Chief Justice John Roberts signs on to Health Care Act
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 at 09:52 AM
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| John Roberts |
Well, here's some humble pie I don't mind eating. In fact, I'm in a positively celebratory mood.
I wish that I could say today's ruling signals a move to the political center for the John Roberts Court, but clearly it means no such thing.
Following the public outrage over the Citizens United decision, had the Roberts Court ruled against the Affordable Health Care Act it could have bolstered a legitimacy crisis for the Supreme Court. For whatever reasons Roberts chose not to aggravate that perception at this time.
But critics like Rush Limbaugh are now contending, with laughable hyperbole, that Obamacare constitutes the 'biggest tax increase in the history of the world.'
Well, sometimes the social compact makes us pay for things that we don't like in order to promote the greater good of the nation, allowing us receive a mutual benefit.
What Tea Party supporters call an 'immoral tax' can also be called 'taking individual responsibility' to insure yourself so that your personal costs aren't passed on to everyone else, or failing that to contribute to the Government's revenue so that it can cover those costs.
When uninsured people seek medical care we all pay for it. Either through taxes or through increases to medical costs. The new mandate takes that burden off us and places it back with the person with no insurance.
You want medical treatment but don't want to get insurance? OK, you can have it but now we'll levy a fine against you.
This is not socialism. This is common sense. You can't get a drivers license without car insurance in some states. The government has just applied the same logic to health care. Applying the same logic to health care makes good sense.
There are people in America who believe they can go without health care insurance. There are people who are certain they will never get sick, never have an accident, never need stitches or break a bone. So when they go to hospital now without insurance for those things they'll be fined.
Once upon a time they thought, wrongly, that what they did had no impact on anyone else in society. Now they'll discover the error of that view and they'll contribute to the greater health of the nation.
That's what taking responsibility for your own actions means. The Court has upheld a sensible law. We all benefit from it.
41 Comments
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BrianO | Jul 01, 2012, 09:26 PM EDT
need to review your physics, seano.But since you bring it up, How could dinosaurs have roamed the earth? That would require the earth to be much warmer than it is now, and we all know that only human interference can warm the earth.
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seanomelb | Jul 01, 2012, 07:32 PM EDT
Melting ice lowers sea levels I'm disappointed Briano!Maybe you were been humorous.I sure hope so.Maybe you also believe that dinosaurs roamed the earth with humans ya gotta laugh!!
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BrianO | Jul 01, 2012, 06:05 PM EDT
Ephraim the guy in flooded basement I'm sure exists, the problem with the seascarers is that they take an aberration in data and extrapolate it to "prove" their end. Anyone who performed high school science experiments will know this is fudging results to fit what you want the conclusion to be. Your version of America relies on bigger and more powerful government to be nice to everyone, alawys seems nice at the beginning put tends to end horribly.
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EphraimKibbey | Jul 01, 2012, 05:25 PM EDT
@Briano - the guy in the interview didn't seem to think that his house was sinking but I guess that would be an alternative explanation for the fact that the ocean was in his basement or don't you believe in facts. @eiriamach - I agree that my post showed some philosophical wishful thinking but I have found that the KISS principle is important. When you start to see their eyes glazing over, it is time to "Keep It Simple Stupid!" Your facts are resplendent but there are many here who won't read them or acknowledge them let alone believe them. The nation's only hope is a constitutional amendment stating that only people are people with rights and that limiting contributions to elections to reasonable amounts with full disclosure is constitutional followed by a return to a more progressive tax schedule. The one under Clinton worked well then but I fear that too much of the nation's wealth has been stolen by the plutocracy and will need to be repatriated before our economy can function ideally.
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eiriamach | Jul 01, 2012, 03:57 PM EDT
EphraimK, I like your principle, "we all contribute to our commonwealth based on our ability to do so," but I do not see it working out in practice. The wealthy consume much more in government services, at hidden costs, than the poor--unless the poor grow so large in numbers and the wealthy so few that the balance shifts. We're not yet at that point. Now, someone with $1 million in yearly income requires far more of the services of the FDIC, SEC, TSA, other security and info agencies, regulatory agencies that watch banks and manufacturers for compliance, and enforcement agencies for NAFTA and other commerce treaties. The wealthy are well protected by expensive government services, and they contribute less to their cost than middle- and working-class Americans, who might use food stamps (welfare for corporate farmers) or aid to dependent children when parents are unemployed (unemployment insurance is a benefit they paid into, not "welfare"). That's without mentioning oil depletion allowances, agriculture subsidies, and other tax loopholes. The wealthy have a better "ability" to pay but get gov't benefits galore at the expense of the middle-class. As Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out, sources of power in the economy are covert, so we try to solve economic problems through politics, where power is overt. (But I thought you guys gave up on philosophy?)
