enforcement, for a bunch of guys to go kill Iraqis, for schools for other people's kids, but they can't make you pay for healthcare?

The SCOTUS call some stuff a tax which was part of the argument in this case too...
There is explicit power and then there is inferred power that Congress and the Executive have.
Additionally, there are State Rights and Federal Rights (if you will). The Supremacy Clause trumps State law when the Federal law says no to Marijuana and the State says it is legal...
It is Executive Power that enables the Iraqi thing with some kind of Congressional ok given IF the President bothers to comply...

Justice Roberts came up with Three levels of Executive authority and all that... What is Congressional and what is Executive but all the time it is SCOTUS who determines what the Constitution confers and to whom.

Maybe a case has never been brought or cert given to bring some issue to the court... With some exceptions the SCOTUS sits as an appellate Court... It has to sorta been asked to decide.

 

[LunarRay]

I suspect they can.

But, and I think I've explained this pretty well already, it's HOW they make you pay for it.

Congress chose the wrong way.

Fern

I'm beginning to think this might also be seen to be a State issue and omit the ICC from the picture... not sure how yet but think it would have worked out better.

IF it is a tax like SS and Medicare then it would fly but to mandate as they did seems a stretch to me.