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SCOTUS decisions

tjcmd said:
Insurance works just fine when greedy politicians do not get involved. Real insurance (as opposed to prepayment of routine medical care) was affordable for all but the poorest Americans a generation or two ago when there were no coverage mandates . And routine medical care was affordable as well. As recently as the 1970's a visit to a pediatrician or primary care physician cost $4-5. After the wholesale takeover of most of health care by the government in order to make it "affordable" very few can afford routine health care or the product you are calling "insurance". Now statists are bellowing for the state to subsume the rest of health care in order to make it more "affordable." Forcing one person to pay another person's bills only makes the bills affordable for those on the dole. But it greatly increases the cost in general.

Further, if preventive care is something insurance companies offer on their own to their customers then there should be no need for greedy politicians to force the companies to provide it. Some states have up to 70 mandates for every policy sold including things like chiropracty and infertility treatment and more are added all the time in a process combining politicians seeking to win elections and money wielding lobbyists. If I don't plan on having more children or having a quack adjust my back why should I have to pay outrageous bills for those who do?
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I don't know the answer to this, but is it actually causation that the government got involved and then insurance started getting more expensive or is it just correlation?
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
Interesting article (I thought), even though I think it's difficult to compete in that industry without using China's exports - perhaps that's one of the points the author is making though about claiming you're a "Christian" business.

http://theweek.com/article/index/263225/stop-calling-hobby-lobby-a-christian-business
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Thanks for posting.

The whole industry of selling stuff to Christians based on a faith claim drives me nuts, but that's probably another thread.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
I don't know the answer to this, but is it actually causation that the government got involved and then insurance started getting more expensive or is it just correlation?
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Many people ascribe some of the increased cost of medical care to advances in medicine. There is no doubt that specialized procedures and some medicines are very expensive today. On the other hand, great advances in computing technology have been made with no similar hike in costs, this in an industry without much meddling by government. I, of course, believe that the majority of the increases come from government intervention with ridiculous mandates and through massive increases in government-financed demand for care that does not produce much improvement in outcomes.
 
Deacon923 said:
Thanks for posting.

The whole industry of selling stuff to Christians based on a faith claim drives me nuts, but that's probably another thread.
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You mean you don't need a ceremonial platter with Galatians' quotes on it?!
 
Deacon923 said:
That was about the response I expected. It's the generalized libertarian response. The problem is that you cannot prove the counterfactual upon which your argument rests, namely, that if the gummint had just stayed out of it, healthcare would still be affordable for all. On the contrary, there is a large amount of evidence against your counterfactual. After all, the rest of the Western world has gone much farther toward government control of health care, and they all get health results as good or better than the US at a fraction of the cost per capita. There is no country that has a libertarian system of healthcare that delivers anything like good health results. Most of the models for your system are in sub-equatorial Africa. It's a rather large problem for the libertarian position.
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I think my argument rests on the difference between this country before gummint and this country 60% gummint. That is probably a better comparison than this country 60% gummint with European countries 85% gummint or this country 60% gummint with Somalia, your favorite Libertarian enclave which was 100% gummint until total gummint bankruptcy.
 
tjcmd said:
I think my argument rests on the difference between this country before gummint and this country 60% gummint. That is probably a better comparison than this country 60% gummint with European countries 85% gummint or this country 60% gummint with Somalia, your favorite Libertarian enclave which was 100% gummint until total gummint bankruptcy.
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Wut.
 
tjcmd said:
I think my argument rests on the difference between this country before gummint and this country 60% gummint. That is probably a better comparison than this country 60% gummint with European countries 85% gummint or this country 60% gummint with Somalia, your favorite Libertarian enclave which was 100% gummint until total gummint bankruptcy.
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so, in other words, you don't have much of an argument. large government involvement in healthcare is highly correlated with less expensive healthcare. no government involvement in healthcare (whether intentionally or through lack of capacity) is highly correlated with bad healthcare that is unaffordable to most of the population. You can believe whatever you want but it's helpful to bring some actual evidence to the ideological argument.
 
Deacon923 said:
so, in other words, you don't have much of an argument. large government involvement in healthcare is highly correlated with less expensive healthcare. no government involvement in healthcare (whether intentionally or through lack of capacity) is highly correlated with bad healthcare that is unaffordable to most of the population. You can believe whatever you want but it's helpful to bring some actual evidence to the ideological argument.
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About 60% of all health care spending is by the government in this country. Costs are very high. It used to be a much smaller percentage. Costs were much lower. If it becomes a higher percentage, I'll bet the costs will be higher. What evidence are you bringing to the ideological argument?
 
tjcmd said:
About 60% of all health care spending is by the government in this country. Costs are very high. It used to be a much smaller percentage. Costs were much lower. If it becomes a higher percentage, I'll bet the costs will be higher. What evidence are you bringing to the ideological argument?
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You may review it in detail in this thread: http://www.ogboards.com/forums/show...hcare-System-quot-the-U-S-is-supposed-to-have

also, you should become familiar with the principal that correlation does not equal causation. http://www.tylervigen.com/
 
tjcmd said:
Are you able to summarize your argument? Or shall we just post competing links?
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it's way off topic in this thread, but dead on topic of the other thread. We should take this whole discussion to the other thread.
 
tjcmd said:
Many people ascribe some of the increased cost of medical care to advances in medicine. There is no doubt that specialized procedures and some medicines are very expensive today. On the other hand, great advances in computing technology have been made with no similar hike in costs, this in an industry without much meddling by government. I, of course, believe that the majority of the increases come from government intervention with ridiculous mandates and through massive increases in government-financed demand for care that does not produce much improvement in outcomes.
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Any time the government gets involved in financial subsidies the price of what they are subsidizing goes way, way up. Housing. Check. Education. Check. Medical coverage. Check. I'm not saying other factors are not at work. But it is a big factor.
 
