A federal judge in Texas struck down the entire Affordable Care Act on Friday on the grounds that its mandate requiring people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional and the rest of the law cannot stand without it.
The ruling was over a lawsuit filed this year by a group of Republican governors and state attorneys general. A group of intervening states led by Democrats promised to appeal the decision, which will most likely not have any immediate effect. But it will almost certainly make its way to the Supreme Court, threatening the survival of the landmark health law and, with it, health coverage for millions of Americans, protections for people with pre-existing conditions and much more.
In his ruling, Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth said that the individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance “can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress’s tax power.” Accordingly, Judge O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, said that “the individual mandate is unconstitutional” and the remaining provisions of the Affordable Care Act are invalid.
When the Supreme Court upheld the mandate as constitutional in 2012, it was based on Congress’s taxing power. Congress, the court said, could legally impose a tax penalty on people who do not have health insurance.
But in the new case, the 20 plaintiff states, led by Texas, argued that with the penalty zeroed out, the individual mandate had become unconstitutional — and that the rest of the law could not be severed from it.
The Justice Department’s response to the case was highly unusual: though it disagreed with the plaintiffs that the entire law should be struck down, it declined this year to defend not just the individual mandate, but the law’s provisions that protect people with pre-existing conditions.
The claim that some people just don't need healthcare is complete nonsense. We're all highly vulnerable bags of soft meat that will at various points throughout our lives need maintenance. The people without insurance will still show up to an ER when they have an issue, and it will be up on the rest of us with insurance to cover their bill. Requiring everyone to have insurance was a way to insure that everybody pays at least something, because we all need it, no matter who you are.
We pay about double per capita what other modern nations pay for healthcare, yet rank nowhere near the top in quality of care, healthcare outcomes, life expectancy, and are near dead last in percentage of citizens covered among other western nations. This is a step further away from affordable healthcare. There is no successful healthcare system in the world that operates anything like what the Republicans are wanting.
Wrong.
The fact is the entire insurance industry is a scam that is only held up by the govt and the banks. Think about how many things you would buy insurance on if you wernt forced to?
The only way insurance works is if the majority of people get less benefits than what they paid for.
Nope. All people need healthcare throughout their lives. That is a fact.
Healthcare but not health insurance
The claim that some people just don't need healthcare is complete nonsense. We're all highly vulnerable bags of soft meat that will at various points throughout our lives need maintenance. The people without insurance will still show up to an ER when they have an issue, and it will be up on the rest of us with insurance to cover their bill. Requiring everyone to have insurance was a way to insure that everybody pays at least something, because we all need it, no matter who you are.
We pay about double per capita what other modern nations pay for healthcare, yet rank nowhere near the top in quality of care, healthcare outcomes, life expectancy, and are near dead last in percentage of citizens covered among other western nations. This is a step further away from affordable healthcare. There is no successful healthcare system in the world that operates anything like what the Republicans are wanting.
When it can cost up to 10k for a broken leg or over 100k for cancer, everyone needs health insurance, just as everyone who wants to drive is legally required to have liability insurance. You can not point to one successful example of a country using the Republican style healthcare system. I guess Somalia is pretty close, it's very "everyone for themselves" and their system sucks.
When it can cost up to 10k for a broken leg or over 100k for cancer, everyone needs health insurance, just as everyone who wants to drive is legally required to have liability insurance. You can not point to one successful example of a country using the Republican style healthcare system. I guess Somalia is pretty close, it's very "everyone for themselves" and their system sucks.
Are auto liability insurance premiums publicly subsidized for low income drivers and prohibited from varying based on actuarial risk factors (aka pre-existing conditions)? Be careful when you say "just as" when it is far from an accurate analogy.
I can point to dozens of examples around the world where the healthcare system I advocate for outperforms ours at a much cheaper cost. You can't point to any successful example of the system you advocate.
I can do the same for K-12 educational systems - simply because gov't X does something well does not mean that gov't Y will do so. You mistake an objection to proposal X (say adding PPACA) to endorsement of the current mess.
Let's get back to your mandatory auto liability insurance analogy - if one is caught driving without that mandatory auto insurance they can (and often do) go to jail and/or have their vehicle confiscated (impounded). Would you accept that as a reasonable way to treat those that do not pay for medical care insurance yet seek medical care treatment?
When it can cost up to 10k for a broken leg or over 100k for cancer, everyone needs health insurance, just as everyone who wants to drive is legally required to have liability insurance. You can not point to one successful example of a country using the Republican style healthcare system. I guess Somalia is pretty close, it's very "everyone for themselves" and their system sucks.
Hmm 100k sounds expensive.
If you take the $4500 that is spent between me and my employer put in into a personal HSA and let it compound for 20 years that’s over $150k. Seems like a much better plan for holding people personally responsible for their own healthcare. Then you wouldn’t have people running to the doctor every time they get the sniffles
I can point to dozens of examples around the world where the healthcare system I advocate for outperforms ours at a much cheaper cost. You can't point to any successful example of the system you advocate.
if everyone gets kicked off of the ACA because of this idiot's decision, the silver lining is that it's a step towards real universal coverage. it's a dumb way to do it, but we are the US, so that's sort of par for the course. we tend to have to make a lot of regular people suffer a lot before we can make any kind of real progress.
Yeah,, not if you compare apples to apples.
Actually its much much much worse than "everyone getting kicked off the ACA".
If the ACA gets declared unconstitutional... it would be a HUGE blow to medicare. to Medicaid.. to communities that have healthcare as a prominent employer.
Basically the ACA did way more than just expand Medicaid, and private insurance subsidies. IT also did major fixes to medicare.. established rates and so forth.
That's why they could not repeal it.
There are no other apples to compare. Nobody in the world runs a healthcare system like the US. We pay the most per capita of any country in the world yet rank nowhere near the top in quality of care, have tens of millions of Americans completely uninsured and tens of millions more who take on debt for medical procedures. You can't point to one successful healthcare system in the world that successfully does the nightmare system the Republicans want us to have.
it will probably be overturned on appeal.
Exactly.. which means that if you want to compare systems and costs, you have to control for things like the fact that America doesn't pay for physician education publically.
While other countries do.. which means that their costs in healthcare are lower.. but that cost is just shifted into their education system.
Or for example retirement. Other countries like France let people retire early if they are in a hard physical job... but the US doesn't. So while the French say avoid higher costs by avoiding repetitive injuries. they increase their costs in retirement spending.
And then you have to compare what systems pay for and what they do not.
We spend a lot more.. yet we also have a lot more when it comes to coverage than most single payer countries. Our Medicaid and Medicare..and most private insurance cover way more than most single payer government insurances in other countries. For example Canada single payer government doesn't pay for outpatient medications or home health. Medicaid and Medicare do.
Then there are differences in our demographics.. we tend to be more obese.. have more stress, work longer hours, and have more comorbidities than other countries.
Are auto liability insurance premiums publicly subsidized for low income drivers and prohibited from varying based on actuarial risk factors (aka pre-existing conditions)? Be careful when you say "just as" when it is far from an accurate analogy.
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