The United States is a self-governing republic. If it wants to saddle itself with an unaffordable and badly designed health insurance system managed by the Federal Government who’s to stop them? Just as with the carbon tax here, there is no sanction for such legislation outside further legislation to overturn. If the country votes to keep Obama as President, that is the end of the story. And since the means used by Obama is similar to the means used here to force everyone into the super guarantee, it’s a device, but why should it be unconstitutional?
This is not to say I am in favour of either socialised medicine or the carbon tax. Socialist engineering both here and there will bring ruin to large numbers within their countries with no compensating good. But if the socially engineered are content to vote these people into office and then keep them there, what is the answer?
The American election is now about two matters, the state of the economy and the health care system. Obama has been catastrophically bad for both. The Americans will now get to decide who will be their President under the guidance of the most biased and corrupt media in the world.
But I will say this. With Romney the Republican nominee, at least he has a history of supporting measures to improve access to health care in the one state he was governor of. His opposition to this set of measures is not blanket opposition to all possible sets of measures. I don’t know if it will make the difference in the end, but it does at least seem to me that there is some advantage to him in saying so as part of his campaign.
So much for the US Constitution establishing ‘limited government’.
KC
30 Jun 12 at 8:58 am
But economies fluctuate while there is a growing sense that Obamacare will devastate a healthcare system that provided amazing levels of healthcare for most people.
For most people this will destroy everything that works, like the amazing cutting edge in every cancer type of treatment you can get at a university hospital, and just add more expense as the bonus.
One of the ways Obamacare was constructed was to create benefits first, costs later. Hopefully enough the Dems thought to get Obama reelected. Those “free” mammograms and physicals because there was no out of pocket or deductible and adding children until the absurd age of 26 raised the costs of private insurance by a huge amount.
If it did not happen to you, you know someone drowning in those costs with a $10,000 deductible.
This issue and the way it was decided is crystallizing a sense that governments are trying to socially engineer their voters. And that’s not going over well.
Just wait until we pile on the education component of the social reengineering.
Both are fundamentally intrusive. With no upside for most US voters.
As with the carbon tax, hopefully, more and more voters are reacting to politicians and bureaucrats with a skeptical–”We know what you are doing to us and it is unacceptable” attitude.
Robin
30 Jun 12 at 9:07 am
So after another speciously argued post the conclusion is that it’s brilliant the GOP chose Romney author of an individually mandated Romneycare to oppose the incumbent President who copied Romney for his Obamacare which is disliked by 2/3rds of the electorate?
JamesK
30 Jun 12 at 9:45 am
James K-
Are you saying that you think I posted specious arguments?
Really?
Robin
30 Jun 12 at 10:05 am
No Robin.
The original post.
Or did you argue it’s good that the GOP nominee is
Romney ‘cos he fathered Romneycare which fathered Obummercare?
JamesK
30 Jun 12 at 10:46 am
Socialist engineering at work, serving the poor of the European welfare state:
http://www.newser.com/story/149132/desperate-europeans-try-to-sell-kidneys-lungs.html
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/black-market-for-body-parts-spreads-among-the-poor-in-europe-237556
(I know this deals primarily with eastern Europe, but sill worth considering in the light of European ‘benevolence’.)
John Mc
30 Jun 12 at 11:20 am
Steve,
Are you saying that Romney has credibility to argue against Obamacare because he implemented pretty much the same law in his home state? That’s just bizarre.
And Robin,
You seem to think that Obamacare will limit people paying for their own healthcare. It won’t. There will always be a market for advanced treatments, and if anything by broadening demand for services the incentive to make more effective treatments will grow.
The 26 year old provision is a direct consequence of the extremely high cost of health care relative to entry level jobs. This has nothing to do with Obamacare but is the consequence of the current health care system. To add a young person to an existing policy is much, much cheaper, and usually a good deal for the insurance company, than insuring them individually. And, not that you will believe me, but preventative care, and birth control, end up being cheaper in the long run, than charging for those services and dealing with the consequences of not doing preventative health care.
WadeJ
30 Jun 12 at 11:26 am
Steve,
Obamacare isn’t a policy debate but a fundamental Constitutional issue, and it’s telling that four of the Supreme Court justices concluded that this legislation is unconstitutional in its entirety.
The US Constitution is expressly designed to limit the reach both of government and of electoral majorities. In other words, the notion that a government can legislate whatever it pleases so long as it can maintain a political majority violates the entire premise of the Constitution.
