This week’s Supreme Court hearings on the Affordable Care Act have made two things crystal clear:
First, most of the discussion actually propels the argument toward broader — not narrower — health care reform.
And second, the conservative members of the court apparently can act like partisan fearmongers with the best of them.
On the first point, the court paid its most pointed attention to the question of the individual insurance mandate and whether the federal government can compel U.S. residents to buy health coverage or pay a penalty.
The reasoning all along here has been that in order for such a system to be financially viable, all residents — regardless of age, desire or medical condition — must participate so that younger, healthier people can balance out the costs of older, sicker folks.
Because we will all proceed through the same stages in life and face medical needs at some time or another, this is a fair-minded, sensible approach.
It’s an approach whose most logical conclusion, really, is not an “insurance mandate” but public health care, in the mode of Social Security and Medicare.
The fact that we are trying to define health care differently for the general population than we do for our older citizens is a bit of unnecessary gymnastics that spawns the kind of debate we saw this week, in which the highest judges in the land wring their hands over the specter of the federal government overstepping its bounds.
If the justices and the majority of the country constitutionally support the concepts of Social Security and Medicare, so should they also support a national health care system.
But because some people see that as the devil incarnate — in other words, socialism — the Affordable Care Act evolved into the law we have now, including the “mandate” language that is giving some people fits.
And that led to lots of silly speculation at Tuesday’s hearing, which saw some of the allegedly most acute and esteemed legal minds in the country making all kinds of stupid leaps of logic, barging into obvious fallacies like a bunch of blind donkeys.
If the federal government can force you to buy health insurance, what else can it force you to do?
Can it require you to buy a cellphone to call emergency services, asked Chief Justice John Roberts?
Can it require you to buy mandatory burial insurance, asked Justice Samuel Alito?
And the most inane of them all, can it require you to eat broccoli, asked Justice Antonin Scalia?
Scalia also compared health care to cars, and I’m starting to find this a little hard to believe.
Is it not patently obvious that fundamental differences exist between health care and things like cellphones, cars and broccoli?
The fact is, nearly every American — hundreds of millions of people — will need some form of health care at some point.
A fraction of Americans will ever have to call for emergency services. Nobody has to buy a car, and no dealer is compelled to sell you one. Same for broccoli.
But when you keel over from a stroke and need that treatment, a doctor must provide it, whether you have insurance or not, whether you can pay one dime or not.
For those reasons, health care is not any random commodity. And it is not a luxury that should only be afforded by the rich or fortunate.
It is a basic right, one that any of us could require at zero notice, when we are incapacitated and without even the simple ability to choose.
Even in that state, we will get care.
And yet here we are, where instead of listening to justices compare it to the things it’s like, all we hear are analogies to the things it’s not like.
When you think about it, it’s so ridiculous that you begin to wonder if these justices were not acting simply crazy, but crazy like a fox — as in they have some broader motive for the litany of dumb comparisons.
Perhaps they were offering these examples to precisely show that unique distinction.
I can only hope that is the case, but we’ll have to wait and see.
June — and a decision — can’t come too soon.
What do you think? Share your thoughts here.
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4 comments
bobfromsanluis
March 30, 2012 at 11:57 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Wow, Joe, well said. The comparison to Social Security and Medicare are more to the point than ever. Part of the conservative argument against the Affordable Care Act is the part about “mandating” the purchase of a product (or service) from a private entity, such as an insurance company. Okay, let’s change that; instead of mandating that we purchase private insurance, how about we just pool all of us together into a single payer system. We don’t even have to reinvent the wheel since we already have a single payer system in place, even though it has lots of flaws and warts, it can certainly be improved. I’m talking about Medicare, of course, which could be expanded to include all Americans, not just those over 64 years of age. Doing this would eliminate the distasteful “mandate” about having to buy from private enterprise, and those in the insurance field would be free to offer “premium” upgrade policies. The flaws and warts I spoke of, mostly the fraud perpetrated by some of the providers and doctors in the Medicare system currently, that definitely needs to be addressed. All of the claims about the system going broke can be firmly refuted by the sheer numbers of participants if we open it up to all Americans, and the “problem” of having doctors refusing to participate is pretty much eliminated since most all Americans will be in the program. Alright then, let the conservatives unload on both of us now.
bobfromsanluis
April 1, 2012 at 3:33 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
stoptheinsanity: Two points I would have you think about or investigate about this being a Constitutional issue; first, in the preamble of the Constitution, it clearly states: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Please note the selected use of capital letters, this was done by the framers of the Constitution, so clearly they had an intention of those items that are capitalized as being important, and “the general Welfare” is capitalized. Second, consider “precedent” as to whether or not the government can require anyone to purchase health insurance; are you not aware that very early on in our country’s history that we required “private” merchant marines to purchase a health care plan as being required to have in order be employed as a merchant marine? Link here to an article from Forbes Magazine (not exactly a liberal rag by any stretch). We have, as a government, in the past, required the mandatory purchase of private insurance for private citizens working for private employers. Read the article at the link, think about it for more than a second, and then come back with a cogent argument for your viewpoint, please.
Crapkiller
April 3, 2012 at 4:20 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
What other opinion, well written, could one expect from Joe. You make good points for socialists and progressives. Of course, the Communist Manifesto makes many points that you would totally agree with. One would expect this from an “Occupy wall street” supporter.
To bobfromsanluis: How about a state sales tax on all food to pay for individual elected health care? This way illegal aliens would pay, everyone would pay, and everyone would be entitled to basic services, and service decided by the state. If superior services were wanted, let the individual pay for extra insurance.
As far as the one payer system is concerned, let the credit card companies handle it. They seem to handle fraud well. As soon as a government bureaucrat gets involved, everything goes into the toilet.
Crapkiller
April 3, 2012 at 4:24 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
How does one force doctors to give service at a loss? Do their nurses and office help take a loss on government required health care? Do the union nurses in Hospitals lake less in pensions, and do the ambulance chasers take less? How about malpractice attorneys? What about malpractice insurance?