Jon is arguing a slight straw man there in that it was not a hearing before the entire Judiciary Committee (why is this bill in Judiciary though?) but the subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, so it's a smaller body but held in the full room where Judiciary usually meets. 15 members on the subcommittee. Rep. Cohen says all eight Democrats were there. I recognized him and Jamie Raskin for sure. The others are Swalwell, Scanlon, Dean, Garcia, Escobar, and Lee. Dunno if the GOP reps were there. Would have been Johnson, Gohmert, Jordan, Reschenthaler, Cline, and Armstrong.
He’s not wrong about their health being kicked around though. They responded in 5 seconds and years later are still waiting on a little reciprocity.
Anyway, this seems like an important enough issue where the fact that this is being heard by a subcommittee nearly two decades later instead of being brought to Congress and immediately authorized without hesitation or negotiation is a national embarrassment.
Jon is arguing a slight straw man there in that it was not a hearing before the entire Judiciary Committee (why is this bill in Judiciary though?) but the subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, so it's a smaller body but held in the full room where Judiciary usually meets. 15 members on the subcommittee. Rep. Cohen says all eight Democrats were there. I recognized him and Jamie Raskin for sure. The others are Swalwell, Scanlon, Dean, Garcia, Escobar, and Lee. Dunno if the GOP reps were there. Would have been Johnson, Gohmert, Jordan, Reschenthaler, Cline, and Armstrong.
He’s not wrong about their health being kicked around though. They responded in 5 seconds and years later are still waiting on a little reciprocity.
Anyway, this seems like an important enough issue where the fact that this is being heard by a subcommittee nearly two decades later instead of being brought to Congress and immediately authorized without hesitation or negotiation is a national embarrassment.
It was passed sometime during the Obama era (yes, this is an embarrassment) but needs to be reauthorized now. And the motherfucker who is everything wrong with America (McConnell) is blocking it, because of course he is. I think.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Anyway you can tell Stewart is sick and tired of being given the run around on this so I don't really care if he wants to not be technically 100% accurate about the state of the room he's speaking in. I've heard on these forums over and over that optics matter, and, well, he's not wrong that these are some shitty fucking optics.
+7
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Apparently the bill went through committee without even needing a roll call?
Anyway you can tell Stewart is sick and tired of being given the run around on this so I don't really care if he wants to not be technically 100% accurate about the state of the room he's speaking in. I've heard on these forums over and over that optics matter, and, well, he's not wrong that these are some shitty fucking optics.
I mean, this is the end state of anyone trying to get shit done in DC really. Just exhausted at the complete inability of anything to get done. And while it generally leads to a "OMG, politics is terrible!" response, what it really comes down to is "Conservatives are terrible and are grinding the government to a halt".
So the GOP here has started running ads against medicare for all. The best thing they could come up with was a scare ad about wait times for procedures.
Have any of these fuckers actually dealt with the medical system at all? My wife needs a hysterectomy because of advanced endometriosis, she found out in may, her options for scheduling were september or october. I had to wait 4 or 5 months for a nonemergency gall bladder removal. I had to wait 2 months before that for insurance to approve a diagnostic HYDA scan.
Yay socialism... oh wait this was America, and we had to pay thousands out of pocket for those procedures (probably 12,000 at least including associated ER visits - because apparently just because something isn’t an emergency doesn’t mean you can’t have episodes of intense abdominal pain with it, and non-emergencies can turn into emergencies pretty quickly) despite having health insurance which itself costs us about 16,000 dollars a year for the family.
So tell me again about that 20 week wait for nonemergency surgery?
Yeah that made up hypothetical health care program sure does suck, but uh....we’re talking about the 53 year old program that ~20% of the country currently uses
So the GOP here has started running ads against medicare for all. The best thing they could come up with was a scare ad about wait times for procedures.
Have any of these fuckers actually dealt with the medical system at all? My wife needs a hysterectomy because of advanced endometriosis, she found out in may, her options for scheduling were september or october. I had to wait 4 or 5 months for a nonemergency gall bladder removal. I had to wait 2 months before that for insurance to approve a diagnostic HYDA scan.
