Posts tagged affordable care act
For purposes of assessing the 2012 presidential race, I’ve had a moderate interest in whether Mitt Romney would call the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate a penalty or a tax. On one hand, he’s consistently called a mandate to purchase health insurance a penalty, not a tax, in the past. On the other, self-contradiction has pretty much become Romney’s routine. This morning, Ezra Klein convinced me not to care:
“Tax” is not a popular word. But neither is “penalty.” It’s very difficult to imagine the voter who loved the idea of paying a penalty for going without health insurance — aren’t penalties great? — but is morally appalled at the prospect of paying a tax.
And, remember, the individual mandate is a well-known policy that is already extremely unpopular. In fact, it’s the most unpopular provision of the health care law, and always has been. The people who don’t like it already know they don’t like it. The people who do like it are, at this point, well aware that they like it. The idea that, this late in the game, even one vote will be decided by whether Republicans call this already-disliked policy “a tax” rather than “a penalty” or “government coercion” or “jackbooted thugs making you buy health care” strains credulity.
For whatever it’s worth, the Romney camp predictably went from calling the mandate a penalty to calling it a tax at some point between the weekend and yesterday, but, again, it’s probably not something you should spend your time reading or thinking about.
Live on Lawrence O’Donnell right now: CBS News report that asserts Justice Roberts changed his decision on the Affordable Care Act contains “major inaccuracies,” according to a salon.com contributor, via an anonymous source. More to come on this, naturally.
Roberts switched views to uphold health care law
Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.
Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.
The government “shouldn’t force people to get health care.”
The government forces you to:
- send your kids to school
- pay taxes
- have insurance for your car
- get immunized and comply with public health regulations (with waiver exceptions obviously but still)
- sign up for Selective Service
- pay into taxes for police and firefighters
We live in a society that requires give-and-take. We live in a society that requires actions on our part to fulfill our end of the social contract. Put up or shut up.
This is a really productive conversation to have. When you get right down to it, the government doesn’t compel individuals to do an awful lot at all.
Prediction: The Supreme Court upholds the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that the individual mandate is a tax.
Post from last weekend. What’s that they say about a broken clock being right every now and again?
Prediction: The Supreme Court upholds the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that the individual mandate is a tax.
“There’s a lot of anger, but people don’t know what they’re angry about. You know, from the end of the Vietnam War all the way up to 9/11, for the most part everyone was fat, dumb and happy. Then 9/11 happened and shattered all that. People became scared and anxious and out of control. They’d go to Wal-Mart and realize that everything they’ve been buying says ‘Made in China.’ They see the complete ineptitude of the federal government during Hurricane Katrina. They see some guy [Bernie Madoff] within the shadow of the SEC running a $50 billion scam - and who the hell is watching out for their $10,000 IRA? And then the banks melt down, the auto industry is taken over, and we pass this huge stimulus.
“All of this builds up and they’re saying, ‘What the hell can I possibly do about a $14 trillion national debt?’ But then it gets to health care. And they’re saying, ‘That’s me. That’s mine. It’s the first big issue that’s personalized. And that’s why we’re getting all this pent-up frustration and anger. Because when you explain the bill to ‘em, they say, ‘Well that doesn’t sound too bad.’ But it doesn’t matter. All their anger is focused on this, because it’s personal.
“Madam Speaker, what you need to do is break the bill down. Have a bill that covers preexisting conditions. Pass that - or make the Republicans vote against it - and then move onto another part. But you do this omnibus approach, they won’t know what the hell’s in it. And they’ll keep yelling at it.”
— Rep. John Tanner (D-TN), to Nancy Pelosi in August 2009, on the Affordable Care Act. This quote is from Robert Draper’s Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives.
Should doctors really have to follow drug prices like market analysts in order to care for their patients? Welcome to the free market in healthcare.
If Health Insurance Mandates Are Unconstitutional, Why Did the Founding Fathers Back Them?
The founding fathers, it turns out, passed several mandates of their own. In 1790, the very first Congress—which incidentally included 20 framers—passed a law that included a mandate: namely, a requirement that ship owners buy medical insurance for their seamen. This law was then signed by another framer: President George Washington. That’s right, the father of our country had no difficulty imposing a health insurance mandate.
That’s not all. In 1792, a Congress with 17 framers passed another statute that required all able-bodied men to buy firearms. Yes, we used to have not only a right to bear arms, but a federal duty to buy them. Four framers voted against this bill, but the others did not, and it was also signed by Washington. Some tried to repeal this gun purchase mandate on the grounds it was too onerous, but only one framer voted to repeal it.
Six years later, in 1798, Congress addressed the problem that the employer mandate to buy medical insurance for seamen covered drugs and physician services but not hospital stays. And you know what this Congress, with five framers serving in it, did? It enacted a federal law requiring the seamen to buy hospital insurance for themselves. That’s right, Congress enacted an individual mandate requiring the purchase of health insurance. And this act was signed by another framer, President John Adams.
A blog by Andrew Graham, a ghostwriter and media adviser in New York City. Don't take it too seriously.
GMail: andrewgraham.nyc
