An open letter to the Supreme Court (in cartoon form)

[hokiefan]

No I didn't, and that situation doesn't apply to everyone else who doesn't have a pre-existing condition but gets insured, and it doesn't completely apply to Norman since I assume he is also covered himself for future maladies to be named later.

Thing is that the coverage is through her employer, since Norman has worked as a private contractor for years. So all is well until she can no longer work, which may happen since the condition is progressive. Once her condition was discovered, buying private insurance was impossible due to the pre-existing condition no matter how much you paid. The provisions of the AHCA address this.

Without it a couple who has paid for healthcare insurance all of their working life could be left without when one of them needs it the most.

Cheers,

Bobby

[Norman Bernstein]

First, whether or not I lose health care coverage under AHCA has ZERO bearing on its Constitutionality.

It has a GREAT deal to do with its practicality, however. Constitutional questions are answered by SCOTUS; any claims of certainty about the constitutionality of the AHCA by anyone here in the bilge are absurd, because there is no such thing as a constitutional standard, other than what the SCOTUS decides, at any point in time....and is subject to revision in the future. What YOU think is constitutional is irrelevant, and no more likely to be correct than anyone else's opinions.

Second, by your definition of "specifically" and its importance in all decision-making, why would you ever buy health care insurance? I mean, wouldn't you be planning for some...how did you put it, "amorphous and undefined" future illness? Sounds terribly ideological.

I sincerely hope that you never end up behind the eight ball which is lining up to crush me... and I promise, if you do, that I won't say 'I told you so'.

[Norman Bernstein]

Thing is that the coverage is through her employer, since Norman has worked as a private contractor for years. So all is well until she can no longer work, which may happen since the condition is progressive. Once her condition was discovered, buying private insurance was impossible due to the pre-existing condition no matter how much you paid. The provisions of the AHCA address this.

That is more or less correct.

My wife and I have always paid for health insurance; either through my job (in which my employer paid a portion, and I was responsible for the rest), or through hers (the same thing). For a brief period, I was paying directly and individually for health insurance, at outrageous rates. Right now, we're covered by my wife's insurance.

However, she has Parkinson's. It's a progressive disease, and at some point, she may no longer be able to work. If she loses that coverage before age 65 (she turns 60 in a few months), then NO insuror will issue her a policy.... at ANY price.

Perhaps you're not aware of this, but Parkinson's patients can go downhill, dramatically, at any time. If she is unable to work and requires institutionalization, then her entire medical expense will have to be paid out of our retirement savings. I've been reasonably conservative and have massed enough, I think, so that by retirement age, we'll be able to live in modest comfort, AFTER downsizing substantially.... but all that could vaporize in a VERY short time; a year or two of institutionalization could easily wipe out our retirement savings, in which case, we'd be living on Social Security.... if that were remotely possible.

So, let's see... what did I do wrong? Was I wrong to not anticipate that one of us could come down with a debilitating disease? Was I wrong to not account for the possibility that insurance would be unobtainable?

As far as I can tell, there is only ONE thing I did wrong; I didn't become stinking rich. Had I done so, it wouldn't have mattered. I could be like Mitt Romney..... is he frightened for his financia lsecurity because his wife has MS? I think not.

But here's the thing that astounds me the most; the people who are most opposed to the AHCA are not people who have some sort of entitled immunity from the possibility that the very SAME thing could happen to them. I don't know if any of the bilge members here are rich enough to withstand the possibility of some extraordinarily expensive catastrophic iillness, without health coverage.... maybe there are a few.....

....but it's my guess that EVERYONE here is subject to the same possible calamity... and it could happen to ANY of us.

So tell me again about how the AHCA is such a terrible thing.... but check your retirement account balance first.

[John of Phoenix]

Thing is that the coverage is through her employer, since Norman has worked as a private contractor for years. So all is well until she can no longer work, which may happen since the condition is progressive. Once her condition was discovered, buying private insurance was impossible due to the pre-existing condition no matter how much you paid. The provisions of the AHCA address this.

Without it a couple who has paid for healthcare insurance all of their working life could be left without when one of them needs it the most.

