I'm reminded today about something I saw many years ago. A boy of about 12 years old was standing in a field. There was a dog standing about 50 feet behind the boy. Suddenly the dog ran at full speed between the boys legs. As the dog weighed almost as much as the boy, the boy was knocked right off of his feet and came down smartly on his butt. He never saw it coming.
As I listened to the Supreme Court decision today on Obamacare I thought of that boy and that dog. We never saw it coming.
Before I go on, one point. The Supreme Court does not rule on the quality of legislation just on the constitutionality. As I thought about the disparate parts of their decision, I felt it all made sense in a strange sort of way. Declaring the mandate unconstitutional was right and necessary. Giving the government the right to dictate how and for what products an individual spends his money would destroy any concept of personel freedom.
The government does have the right to set up a national system and create a tax to pay for that system. So I understand that the Supremes let it stand as a tax. In fact the government attorneys that argued the case argued that it was a tax. But we were promised by Obama himself that there was to be no new taxes involved in Obamacare.
Here is where it gets really good. The federal government is allowed to force state governments to accept anybody under a certain income level into Medicaid. Now the federal government was going to tell the state governments that if they didn't open the rolls as prescribed that they would lose all Medicaid funding. But the Supremes told the federal government that doing that would be unconstitutional.
In my humble opinion what the Supreme Court of the United States of America has done, in their infinite wisdom, is to create a very ugly, very large mud pie. The Democrats are going to try to apply blowout patches all over this mess and the Republicans will want to start over. But, and this is a very big but, the losers, as usual, are the much abused American people.
Not surprising coming from "the cranky conservative", considering all 178 Republican representatives in the House voted against Obamacare. If you ask me, it is a step in the right direction. By 2019, when all of the sections of the bill go into effect, it is estimated that there will be 30 million fewer people uninsured in the US, which will in turn reduce uninsured emergency room visits quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteThe government choosing how an individual spends his/her money is called a tax. The people who are already covered under a health insurance policy whether it be individual or a benefit from work do not have to "pay" this new "tax". This tax is not destroying personal freedom in the slightest. When tax season comes around, people don't pay their taxes with the money that they were going to use to buy the new iPad. The money used to buy things you want is referred to as "discretionary income", which is the money left over after taxes, mortgage, et cetera. So, once all the taxes are paid, including potentially a new healthcare mandate, you will still have a sum of money left over to do with what you please. Obamacare does not in any way limit personal spending freedom.
The law also prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, which is a sure plus. If somebody who has cancer gets laid off of their job, they lose the benefits that came with it, one of which could be health insurance. This person would have to find another company to provide health insurance, but could be denied because of his pre-existing cancer condition. With Obamacare, insurance companies are no longer allowed to do that. Tell me not, this is a step in the right direction for the American people.