Jun 28, 2012

Obamacare Constitutional

     Those who predicted that the Supreme Court would hold the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) constitutional have been proved correct. This dramatic expansion of health care coverage -- most of it coming in about two years -- will be of dramatic benefit to Social Security disability claimants.

     Update: Because of Chief Justice Roberts' opinion, it may be possible for states to opt out of providing the additional Medicaid coverage to millions of people provided for in the Affordable Care Act. Would they? My guess is that after sober reflection Republican governors and legislators will decide not to opt out since opting out would cause states to lose billions of dollars of health care funding. I think that doctors and hospitals will lobby hard for states to accept the additional Medicaid coverage. We'll see.
     Better medical care cuts both ways for the Social Security disability programs. People who receive adequate medical care are less likely to become disabled. Those who are disabled despite adequate medical care will have better proof of their disability.

9 comments:

Nobbins said...

I have to admit I'm surprised. I really expected them to boondoggle the hell out of this.

Maybe Big Pharma took Roberts on a few all expense paid vacations and he started seeing things their way. Whatever his motives, he managed to do the right thing.

Anonymous said...

After this decision is there anything the federal government cannot compel us to do by imposing penalties/taxes?

Anonymous said...

So to police the mountain of regulations imposed by this law, how many thousands of bureaucrats will have to be hired, while SSA continues to wither away on the vine. This whole thing is a joke. They could have just expanded eligiblility for Medicare, hired more SSA employees, and accomplished way more at way less cost and trouble. This was only about setting nrew benchmarks for federal govt control of society, the economy, and individuals.

Anonymous said...

Obama would have loved to expand eligibility for medicare;the repubs would have none of it. So in the spirit of reconciliation he settled for a plan that was created (and implemented)by right-wingers, who then turned 180 degrees because they'd rather have him out of office than move the country forward in any meaningful way.

Anonymous said...

That's absolutely ludicrous. Obamacare passed with no Republican votes. The Democrats could have passed anything else, but chose this monstrosity, to put the U.S. on the path to European-style socialism(which is now a failure, but that's not stopping them). It's all about controlling the masses. Make more people dependent on the government.

Anonymous said...

"Those who predicted that the Supreme Court would hold the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) constitutional have been proved correct."

That is not entirely true because I am willing to bet that all of those who voted in the poll that it would be upheld believed in the Commerce Clause argument, which was unconstitutional.

Anonymous said...

The United States should not have equal access to medical care. If you do not have the common sense to be born rich you should suffer with lesser care. Attach the healthcare insurance to your work, so if you get sick and cant work you dont have insurance and cant get the care. Its common sense.

Don Levit said...

Calling the payments taxes is incorrect, in my opinion.
One of the primary reasons Social Security passed constitutional muster was that the payments were deemed taxes, for the general welfare.
The payments went to the general fund of the Treasury, like all other taxes.
And, citizens could not directly tie their benefits to their contributions.
In this case, the Treasury is simply acting as a conduit to more easily transfer the "taxes" directly to the for-profit insurance companies. The insureds, benefit, indirectly. But the first, direct benefits are for subsidies for the overpriced health insurance of for-profit insurers.
Don Levit

Anonymous said...

No, the Democrats could not have passed whatever they wanted. Do you not remember that d-bag Nelson, to name just one, who kept nutting up and demanding personal favors just to sign on to the Heritage Foundation plan?

People who keep spouting off "Democratic Senate for over a year!" and the like need to remember that the Democratic Senators did and do not circle the wagons and toe the party line as well as the Republicans do.