Cheers,

Bobby

You could spoon feed this to every red out there and they still wouldn't believe it. They have been told Obamacare must be repealed and that's all they know. "Fear, hate and lies."

"We create our own reality."

[Uncle Duke]

Trivia:
Speaking of pre-existing conditions, at least until recently (and it may still be true in some places), 8 states and Washington D.C., allowed "domestic abuse" as a pre-existing condition and sufficient reason to deny health insurance coverage.

[John of Phoenix]

Trivia:
Speaking of pre-existing conditions, at least until recently (and it may still be true in some places), 8 states and Washington D.C., allowed "domestic abuse" as a pre-existing condition and sufficient reason to deny health insurance coverage.

Just another battle in the War on Women.

[Y Bar Ranch]

But here's the thing that astounds me the most; the people who are most opposed to the AHCA are not people who have some sort of entitled immunity from the possibility that the very SAME thing could happen to them. I don't know if any of the bilge members here are rich enough to withstand the possibility of some extraordinarily expensive catastrophic iillness, without health coverage.... maybe there are a few...

You're not the only person that is in your situation. Been there - done that. Went from parent's coverage to own to government to grad student with kids to employed to military recall to employed, with each jump in insurance fraught with peril, including kids with conditions. I completely understand your position on AHCA. But I don't agree with it, for the reasons I already listed.

AHCA is the worst of what we had before it, and single payer. The cartoon you posted basically argues that AHCA should be Constitutional because single payer is politically untenable. That's not an argument.

I've said before I'm open to single payer. That is the end goal of liberals, right? This ain't it, it ain't close to it, it is at best merely a stepping stone on the path to what you really want, and it will leave a huge, steaming unintended consequence that extends the powers of the government in a way that we'll all come to regret.

Your argument that the Constitution is infinitely malleable...why even have one? Why not just have legislators do what they want, and the judges can sacrifice a chicken and stare at its intestines to see if they are "propitious"? Or why even have an amendment process written in if all you ever need to do is reinterpret the little markings on the page to mean what you want them to?

[tigerregis]

Norman, ever the gentleman. I would sing "I told you so" buck naked in Macy's window, high noon, on Easter Sunday. I forget the BB coach who said "nice guys finish last". Tell me it ain't so, Joe.

[Norman Bernstein]

You're not the only person that is in your situation.

And I'm not the only person for whom the ACHA was a brief sigh of relief. Ending AHCA simply means that I'm out of the frying pan, and back into the fire. It is SOOOOO easy to just set people like me aside for the sake of ideological purity, isn't it? Especially when someone THINKS they are immune to disaster. What is Romney offering, other than vouchers for Medicare? What does he plan to do with the 50 million uninsured Americans? How does he plan to end the taxpayer subsidization of people without health care insurance?

Your argument that the Constitution is infinitely malleable...why even have one?

Don't twist and distort my words.... I NEVER said the Constitution was 'infinitely malleable'. What I said was the truth; the Constitution means precisely what the Supreme Court, a political institution, says it does.... and every now and then, they change their minds.

[Norman Bernstein]

Norman, ever the gentleman. I would sing "I told you so" buck naked in Macy's window, high noon, on Easter Sunday. I forget the BB coach who said "nice guys finish last". Tell me it ain't so, Joe.

I'm not immune to feelings of schadenfreude.... but it would be hard to feel that way about someone who is bankrupted due to denial of health coverage.... or worse, dies because they can't afford the care.

[Y Bar Ranch]

It is SOOOOO easy to just set people like me aside for the sake of ideological purity, isn't it?

You read what you want read, don't you?

[Vince Brennan]

Relax, guys. The asteroid is coming.

[Paul Pless]

...

[Concordia 33]

There is no such thing as a 'legally correct' decision. The Decisions of the Supreme Court are as arbitrary as any other decision.... and the long history of decisions which have been eventually reversed is the proof of this elemental truth.

No, their decisions are based on the Constitution. The "sentiment" of a cartoonist and her personal healthcare needs might be sufficient for the AHCA to be enacted, but has little to do with its constitutionality. Personal pleas should matter much less than the Constitution itself.

[Norman Bernstein]

No, their decisions are based on the Constitution.

If so, then how do you explain all the times that they've eventually reversed themselves?