Yay socialism... oh wait this was America, and we had to pay thousands out of pocket for those procedures (probably 12,000 at least including associated ER visits - because apparently just because something isn’t an emergency doesn’t mean you can’t have episodes of intense abdominal pain with it, and non-emergencies can turn into emergencies pretty quickly) despite having health insurance which itself costs us about 16,000 dollars a year for the family.
So tell me again about that 20 week wait for nonemergency surgery again?
They do, but they deal with the medical system as it was in the 70s and 80s where you could just walk in and get minor surgery day of, and schedule major surgery a week out because their health care is the best in the world.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
0
Options
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
CBS is reporting that the appeals court appears ready to declare the ACA unconstitutional.
The debate seems to be after they call the individual mandate unconstitutional now that Congress has zeroed out the penalty* whether or not it invalidates the entire rest of law like the non-discrimination against patients with pre-existing conditions. The more ideological Republican judge wants to say it does, the more politically savvy one I think wants to throw it back to the District court and say "HEY YOU IDIOT, IF WE GET RID OF THE PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS, WE WILL LOSE ELECTIONS." Slightly paraphrased.
*The argument is manifestly stupid since the law considers you to have satisfied the individual mandate if you either have health insurance or you pay the penalty set by Congress. Which is now 0. So we all paid it and we all have satisfied the mandate. But they just ignore that second part of the clause because it's convenient to Republicanism to pretend it doesn't exist.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
It's been three months since oral arguments (that didn't seem to go well), is that normal?
I think the standard between arguments to decision is like six months actually.
Edit: For contentious cases. Stuff like "Shut up, yes that's the law, 9-0" stuff can go quick. I do not expect the ACA case to be even a little bit like that.
I'm on a marketplace plan in NY, hypothetically, if this dumbass Supreme Court buys the total nonsense that the GOP is selling on Obamacare, the law is struck down. Does my plan just disappear because its illegal now? Or in the following year we lose the marketplace? What would be the consequences of it?
I think the only real thing that's up for grabs would be the subsidy payments. Basically the discount you got on a plan because your income was only so high might go away. How that is handled mid year is a big old question that I don't have an answer to. It shouldn't be retroactive though. (The plan won't be illegal or an invalid contract but the funding mechanism might stop.)
Also current NY government might plausibly react with an emergency session to put something in place for the Marketplace here. Previously the GOP would block such efforts but NY's Senate/Assembly/Governor are all solidly D at the moment.
A quick refresher: When the Republican-led Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, it zeroed out the Affordable Care Act's penalty for people who did not have health insurance. That penalty was a key part of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the law in 2012, so after the change to the penalty, the ACA's opponents decided to challenge it anew.
...
The basic argument made by the state of Texas and the other plaintiffs? The zero dollar fine now outlined in the ACA is a "naked, penalty-free command to buy insurance," says Bagley.
Here's how the argument goes, as Bagley explains it: "We know from the Supreme Court's first decision on the individual mandate case that Congress doesn't have the power to adopt a freestanding mandate, it just has the power to impose a tax." So therefore, the argument is that "the naked mandate that remains in the Affordable Care Act must be unconstitutional."
The case made by the plaintiffs goes further, asserting that because the individual mandate was described by the Congress that enacted it as essential to the functioning of the law, this unconstitutional command cannot be cut off from the rest of the law. If the zero dollar penalty is unconstitutional, the whole law must fall.
The ruling under appeal accepted that entire notion and said everything must go. Pre-existing conditions, exchanges, all of it.
So the question that will be before SCOTUS is whether:
1 - a zero-cost penalty constitutes an unconstitutional provision, and
2 - whether the mandate is unseverable from the rest of the law given that Congress said it was essential.
This is a very stupid argument, of course, since Congress already agreed that a mandate with no teeth (aka: a recommendation) was acceptable when they removed its teeth; but this is the world we live in. One full of Federal Judges that the ABA doesn't think are fit to sit on the bench, and who yearn for a King.
Thats how I'd heard it talked about on the Weeds, that this is 'salt the earth' level of destruction if the SC decides against. So this summer when the decisions come down is gonna be a real shit storm
If the Republicans are not morons they should do this after the 2020 election. If things go "well" with them and the Republicans have the Presidency, House and Senate, the removal of Obamacare should be something the Democrats can do nothing about, and the people have 2 years to simmer down and come to terms with it as inevitable.