Then how come we have the most expensive healthcare in the G8 and are the only country without 100% subsidized HC?
 
Deacman wasn't part of that....as is evidenced by his post AFTER the request by 923....
 
RJKarl said:
It would allow any company to cut off all insurance by simply saying, "My religion precludes me from paying for it."

How could you stop any company from saying they have a Christian Scientist CEO who thinks God will cure you?

What stops any company from cherry-picking other parts of policy.

Further, if you can use religion to deny certain aspects of healthcare, why can't you use religion to deny service to gay people? Or single women?
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You are aware that when the court decides one case it is not indicative of how the case would be decided in the pressence of different facts, right? Or would you rather just paint with big bold strokes for effect?

The knee jerk reactions to this case - even before it was decided - were priceless. This case is really quite simple. Put aside your legal eagle stuff and just sit back and consider the practical ramifications on personal liberty in this case.

- People are still free to buy birth control
- The government can always elect to provide the two forms of birth control itself - i.e. don't make HL pay for it. I suspect this is what the government will seek to do.
- By striking down the requirement HL provide these two forms of birth control the government has done nothing more than note that the science around morning after pills is not settled, that such pills may cause an abortion to occur in that if taken after an egg was fertilized the egg might not implant in the uterus, that this potential represents an awful situation for someone who thinks abortion is murder and that the government cannot force a private business owner to pay for a procedure he or she thinks may murder a child.

Essentially the court told the government - we let you force Americans to buy health insurance. we are not going to let you dictate the morality of business owners on an issue that is as emotional as abortion.

The result of the ACA is that we now have come to a recognition that the price of deciding to form a limited liability entity so you can participate in our economic system does not mean that you, as an owner of said closely held business, need to leave your morality and religious views at the door. Absent Obamacare we'd never have heard this case or opened up this new frontier.

And this decision doesn't mean the court would allow business owners to refuse to serve gay people birthday cake. It doesn't necessarily mean the court would allow a business owner to avoid paying for insurance that covers blood transfusions. It doesn't necessarily mean the court would allow native american tribes to seize public lands they claim are sacred. It doesn't necessarily mean lots of things. For now it merely means the government can't force a private business to pay for a practice that may cause an abortion.

It does open up a new vein of potential jurisprudence, but that's a price of allowing the government to force us all to buy a product or pay a fine and to dictate what it thinks should be in said product. Government's power was expanded significantly when it was given that force. And now the level and amount of that force is being checked. Nothing more, nothing less.
 
RJKarl said:
Then how come we have the most expensive healthcare in the G8 and are the only country without 100% subsidized HC?
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How about we take that over to another thread where we can discuss how we all pay to subsidize the entire fucking world's healthcare because their systems prevent innovation and try to price fix everything. Want a new drug? Americans pay to develop it. For now let's stick to the USSC cases.
 
DeacMan said:
You are aware that when the court decides one case it is not indicative of how the case would be decided in the pressence of different facts, right? Or would you rather just paint with big bold strokes for effect?

The knee jerk reactions to this case - even before it was decided - were priceless. This case is really quite simple. Put aside your legal eagle stuff and just sit back and consider the practical ramifications on personal liberty in this case.

- People are still free to buy birth control
- The government can always elect to provide the two forms of birth control itself - i.e. don't make HL pay for it. I suspect this is what the government will seek to do.
- By striking down the requirement HL provide these two forms of birth control the government has done nothing more than note that the science around morning after pills is not settled, that such pills may cause an abortion to occur in that if taken after an egg was fertilized the egg might not implant in the uterus, that this potential represents an awful situation for someone who thinks abortion is murder and that the government cannot force a private business owner to pay for a procedure he or she thinks may murder a child.

Essentially the court told the government - we let you force Americans to buy health insurance. we are not going to let you dictate the morality of business owners on an issue that is as emotional as abortion.

The result of the ACA is that we now have come to a recognition that the price of deciding to form a limited liability entity so you can participate in our economic system does not mean that you, as an owner of said closely held business, need to leave your morality and religious views at the door. Absent Obamacare we'd never have heard this case or opened up this new frontier.

And this decision doesn't mean the court would allow business owners to refuse to serve gay people birthday cake. It doesn't necessarily mean the court would allow a business owner to avoid paying for insurance that covers blood transfusions. It doesn't necessarily mean the court would allow native american tribes to seize public lands they claim are sacred. It doesn't necessarily mean lots of things. For now it merely means the government can't force a private business to pay for a practice that may cause an abortion.

It does open up a new vein of potential jurisprudence, but that's a price of allowing the government to force us all to buy a product or pay a fine and to dictate what it thinks should be in said product. Government's power was expanded significantly when it was given that force. And now the level and amount of that force is being checked. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Many non-kneejerk reactions (like from Justices and several well respected constitutional scholars) have clearly and concisely stated how awful and dangerous this decision could be. They all seem to agree that opening this door was a huge mistake.
 
Deacon923 said:
Thanks for posting.

The whole industry of selling stuff to Christians based on a faith claim drives me nuts, but that's probably another thread.
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The most annoying thing about being a Christian is people trying to make money off Christians because Christians are so gullible.

South Park's parody of this is one of the best treatments of the topic.
 
There's a new case working its way up saying it's unconstitutional for the feds to offer tax credits to participants. This would destroy ACA and could directly lead to single payer. Millions would lose coverage. Insurance companies could throw people off the roles and raise prices dramatically.
 
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