[John of Phoenix]

If so, then how do you explain all the times that they've eventually reversed themselves?

Uh oh, logic!

[Horace]

New facts or different conditions.

[Norman Bernstein]

New facts or different conditions.

There were NO 'new facts' or 'different conditions', in this example. What was different was a changing societal attitude.

In one of the most legendary examples, the Supreme Court reversed its stance on the matter of racial segregation. In the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court ruled that "separate but equal" laws were acceptable for blacks and whites. This decision essentially gave Jim Crow laws the full backing of the Court.

But times changed, social norms shifted, and by 1954 the Supreme Court took a very different view of civil rights. That year, in deciding the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the justices unanimously rejected the doctrine of "separate but equal." And with that, they quashed the Plessy v. Ferguson verdict.

So, let's see.... how can anyone be assured that a decision to declare ObamaCare unconstitutional is immune to changing societal attitudes? Do we have to wait 59 years for that to happen?

[Concordia 33]

If so, then how do you explain all the times that they've eventually reversed themselves?

Clearly they determined that earlier decisions did not correctly interpret the Constitution but what they did not do is ignore the constitution and base their decision on popular opinion. And you should be grateful that they don't use popular opinion (assuming you like the ACHA)

From the New York Times:

More than two-thirds of Americans hope the Supreme Court will overturn some or all of the 2010 health care law, according to a new poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News. Just 24 percent said they hoped the court “would keep the entire health care law in place.”
The Supreme Court is expected to decide a challenge to the law by the end of this month.

Only 43 percent of Democrats said all of the law should be upheld.

Another way to look at it is that Obamacare in its entirety has roughly the same approval rating as Richard Nixon did around the time he resigned.And just think, by design, the health care law was front-loaded so some“good stuff” was delivered in this election year, with the bill coming due much later. Imagine how unpopular this thing will be in a year or two if it isn’t overturned by the Supreme Court or wiped out by a Republican president or Congress.

[Horace]

Changing societal attitudes would seem to be the very definition of "changing conditions." And "all the times" implies many; "the times" or "those times" would have been a more neutral, and defensible, statement. US Supreme Court reversals of itself are few and far between.

[Norman Bernstein]

Clearly they determined that earlier decisions did not correctly interpret the Constitution but what they did not do is ignore the constitution and base their decision on popular opinion. And you should be grateful that they don't use popular opinion (assuming you like the ACHA)

I'm not interested in having them base their decision on popular opinion, whatsoever. A number of legal experts have argued that the mandate provision of the AHCA is well within the scope of a large number of previous decisions regarding the breadth and width of the Commerce clause.... and, in fact, if the AHCA is overturned, a number of long established precedents would then become vulnerable, under this 'change of heart' on the part of the Supreme Court. Unwinding the AHCA could end up being a true nightmare, in fact.

So, you can drop the 'popular opinion' canard.... nobody is suggesting that popular opinion should be the basis of any decision.

[Norman Bernstein]

Changing societal attitudes would seem to be the very definition of "changing conditions." .

Then Concordia has a bone to pick with you, because you've just endorsed the idea of basing a SCOTUS decision on 'popular opinion'.... which is just another name for 'changing societal attitudes'. What possible difference was there between Plessey v. Ferguson, and Brown v. Board of Ed.... other than the fact that 59 years of changing popular opinion rendered Plessy unacceptable to society?

[John Smith]

Seriously? You don't ever perceive a potential downside to the government being able to force you to engage in commerce you don't want to engage in? Can't ever envision that occurring in any way, shape or form? Can't picture big business coupled with big government using this new huge precedent to move forward their own corporate mutual interests in a way not of interest to you or even the country? Trust the CEOs and elected reps to always act only in yours and the country's interest?

I don't get it. The government does this sort of thing frequently. Every boat owner knows that.

The question is simple. Do you let someone with no insurance die or do you treat him at the expense of those who have insurance?

[Y Bar Ranch]

The question is simple.

*sigh*

[Keith Wilson]

Why should birth control be subsidized?

The same reason any other kind of preventive care or testing is covered by insurance - because it saves money. Birth control is cheaper than either abortions or babies.