For US citizens the idea of limited government is pretty much the second lesson in basic civics, right after the bit about the US being a representative democracy in which every adult gets a vote. So in my view this ruling suggests that either the Supreme Court has lost its way or else Roberts is playing a clever and very dangerous game.
As for who’s to stop them, well, the Second Amendment is always present as the re-set button on the Constitution.
I find an interesting parallel here in Australia, where the Gillard government has managed to scrape together the barest of majorities and is now frantically trying to dictate tyrannical new powers for itself before the axe falls. Yet the notion of checks and balances is much weaker here, as is the concept of individual liberty, so I tend to think (unhappily) that we actually are getting the government we deserve — good and hard.
Meanwhile, thanks for posting. We may disagree this once, but it’s always good to read what you have to say. Ironic that the first time I was encouraged to comment was on something like this.
Regards
MHG
MHG
30 Jun 12 at 11:42 am
Wade -
Nobody but the multimillionaires can pay for their own healthcare in the US once major illness or surgery sets in. The current level of specialization doesn’t work.
Who will pay for the cost of a 2nd lung transplant?
A lymphoma stem transplant?
Doctor compensation has been the only squeeze point left for several years and we are already seeing less specialization.
And no birth control is not cheaper in the long run-it is a regular expense of a large number of people. The antithesis of insurance.
In fact it sends the numbers into orbit. I know. I ran the numbers years ago when Human Resources answered to me in an earlier version of my life. It swamped our health care costs because it is so consistently a cost of so many employees or their dependents.
Robin
30 Jun 12 at 12:57 pm
I’ll pick on one.
The law sets out minimum standards. Not maximum standards. There’s nothing stopping the market offering plans that cover cutting edge strategies.
WadeJ
30 Jun 12 at 1:03 pm
Umm yes. He can persuasively argue this for two reasons.
It was state based and secondly the number of uninsured in Mass at the time was around 7.5%, which with his plan lowered it by a trifling 2.5% approx.
He was never talking the sorts of proportional numbers that the Kenyan is trying to do, you idiot.
You’ve been told this before and it seems like it goes through one eyeball and then out the other.
JC
30 Jun 12 at 1:11 pm
Doofus, you also need to look at carefully at what is being mandated to figure out if there is enough money for people to spend to go up the chain.
That’s one of the biggest problems in US healthcare at the moment which Kenyancare doesn’t change.
The number of politically based mandates to capture constituencies and not allowing for deviation has cause upward pressure on premiums in addition to the fact that most are state wide plans only.
You don’t have the level of flexibility in choosing options like you do here for instance in the private plans. It one size fits all and it has a Mercedes, if not a Roll Royce sticker that you have to buy or at least the employer is forced to provide. for the most part.
Again , stop talking about shit you don’t understand.
JC
30 Jun 12 at 1:22 pm
WadeJ
You need to understand that if the US went to say our system, it would be shitty of course, but it’s nowhere near as bad as what the Kenyan is offering in terms of cost control and general efficiencies.
Kenyancare is not some remaking of the US healthcare system. It’s simply an expansion of the current rotten failed system. In other words it’s even worse from that perspective.
That’s not to suggest that our system, particularly the public delivery is any good. However I hasten to add that I reckon the US system would be worse than ours even if they adopted our system. The reason is that it’s too fucking big and would almost be impossible to administer from top down.
Ours is much easier because the bulk of the population live in the cities and we’re not as spread out, so it makes it easier in a lot of ways. It would be almost impossible to run a centralized healthcare system in America like ours as the spread and diversity would crater it. Soviet models don’t work and never have.
JC
30 Jun 12 at 1:33 pm
Americas actual health problem is that regulation of doctors and all per medical professions has quotas, just like taxi cab licenses. It doesn’t matter how good students are they only allow a set number per year.. So they never keep up with demand, and prices accelerate. American doctors are no better than the rest of the west, but there are less per person and they charge double per person.
obama real failing on health is his failure to realize this, not so much the tax system he imposes. If it too expenses, it’s to expensive. Forcing more people will only make it worse. His new system will actually inhibit supply even more.
Mundi
30 Jun 12 at 5:00 pm
Mundi, it is pretty much the same here.
The logic goes like this: Divide the total annual cost of healthcare by the number of doctors. Then claim healthcare costs will rise if we have more doctors. So to control healthcare costs we need to limit the number of doctors. Simple!
Eyrie
1 Jul 12 at 7:52 am