So Obamacare is going well.

[RaleighDevil]

Lesson for conservatives/libertarians: Never, ever try to win the compassion battle with liberals. The only way is their way.

 

[PhDeac]

Lesson for conservatives/libertarians: Never, ever try to win the compassion battle with liberals. The only way is their way.

What is the compassion battle?

 

[RaleighDevil]

Liberals are compassionate. Their opponents can show their compassion by agreeing with liberals that government is the best way to do it.

 

[RaleighDevil]

I believe this bill is unconstitutional and an attack on the idea of a limited federal government. We have a justice and a member of Congress saying there is no way they can be expected to wade through it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/294947/swingin-kennedy-mark-steyn?pg=2

A 2,700-page law is not a “law” by any civilized understanding of the term. Law rests on the principle of equality before it. When a bill is 2,700 pages, there’s no equality: Instead, there’s a hierarchy of privilege micro-regulated by an unelected, unaccountable, unconstrained, unknown, and unnumbered bureaucracy. It’s not just that the legislators who legislate it don’t know what’s in it, nor that the citizens on the receiving end can never hope to understand it, but that even the nation’s most eminent judges acknowledge that it is beyond individual human comprehension. A 2,700-page law is, by definition, an affront to self-government.

 

[PhDeac]

Liberals are compassionate. Their opponents can show their compassion by agreeing with liberals that government is the best way to do it.

You'd have a point if the "compassionate conservative" movement didn't get buried from within and replaced by "let them eat cake" and now Scalia's "Well, don’t obligate yourself to that.”

 

[RaleighDevil]

I’m a supporter of judicial review, I honor the Constitution in that regard,” Pelosi said to reporters. “That’s why we wrote our bill in a way that was Constitutional. I still feel pretty confident about it. And if and when — this game is not over. In March Madness, what happens when your team doesn’t win one — well wait a minute, let’s have the game.”

 

[ONW]

I’m a supporter of judicial review, I honor the Constitution in that regard,” Pelosi said to reporters. “That’s why we wrote our bill in a way that was Constitutional. I still feel pretty confident about it. And if and when — this game is not over. In March Madness, what happens when your team doesn’t win one — well wait a minute, let’s have the game.”

Dude, we haven't had to worry about that for years.

 

[DreamOnDemOn]

Lesson for conservatives/libertarians: Never, ever try to win the compassion battle with liberals. The only way is their way.

It is very, very compasionate to force someone else's resources away from them, give a lot of the booty to the reletively well-off apparatchiks, and then redistribute the rest to "poor" people who vote as you do so that you can continue the circle-jerk.

It is, of course, a coincidence that these praiseworthy compassionate liberals are usually on the recieving end of the booty and the power. But don't try to point this out; they start calling you racist and selfish.

 

[jhmd2000]

It is very, very compasionate to force someone else's resources away from them, give a lot of the booty to the reletively well-off apparatchiks, and then redistribute the rest to "poor" people who vote as you do so that you can continue the circle-jerk.

It is, of course, a coincidence that these praiseworthy compassionate liberals are usually on the recieving end of the booty and the power. But don't try to point this out; they start calling you racist and selfish.

I think this is an unfair characterization. Of significant note is your omission of the fact that these types of do-gooder, confiscatory, self-congratulatory, ineffective, inefficient schemes are almost always completely unsustainable. #socialsecurity #medicare #medicaid #whatevervotebuyingschemewecantaffordtheycookupnext

 

[Shooshmoo]

A 2,700-page law is not a “law” by any civilized understanding of the term. Law rests on the principle of equality before it. When a bill is 2,700 pages, there’s no equality: Instead, there’s a hierarchy of privilege micro-regulated by an unelected, unaccountable, unconstrained, unknown, and unnumbered bureaucracy. It’s not just that the legislators who legislate it don’t know what’s in it, nor that the citizens on the receiving end can never hope to understand it, but that even the nation’s most eminent judges acknowledge that it is beyond individual human comprehension. A 2,700-page law is, by definition, an affront to self-government.

You're a fucking crazy person.

 

[DreamOnDemOn]

I believe this bill is unconstitutional and an attack on the idea of a limited federal government. We have a justice and a member of Congress saying there is no way they can be expected to wade through it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/294947/swingin-kennedy-mark-steyn?pg=2

A 2,700-page law is not a “law” by any civilized understanding of the term. Law rests on the principle of equality before it. When a bill is 2,700 pages, there’s no equality: Instead, there’s a hierarchy of privilege micro-regulated by an unelected, unaccountable, unconstrained, unknown, and unnumbered bureaucracy. It’s not just that the legislators who legislate it don’t know what’s in it, nor that the citizens on the receiving end can never hope to understand it, but that even the nation’s most eminent judges acknowledge that it is beyond individual human comprehension. A 2,700-page law is, by definition, an affront to self-government.

This is just what I was thinking, Raleigh. Only a fucking crazy person sucking jizzm from the government dick could argue with this.

 

[deacdiggler]

From E.J. Dionne: link. [don't think the particular article has already been posted here]

Quote:
--------------
The court’s right-wing justices seemed to forget that the best argument for the individual mandate was made in 1989 by a respected conservative, the Heritage Foundation’s Stuart Butler.

“If a man is struck down by a heart attack in the street,” Butler said, “Americans will care for him whether or not he has insurance. If we find that he has spent his money on other things rather than insurance, we may be angry but we will not deny him services — even if that means more prudent citizens end up paying the tab. A mandate on individuals recognizes this implicit contract.”

Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to reject the sense of solidarity that Butler embraced. When Solicitor General Donald Verrilli explained that “we’ve obligated ourselves so that people get health care,” Scalia replied coolly: “Well, don’t obligate yourself to that.” Does this mean letting Butler’s uninsured guy die?

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick called attention to this exchange and was eloquent in describing its meaning. “This case isn’t so much about freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms,” Lithwick wrote. “It’s about freedom from our obligations to one another . . . the freedom to ignore the injured” and to “walk away from those in peril.”

This is what conservative justices will do if they strike down or cripple the health-care law. And a court that gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United will prove conclusively that it sees no limits on its power, no need to defer to those elected to make our laws. A Supreme Court that is supposed to give us justice will instead deliver ideology.
--------------

I have an honest question - is our government in fact LEGALLY obligated to provide health care? I'm not sure what Scalia was saying - and I'm always suspicious of any Dionne snip and paste job - but couldn't Scalia's point be that our government is not obligated to provide health care? Whether it SHOULD do so is a totally different question.

 

[PhDeac]

If that's Scalia's point, he did a poor job of wording it.

Medical professionals are obligated to provide health care. They're not obligated to get paid by the person receiving health care, but they the costs are absorbed by everybody else. That obligation is not going away. The band-aid for managing costs with that obligation is that everybody pays for health care and nobody mooches. The only entity that can apply that band-aid is the federal government.

Is it a perfect fix? No. It's only a band-aid. Is it better than bleeding out cash? Yes.

 

[ProfessorDeac]

Is it really the obligation to treat the uninsured that's causing health care costs and insurance rates to skyrocket? I was under the impression that other factors were more to blame. I mean, how much treatment are providers obligated to provide? Does it include the really expensive stuff? I guess I'm asking if the individual mandate is really an effective band-aid for the structural problem.

 

[RJKarl]

Is it really the obligation to treat the uninsured that's causing health care costs and insurance rates to skyrocket? I was under the impression that other factors were more to blame. I mean, how much treatment are providers obligated to provide? Does it include the really expensive stuff? I guess I'm asking if the individual mandate is really an effective band-aid for the structural problem.

So we shouldn't fix 10% of the problem if we can? By implementing the mandate every family would save $1000-1500/year that they are paying for those who don't buy insurance.

Are you happy with paying that much every year?

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

Is it really the obligation to treat the uninsured that's causing health care costs and insurance rates to skyrocket? I was under the impression that other factors were more to blame. I mean, how much treatment are providers obligated to provide? Does it include the really expensive stuff? I guess I'm asking if the individual mandate is really an effective band-aid for the structural problem.

Of course not. The individual mandate, like everything else in this shit sandwich of a law, is not an effective band-aid for anything. It's only use is as a conceptual framework for guilt-trip pleas by those who just want to create more government dependency (or those who for whatever reason simply think that this bill does something different than it actually does), because clearly everyone who does not support it wants our citizenry dying in the streets. Its an easy way to attempt to shift the focus from Obamacare's absolute failure to address rising healthcare costs to some sort of perceived moral failure by those who oppose it. Just like Obamacare itself, the objective is to get this portion approved, and then worry about the details of what it is actually creating at some later date.

 

[RaleighDevil]

You're a fucking crazy person.

No, the crazy people are the ones who believe a law that no one can wade through is good for representative government. Remember what your icon Miss Nancy said. They had to pass the bill so we could see what's in it.

I do understand that the idea of a government confined to enumerated powers is anathema to you.

 

[WakeandBake]

Of course not. The individual mandate, like everything else in this shit sandwich of a law, is not an effective band-aid for anything. It's only use is as a conceptual framework for guilt-trip pleas by those who just want to create more government dependency (or those who for whatever reason simply think that this bill does something different than it actually does), because clearly everyone who does not support it wants our citizenry dying in the streets. Its an easy way to attempt to shift the focus from Obamacare's absolute failure to address rising healthcare costs to some sort of perceived moral failure by those who oppose it. Just like Obamacare itself, the objective is to get this portion approved, and then worry about the details of what it is actually creating at some later date.

Guilt trip pleas? Wha? So you disagree that even if it was voluntary, having every American in a plan would lower costs?

I never said opponents wanted citizens dying in the streets. But supporters of the mandate cannot help their collective facepalm when opponents say that they want freedom from paying for others' health care by the hand of big government, when they are already paying for them to go to the ER for a hangnail by the combined hands of the Hippocratic oath and the free market.

 

[RJKarl]

I wonder if the fact that there is an unchallenged law that the federal government must pay for coverage of some people who go to the hospital will have an impact.

 

[WakeandBake]

The supposed outrage from opponents of the mandate is a farce. I saw a woman on television say that she would not comply with the mandate if it passed 'because she believed in freedom.' She is going to risk her cash, investments, home, etc. to exercise her freedom to not carry health insurance. It boggles the mind.

And Scalia saying "don't obligate" providers to provide care to those who can't pay???? Has he ever even spoken to a doctor? Is this guy from planet earth? They provide care to EVERYONE who comes to them because they not only take an oath to do so, but because it is the absolute RIGHT THING TO DO and there is not one doctor or nurse who argues otherwise.

It's getting fucking nuts in this country. The right loves to accuse the left of class warfare, but every single argument I hear from the right reveals deep resentment of the poor. Deep resentment, and an unfounded confidence that they are all "lazy." It is at the root of all their policy opinions.