SCOTUS To Rule On Healthcare Law (Make Your Predictions Here!)

[bean]

And heads were exploding all day long on talk radio, on facebook, etc.
It was hilarious.
I have a friend on facebook who shall be unnamed who was all wild about it. They were going to lose their good insurance blah blah blah.
I refuted her post and no reply.
She then went on to post some drivel from Fox News about "living in Sweden"


Sweden.
That'd be a helluva country. I'd love it. People have decent jobs and make shitpiles of money. No one is destitute. Lots of people have plenty. And a great health care system. Moms get a year off when baby is born. And, I like Abba.

And then Mark Levin blathers on about how this is all leading to us standing in the rice field, working for the gubament. Like that is really happening in Sweden, Norway, France, Canada, the UK, Switzerland, Germany, or the other first world nations who have just decided that health care is a basic human right....

[dramaturge]

Mark Levin knows better. And in a way, I really think he's being disingenuous, as he absolutely knows whatever horror stories he tells/makes up about actual nationalized health care--which the PPACA is not, so comparing it is irresponsible anyway--carry much more weight with his listeners/readers because he's from England. His audience accepts what he says about it without question simply because of that. I know, because my dad, who's usually slightly skeptical, doesn't doubt a word that man says about the NHS, and when Levin claims that's what we'll have, my dad goes right along with it. After all, Levin's British. He knows, right?

Not so much.

[myotch]

Here's a question...Now that health insurance is mandated to the individual in the form of taxation, can healthcare be considered somewhat socialized now (or when it takes effect in 2014)?

AND, just for fun since we had some fun with Godwin's law earlier and elsewhere....If the insurance companies remain private insurance companies, and the individual mandate is, in effect, taxation that goes straight to private companies...What's the difference between fascism as it relates to private enterprise and the Affordable Health Care Act as it now stands, new and improved from SCOTUS?

[fundyvangelicalcatholic]

Here's another take. I refuse to purchase healthcare under the individual mandate and do not get a tax refund (which the penalty is taken from). I get sick, so then I "get" healthcare when I get sick because I cannot be refused because of a pre-existing condition! What a country

[bean]

Myotch: the difference between fascism and what you describe is this: Fascism is a marriage of state and corporate power to benefit the elite and ruling classes. Do you really think the elite and ruling classes benefit from this somehow? How about those insurance companies who will now be held accountable--no more cutting people off, no more BS lifetime limits, no more jacking peoples rates. Those companies hate this new law. Why?

Fascism almost always has as its core hyper nationalism, the glorification of the military, and one or more scapegoat groups who are blamed for problems by people who are not thinking. (Turns attention away from the real issues.)

I'm worried about fascism in this country because I see a lot of parallels. But not in a law that levels the field for the little guy against the insurance companies.

[bean]

(06-30-2012 07:09 AM)fundyvangelicalcatholic Wrote:  Here's another take. I refuse to purchase healthcare under the individual mandate and do not get a tax refund (which the penalty is taken from). I get sick, so then I "get" healthcare when I get sick because I cannot be refused because of a pre-existing condition! What a country

Agreed, and I can't think of a better way to do it other than "Medicare For All." Just cover everyone 100 percent out of the gate.

[myotch]

(06-30-2012 07:25 AM)bean Wrote:  Myotch: the difference between fascism and what you describe is this: Fascism is a marriage of state and corporate power to benefit the elite and ruling classes. Do you really think the elite and ruling classes benefit from this somehow? How about those insurance companies who will now be held accountable--no more cutting people off, no more BS lifetime limits, no more jacking peoples rates. Those companies hate this new law. Why?

Because private business is a risk, even moreso for insurance.

Where private insurance before represented a relationship between the insurer and the customer, private insurance companies now serve the national interest, by law, through taxation.

Quote:Fascism almost always has as its core hyper nationalism, the glorification of the military, and one or more scapegoat groups who are blamed for problems by people who are not thinking. (Turns attention away from the real issues.)

Good grief - the last part of your sentence about scapegoat groups. That's scary because all sides of the political spectrum do this now. It's the Democrats fault, it's the republicans, it's Dubya's fault....Businesses aren't hiring, so it's their fault...It's the TEA Party's fault.

I'm not promoting the idea that Obamacare is fascism. I'm trying to understand the fundamental difference between fascism and Obamacare. I don't believe they can be conflated. But I'm trying to understand why they are dissimilar. In more or less a joking way.

Let's put it this way. Is there another "tax" that goes directly from the consumer to a private business or corporation without going through some kind of government entity in America, (or, of course, collected by business to give to the government)?

Since this is a tax, is it right to say that Obama has now broken his campaign promise to not raise taxes on the poor and middle class?

[bean]

It will actually be a tax credit for most middle income Americans, not an increase.

I know YOU are not making that point, but others have. The fact is that insurance companies were not designed to be private business concerns. BCBS started in the 1960s as a NON PROFIT public corporation. Wow, how things have changed.

The real problem is we have a for profit system in medicine and insurance. We need a non-profit system. (Not a no money system, just a non-obscene profit system)

Are those "taxes" as you call them going to any corporation? I think you might be overstating that. I would submit they are going to offset our already public expenditures on medical care and replace those costs. No private business will be pocketing them..

[Darrell]

Quote:The real problem is we have a for profit system in medicine and insurance. We need a non-profit system.

I disagree completely.

I work in a medical facility where there is 0 profit motive and as a result the service and patient care absolutely sucks. Money is motivator. If a patient can take their money elsewhere then it motivates me to give them better service. That's just simple economics.

[myotch]

(06-30-2012 07:53 AM)bean Wrote:  Are those "taxes" as you call them going to any corporation? I think you might be overstating that. I would submit they are going to offset our already public expenditures on medical care and replace those costs. No private business will be pocketing them..

OK. So, when I pay for insurance each moth....Money goes to the private business, which pays the agent, his secretary, some gets kicked upstairs to corporate....electricity, water, etc., and the rest gets pooled to cover actual health costs. The difference now is that they have more customers that, through the force of law, must buy from them or other companies like them.

SCOTUS called it a tax, so I'm not making it out to be something it's not.

Is there another type of taxation that goes straight to private or corporate enterprise that serves a national interest?