Reform's A Comin'

[7starmantis]

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I, for one, have stopped caring entirely.

While I certainly understand your sentiments, this is exactly what the ******s in Washington are banking on. The American people get tired of their games and then they loose interest and that gives "them" freedom to do things they could never get away with before. We need to stay the course and remember this crap come election time.

No, but when an uninsured driver causes large amounts of damage to an insured driver, who picks up the tab? The insured motorist's insurance company. When an uninsured person gets ill and needs life saving care, who picks up the tab? The hospital that is required to provide care. Clearly the two are not closely analogous, but they are likewise not widely dissimilar. I just don't find the notion of behavioral mandates to protect others' financial interests to be anything new in this country.

Actually I have serious issues with the talking points that are being used as far as uninsured go. When an uninsured person goes to the hospital the uninsured person picks up the tab. I was uninsured for nearly 8 years and I picked up all of my tabs. While there are those that dont, we can't just say uninsured = not willing or able to pay.

While you may not find behavior mandates new, this is very legitimately a brand new action taken by the federal government. One I think is way beyond its role and will only open the door to more and more usurpation of power.

And yet we have EMTALA, which one could make a very good argument is unconstitutional. As I alluded to above, I don't know how they are going to deal with enforcing this mandate. We will all have to stay tuned.

While the constitutionality of EMTALA can be discussed elsewhere, its a seriously flawed line of reasoning to say that because something else exists that is unconstitutional then other unconstitutional things should be allowed to exist. This argument has been made a lot in this debate from Washington to media, to SDN. Its just simply not correct, basically the whole two wrongs not making a right idea.

 

[Parts Unknown]

Actually I have serious issues with the talking points that are being used as far as uninsured go. When an uninsured person goes to the hospital the uninsured person picks up the tab.

I apologize, I was referring to situations where the cost of care exceeds the person's ability or willingness to pay. In the context of this discussion I thought that was clear enough.

While the constitutionality of EMTALA can be discussed elsewhere, its a seriously flawed line of reasoning to say that because something else exists that is unconstitutional then other unconstitutional things should be allowed to exist.

Alas, that's not my argument, merely that there is room to maneuver in addressing the concerns over constitutionality. I can see how you would reach that conclusion from my poor wording, though.

If you wish, you may read this July 2009 report prepared by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, which investigated this issue.

Bottom line: The language in the bill will be critical, but if done properly Congress can assert the insurance mandate under either its tax-and-spend powers or its powers to regulate interstate commerce, and this assertion would likely pass a Supreme Court review.

 

[Parts Unknown]

strummin, care to comment on those polls? Is it safe to say now that a majority of Americans oppose this legislation?

No. Just read Democratic pollster Mark Mellman's recently submitted letter to Congress, which addresses many of the shortcomings of health reform polling data in the past year. It even has graphs!

 

[NickNaylor]

I found this to be a useful comparison between the two bills:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CPM7K80&show_article=1

 

[batch5000]

Finally I'll be able to afford to go to the doctor for this tumor that's been growing for a while. 😍

 

[futureboy]

Supreme Court review.

Now that we have a "wise Latina" on the court, all USSC decisions will be much better.

 

[NickNaylor]

Now that we have a "wise Latina" on the court, all USSC decisions will be much better.

Yeah, good thing we've got her opinion.

 

[dadocca]

The sad thing is that after we reform our government next year and 2 years after that, this POS "reform" will never go away 😡

 

[Slack3r]

The sad thing is that after we reform our government next year and 2 years after that, this POS "reform" will never go away 😡

Why do you think this "reform" was rushed through this year? Not because we're in dire need of anything Washington is selling as reform, but because if this waited until an election year to pass, many of the borderline Dems would have thought twice before jumping on the bandwagon.