If Trump's Scotus kills the ACA outright (or kills the expansion to Medicaid or subsidies) the 2020 election is all but over.
Republican Senators in lean Republican/Purple states are going to be retiring or running for their lives.
If they hand down this decision it's going to telegraph the complete removal of the fig leaf that previous ACA decisions (or things like gay marriage) allowed the Roberts courts to at least pretend to not being a political wing of the party.
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
I was answering in the context of immediate, day 0 effects. The prexisting condition thing is huge but wouldn't change until the next plan re up I'd think. Even then, the law from Clinton way back when should make it irrelevant if you currently have insurance. You would want to make sure you never let it lapse again which could be pretty damn tough without marketplace plans to fall back into.
I mean as far as conservative arguments against the ACA go its one of the more solid ones. Particularly the bit about it being a mandate now.
But how? Their position boils down to the claim that the Trump tax cut contained provisions that exceeded Congress's constitutional authority to enact.
They're arguing that the mandate is unseverable because Congress said it was necessary at the time, while ignoring that Congress declared the current state of affairs to be acceptable when they set non-compliance tax to zero.
And if the $0 tax is something Congress can't legally enact, then isn't the legislation that set it at zero unconstitutional? If the sole issue with the ACA is that the non-compliance tax must be greater than zero, then the remedy is to strike down the law that improperly set it there and restore to the ACA to the form SCOTUS already approved.
Am I just wrong on how that works? Does the court not have the option to strike down amending legislation rather than throwing out the amended statute?
Absurd hypothetical: If we merely amended the statutory definition for murder to also define it as owning or possessing a firearm for any reason, I can't imagine they would have to throw out all laws criminalizing murder.
I was answering in the context of immediate, day 0 effects. The prexisting condition thing is huge but wouldn't change until the next plan re up I'd think. Even then, the law from Clinton way back when should make it irrelevant if you currently have insurance. You would want to make sure you never let it lapse again which could be pretty damn tough without marketplace plans to fall back into.
Yeah I get that. But I'm not sure how I see the whole thing wouldn't become invalid, aren't these insurance cos already getting some sort of subsidy to put their plans on the market to begin with?
0
Options
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
A quick refresher: When the Republican-led Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, it zeroed out the Affordable Care Act's penalty for people who did not have health insurance. That penalty was a key part of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the law in 2012, so after the change to the penalty, the ACA's opponents decided to challenge it anew.
...
The basic argument made by the state of Texas and the other plaintiffs? The zero dollar fine now outlined in the ACA is a "naked, penalty-free command to buy insurance," says Bagley.
Here's how the argument goes, as Bagley explains it: "We know from the Supreme Court's first decision on the individual mandate case that Congress doesn't have the power to adopt a freestanding mandate, it just has the power to impose a tax." So therefore, the argument is that "the naked mandate that remains in the Affordable Care Act must be unconstitutional."
The case made by the plaintiffs goes further, asserting that because the individual mandate was described by the Congress that enacted it as essential to the functioning of the law, this unconstitutional command cannot be cut off from the rest of the law. If the zero dollar penalty is unconstitutional, the whole law must fall.
The ruling under appeal accepted that entire notion and said everything must go. Pre-existing conditions, exchanges, all of it.
So the question that will be before SCOTUS is whether:
1 - a zero-cost penalty constitutes an unconstitutional provision, and
2 - whether the mandate is unseverable from the rest of the law given that Congress said it was essential.
This is a very stupid argument, of course, since Congress already agreed that a mandate with no teeth (aka: a recommendation) was acceptable when they removed its teeth; but this is the world we live in. One full of Federal Judges that the ABA doesn't think are fit to sit on the bench, and who yearn for a King.
Also congress has the ability to change and edit laws. It's literally their job. It would be lunacy if they made changes to a law enacted in the 60s, and it be rendered unconstitutional because originally hoop skirt taxes were essential for the functioning of the law. Things change, edits can be made. It's a thing they do all the time. Way more than actually create new laws.
Had intensive outpatient for mental health this morning. Later in the day I had physical therapy for my wrist I fractured. Despite showing up two hours early they were still able to see me a few minutes after I got there. Other people with different military rank, incomes, jobs, and civilians were also there and all got the same treatment and care.