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BrianO | Jul 01, 2012, 08:37 AM EDT
Ephraim there is no rising of sea levels. Read the Constitution it is short and remarkable easy to read. Show me where it says government shall tax people by their ability to pay. As I get ready to celebrate The forth of July, Happy DEPENDENCE day as that is what your party and me thinks your employer strive for.
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EphraimKibbey | Jul 01, 2012, 01:09 AM EDT
The way our government works is that we all contribute to our commonwealth based on our ability to do so and the government does the big things that no one person is able to do by themselves. For most of us it is stuff like building a bridge in downtown Boston or equiping an army but for the less fortunate among us it is seeing that they get healthcare and a decent education. Since life is one of our inalienable rights, poverty should not be a reason for its loss. It should definitely not be taken away because of the inaction of our government. While I personally think Medicare for All or single payer would be much cheaper (as it cuts out the middle men) I realize that it would result in massive job loses from the health insurance companies as they tried to stay in business on medicare suppliment policies alone. The ACA will actually require them to hire more to handle the new policies being written and it will also increase the need for service providers. Lets phase in Medicare for all by lowering the starting age by five years each year.
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EphraimKibbey | Jul 01, 2012, 12:50 AM EDT
@Briano - "The larger increase here is caused by a slowing of the gulf stream due to glacial melt fresh water messing up the salinity pump in the North Atlantic." Sorry Briano, I know you are a stickler for detail and I thought my use of "glacial" in that statement would cover the fact that the fresh water was indeed coming from melting glaciers on land. The ocean temperature has also risen and as you are a scientifically astute person, I am sure you are aware that liquids expand when heated. Since the folks on the coast between New York and the Carolinas say the sea level is rising, I will take them at their word as they are there and I am not although the video of the guy standing in the flooded basement of his seaside home was pretty convincing.
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BrianO | Jun 30, 2012, 05:28 PM EDT
Eamonn I thought I conceeded that point only that it may raise levels, as with all things in nature the systems tend to be self regulating. the forces that melt ice in one region reform in another, Most of the seascarers will find a study that works for them in some part of the world and extrapolate to achieve their goal. Anyone who performs real science is a threat because ultimately they are not about solving or warning of a problem but are about economic control. Just another attack on freedom using simple logic and fear not fact.
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EamonnDublin | Jun 30, 2012, 04:11 PM EDT
BrianO - Exactly! Now you've got it! Water in the form of ice does indeed take up more space than it does in its liquidised form. But I didn't say "icebergs", I said "iceblocks", meaning ice on land. When that melts into the sea, there is obviously only one thing the sea level can do - rise. Another principle which can be applied in this matter is the one which states that when 5,000 giant gorillas jump into a small lake, the water in the lake rises. Of course, according to Lucas (1843-1916), this phenomenon is not solely confined to gorillas, it can in fact apply also to giraffes, buffalo, horses, crocodiles and sheep (unshorn). Archimides also had something to say about it, but I think he might have got it slightly wrong. Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.
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BrianO | Jun 30, 2012, 02:47 PM EDT
Eamonn, discussing geometry and physics is so much more enjoyable than the philosophy lessons of late, The right angled iceberg is I assume made of ice. This form of H2O takes up more volume than the liquid state of H2O. Fill a glass with ice fill the glass with water, when the ice melts see if it overflows remains the same or is less. Briano. In the winters in massachusetts we have to be careful frozen water pipes, when that happens the same volume of water expands and bursts the pipes.
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EamonnDublin | Jun 30, 2012, 02:04 PM EDT
My apologies to "PittsburghKid" - I omitted to log in and thus my response to "BrianO" is headed "PittsburghKid" because he was the next to post. It's a quirk of the software. The post is signed off at the end by me. Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.
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Pittsburghkid | Jun 30, 2012, 01:39 PM EDT
Roberts needs his seizure medication adjusted.
No need to worry the Tea Party is gearing up for 2012, like it did in 2010.
American are going to be called all kinds of names like racist, homophobe, zenophobe, etc, but we will ignore this name calling, and vote like it waa 2010.
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EamonnDublin | Jun 30, 2012, 11:44 AM EDT
BrianO - But, using the "square on the hypotenuse theorem" (Pythagoras), the melting ice on the square of the longest side of the iceblock equals the sum of the melting ice on the squares of the other two sides. Therefore, the melting ice from a solid landblock of ice MUST raise the sea level - always, of course, allowing for the fact that the iceblock has to be formed in the shape of a triangle and also must include a right-angled triangle - as most iceblocks indeed are. QED! Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.
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