Court Strikes down mandatory healthcare

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/08/12/us-health-care-bill-ruling.html

"A federal appeals court has struck down the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul package that virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face penalties." -CBC

<sigh>

Isn't (wasn't?) the basics of Obamacare:

1) Everyone must get healthcare;

2) Medicare/Medicaid extended to cover more of the populace?

I can't even decide whether or not this is good or bad. On the one hand, everybody should have healthcare. On the other, making it a crime not to is laughably stupid...

I can see this as being a good thing. With mandatory insurance required, it gives absolutely no incentive for an insurance company to be competitive about the prices of their premiums or deductibles.

So, why doesn't America have UHC again?

Barack Obamas objective was noble, but it was an objective carried out in the wrong way. Instead of properly implementing a national service which covered all Americans from top to bottom, he made an inefficient, ham-handed mockery that simply gave insurance companies an even stronger stranglehold on the most vulnerable.

Maybe once this dies a slow death, people can, after claiming "victory" over socialism for a few years, begin to approach the matter objectively again.

edited 12th Aug '11 12:28:59 PM by GameChainsaw

because Libertarianism is a major political philosophy in the US and mandatory or universal anything goes against it.

edited 12th Aug '11 12:31:44 PM by Sandbylur

Well, one thing to keep in mind that the economic shock of switching from a private insurance system to a public insurance system would be substantial. The inefficiency created by the private system creates a lot of well paying jobs, both on the insurance side AND on the provider side. A single payer system that is efficient (which is really the goal) would eliminate many of these jobs.

In any case, the reason why the mandate is there, is that if you're going to have a system where insurance companies basically must accept your business, then you need some sort of mandate, or people will just wait until they get sick then sign up, and the entire system collapses.

I'm reminded of the Roman emperor who turned down a labour-saving device because, in his own words, "I need to feed the people."

It wasn't against the law, it's a a tax against you if you aren't covered.

...

I think that just makes it even more repugnant.

OMG A TAX

I agree, much as I support mandatory insurance. I can't support it without a 'public option', preferably single-payer.

Well, its one thing to say "you must have this." Its another to say "Buy this or we'll make your financial life even more of a hole!"

The only people who get the tax are people that can afford it.

edited 12th Aug '11 1:20:39 PM by Erock

Is a nationalised insurance scheme for everyone without private insurance, paid for by tax, really that unreasonable?

edited 12th Aug '11 1:20:46 PM by TheBatPencil

Ah. Well thats a bit different. What defines afford it though? Income?

It seems odd to force people to buy healthcare insurance.

EDIT: Hey, I'm the one advocating a NHS style system. I just don't see the point of taxing people who won't buy healthcare. Its like saying we should juggle oranges because the walls are purple.

edited 12th Aug '11 1:21:32 PM by GameChainsaw

No, but OMG OBAMACARE is a popular right-wing bitching.

It seems odd to force people to buy healthcare insurance.

In the absence of a public option, an individual mandate is essential to market functioning, due to pervasive market failures in the health insurance market. Now obviously, the ideal solution is to simply enact public healthcare, but that's easier said than done.

edited 12th Aug '11 1:23:21 PM by storyyeller

You are required to buy car insurance.

You are not required to have a car, though. You're required to be alive.

edited 12th Aug '11 1:26:04 PM by Yej

The Supreme Court has yet to weigh on this, and we all know it's going there. Let's not get too hung up on the appeals court decision.

Because if you get into a car accident someone else is likely to be involved, and thus you will need insurance to pay them.

Although the argument could be made that health insurance is necessary because if you die you leave your debts on other people, which is bad...

Or if you go to the hospital and stick them with the bill. Which happens way, way too often and is a reason why many hospitals have closed their emergency rooms. Seems like we're on a suicide pact over a matter of principle.

You cannot inherit debt.

The cost of not having universal health insurance is the fact that people let problems go untreated until they have to be fixed at the last minute and in the most expensive way possible - a bill that many people who can't afford insurance in the first place similarly can't afford to pay.