My government healthcare continues to reign supreme as far as I'm concerned.
+9
Options
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Had intensive outpatient for mental health this morning. Later in the day I had physical therapy for my wrist I fractured. Despite showing up two hours early they were still able to see me a few minutes after I got there. Other people with different military rank, incomes, jobs, and civilians were also there and all got the same treatment and care.
My government healthcare continues to reign supreme as far as I'm concerned.
At my previous occupation, the residents preferred medicare, and only went to VA doctors when it was something service related that they needed documented. I've heard they are better now, but the residents still avoid the Walter Reed.
I mean as far as conservative arguments against the ACA go its one of the more solid ones. Particularly the bit about it being a mandate now.
It's not even the best conservative argument. Congress zeroed out the penalty. Congress could, but did not, zero out the law. Therefore Congress did not intend to repeal the law. It's also not a mandate because uh...mandates usually have things attached that require you to do things. This doesn't.
I mean as far as conservative arguments against the ACA go its one of the more solid ones. Particularly the bit about it being a mandate now.
It's not even the best conservative argument. Congress zeroed out the penalty. Congress could, but did not, zero out the law. Therefore Congress did not intend to repeal the law. It's also not a mandate because uh...mandates usually have things attached that require you to do things. This doesn't.
Conservatives thought killing the mandate would kill the program, but people are signing up because they need the care not because they fear the penalty.
Had intensive outpatient for mental health this morning. Later in the day I had physical therapy for my wrist I fractured. Despite showing up two hours early they were still able to see me a few minutes after I got there. Other people with different military rank, incomes, jobs, and civilians were also there and all got the same treatment and care.
My government healthcare continues to reign supreme as far as I'm concerned.
At my previous occupation, the residents preferred medicare, and only went to VA doctors when it was something service related that they needed documented. I've heard they are better now, but the residents still avoid the Walter Reed.
I can confirm Walter Reed is excellent these days having just left there a few hours ago.
I've found that the reputation of a VA hospital depends on location. In some states they've closed lots of VA clinics and surgical hospitals shifting those patients to more populous areas. In an effort to be more efficient and take advantage of scaling up your throughput you can really fuck over some of the people who used to rely on satellite locations.
Here's the thing though...
All healthcare systems have been doing this for 30 years now. Consolidate services to specific locations to reduce the equipment you buy/maintain, move surgical procedure scheduling to the lowest possible acuity location for that procedure, avoid admitting patients if at all possible.
People lose their shit when the VA implements these changes but Kaiser is somehow an industry leader for doing the same damn things. It's the "damn government, I pay taxes" lens conservatives have been using to break apart working sectors of government since Reagan.
Posts
He’s not wrong about their health being kicked around though. They responded in 5 seconds and years later are still waiting on a little reciprocity.
Anyway, this seems like an important enough issue where the fact that this is being heard by a subcommittee nearly two decades later instead of being brought to Congress and immediately authorized without hesitation or negotiation is a national embarrassment.
It was passed sometime during the Obama era (yes, this is an embarrassment) but needs to be reauthorized now. And the motherfucker who is everything wrong with America (McConnell) is blocking it, because of course he is. I think.
I mean, this is the end state of anyone trying to get shit done in DC really. Just exhausted at the complete inability of anything to get done. And while it generally leads to a "OMG, politics is terrible!" response, what it really comes down to is "Conservatives are terrible and are grinding the government to a halt".
Have any of these fuckers actually dealt with the medical system at all? My wife needs a hysterectomy because of advanced endometriosis, she found out in may, her options for scheduling were september or october. I had to wait 4 or 5 months for a nonemergency gall bladder removal. I had to wait 2 months before that for insurance to approve a diagnostic HYDA scan.
Yay socialism... oh wait this was America, and we had to pay thousands out of pocket for those procedures (probably 12,000 at least including associated ER visits - because apparently just because something isn’t an emergency doesn’t mean you can’t have episodes of intense abdominal pain with it, and non-emergencies can turn into emergencies pretty quickly) despite having health insurance which itself costs us about 16,000 dollars a year for the family.
So tell me again about that 20 week wait for nonemergency surgery?
Yeah that made up hypothetical health care program sure does suck, but uh....we’re talking about the 53 year old program that ~20% of the country currently uses
They do, but they deal with the medical system as it was in the 70s and 80s where you could just walk in and get minor surgery day of, and schedule major surgery a week out because their health care is the best in the world.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obamacare-appeals-court-likely-to-rule-aca-unconstitutional/
*The argument is manifestly stupid since the law considers you to have satisfied the individual mandate if you either have health insurance or you pay the penalty set by Congress. Which is now 0. So we all paid it and we all have satisfied the mandate. But they just ignore that second part of the clause because it's convenient to Republicanism to pretend it doesn't exist.
Constitutional law isnt real
How have they still not ruled on this:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/12/769038397/heads-up-a-ruling-on-the-latest-challenge-to-the-affordable-care-act-is-coming
It's been three months since oral arguments (that didn't seem to go well), is that normal?
I think the standard between arguments to decision is like six months actually.
Edit: For contentious cases. Stuff like "Shut up, yes that's the law, 9-0" stuff can go quick. I do not expect the ACA case to be even a little bit like that.
Also current NY government might plausibly react with an emergency session to put something in place for the Marketplace here. Previously the GOP would block such efforts but NY's Senate/Assembly/Governor are all solidly D at the moment.
The ruling under appeal accepted that entire notion and said everything must go. Pre-existing conditions, exchanges, all of it.
So the question that will be before SCOTUS is whether:
1 - a zero-cost penalty constitutes an unconstitutional provision, and
2 - whether the mandate is unseverable from the rest of the law given that Congress said it was essential.
This is a very stupid argument, of course, since Congress already agreed that a mandate with no teeth (aka: a recommendation) was acceptable when they removed its teeth; but this is the world we live in. One full of Federal Judges that the ABA doesn't think are fit to sit on the bench, and who yearn for a King.
Republican Senators in lean Republican/Purple states are going to be retiring or running for their lives.
If they hand down this decision it's going to telegraph the complete removal of the fig leaf that previous ACA decisions (or things like gay marriage) allowed the Roberts courts to at least pretend to not being a political wing of the party.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
But how? Their position boils down to the claim that the Trump tax cut contained provisions that exceeded Congress's constitutional authority to enact.
They're arguing that the mandate is unseverable because Congress said it was necessary at the time, while ignoring that Congress declared the current state of affairs to be acceptable when they set non-compliance tax to zero.
And if the $0 tax is something Congress can't legally enact, then isn't the legislation that set it at zero unconstitutional? If the sole issue with the ACA is that the non-compliance tax must be greater than zero, then the remedy is to strike down the law that improperly set it there and restore to the ACA to the form SCOTUS already approved.
Am I just wrong on how that works? Does the court not have the option to strike down amending legislation rather than throwing out the amended statute?
Absurd hypothetical: If we merely amended the statutory definition for murder to also define it as owning or possessing a firearm for any reason, I can't imagine they would have to throw out all laws criminalizing murder.
Yeah I get that. But I'm not sure how I see the whole thing wouldn't become invalid, aren't these insurance cos already getting some sort of subsidy to put their plans on the market to begin with?
Also congress has the ability to change and edit laws. It's literally their job. It would be lunacy if they made changes to a law enacted in the 60s, and it be rendered unconstitutional because originally hoop skirt taxes were essential for the functioning of the law. Things change, edits can be made. It's a thing they do all the time. Way more than actually create new laws.
My government healthcare continues to reign supreme as far as I'm concerned.
It's not even the best conservative argument. Congress zeroed out the penalty. Congress could, but did not, zero out the law. Therefore Congress did not intend to repeal the law. It's also not a mandate because uh...mandates usually have things attached that require you to do things. This doesn't.
Conservatives thought killing the mandate would kill the program, but people are signing up because they need the care not because they fear the penalty.
I can confirm Walter Reed is excellent these days having just left there a few hours ago.
Here's the thing though...
All healthcare systems have been doing this for 30 years now. Consolidate services to specific locations to reduce the equipment you buy/maintain, move surgical procedure scheduling to the lowest possible acuity location for that procedure, avoid admitting patients if at all possible.
People lose their shit when the VA implements these changes but Kaiser is somehow an industry leader for doing the same damn things. It's the "damn government, I pay taxes" lens conservatives have been using to break apart working sectors of government since Reagan.