Question on Affordable Health Care

[Cartaphelius]

Thank you in advance for your assistance;

What is the difference between mandating everyone to pay for health care,
paying Social Security, auto insurance or national defense?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Depends on what you're comparing it to

Social Security is a government program. You aren't required to buy a pension from a private investment firm.

Auto insurance is for people who drive. Not everyone can or wants to drive. Everyone has a body that occasionally or often gets some sort of ailment.

National defense is another government program. We aren't required to pay for mercenaries (except with Bush's cronies in Iraq).

[hughee99]

4. Also, auto insurance is handled state by state,

and states can mandate certain things that the federal government cannot depending on their laws.

[Cartaphelius]

6. Thank you Lydia....

Food for thought indeed.

The wife and I struggled to see the problem, beyond finally passing a right-wing idea that they don't even like..

You are required, as an employee in the USA, to make payments to the same entity that will be "accepting" required payments for the ACA.

This same entity levies "payment" from all, to develop & purchase weaponry used, ostensibly, to expand "free" enterprise and influence.
(ditto the assessment of Bush, but lest we forget, damned few POTUS fall victim to the same Industrial Complex Bush was a part of).

If you do drive you are "mandated" to be insured. If you fail to insure technically you are in violation of the the law.

Be safe and vote your heart...

[warrior1]

2. this is from today

Justice Stephen Breyer

The most emphatic defense of an individual mandate came from Justice Stephen Breyer, who several times raised the question of whether Congress may mandate that everyone who has a fatal, communicable disease be inoculated. “A disease is sweeping the United States,” he said, “and 40 million people are susceptible, of whom 10 million will die; can’t the federal government say all 40 million get inoculation?”

Then Breyer explained the principle behind the argument.

“It shows there is a national problem, and it shows there is a national problem that involves money, cost insurance,” he said. “So if Congress could do this, should there be a disease that strikes the United States and they want everyone inoculated even though 10 million will be hurt, it’s hard for me to decide why that isn’t interstate commerce, even more so where we know it affects everybody.”

Breyer returned to the hypothetical several times when the two lawyers for the law’s challengers cried foul on the government’s ability to mandate the purchase of a product


http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/liberal-justices-pick-up-obama-lawyers-slack-in-defense-of-mandate.php?ref=fpa

[HockeyMom]

3. Some of us have said this

They say one is a tax and the other isn't. Give your money to a tax or give your money to an insurance company? Personally, I would prefer a tax on all for a Medicare like health insurance for all ages. Why limit it to when you are old? Granted, I know Repukes would like to end all of it.

[CAPHAVOC]

5. Not health care

A private insurance policy contract with a corporation. My opinion. Health care has become like national defense. Something that only the Federal Government has the ability to do. I do not come to that position lightly. I think the best option we have is dust off the insurance companies. Take Medicare back to its original Part A and Part B. Cover all citizens. We are broke. We may have to triage the system and even have waits so the worst off go first. But at least it will be fair and all will be helped equally as citizens.

[girl gone mad]

7. The CEO of Aetna makes $500,000 a week.

How much do SS executives make?

[Yo_Mama]

8. Taking them one by one

1) Auto insurance is mandated by states, so it has a different legal footing. Nor is everyone forced to buy it - you are quite free not to drive. Congress doesn't have anything to do with it, so the Commerce Clause is utterly irrelevant. Under the Constitution, state and federal governments do have different roles.

2) Social Security is a government program funded by taxes. Absolutely no one in the whole controversy believes that Congress cannot set up a universal health care system funded by taxes. That is entirely different from what Congress did do in ACA, so the legal basis is quite different. Congress has very broad taxing powers. Among the very large differences here are that SS is universal, and yesterday the argument was made that only about 5% of the population would have to pay the penalty/tax under ACA.

Social Security is authorized under the taxing power. The legal argument for the individual mandate is that Congress may regulate interstate commerce (national health care system) and may impose the penalty/tax (very equivocal) as a means of getting more people to buy insurance from private companies in order to fund the entire system. There is a very big difference in the legal grounding, and one of the centerpieces of the argument today was whether there could be any limiting principle if the Court rules that ACA is constitutional. For example, could Congress mandate that persons with high incomes buy electric vehicles, and charge them a penalty if they did not? Could Congress mandate that everyone buy a cell phone for emergency purposes, and enforce that by charging a fee if they did not? Could Congress mandate that everyone buy an American-made vehicle, or buy any product?

3) National defense is a specifically enumerated power of Congress in the Constitution, and is funded by the taxing power. Legally it is absolutely on solid ground.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section1
Article I, Section 8:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
...
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
...
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Originally there was a clause in Article I, Section 9 forbidding direct taxation:

No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

That was changed by the 16th Amendment:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxvi

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

If that is changed effectively by the ACA precedent to the idea that Congress can charge you taxes or penalties or whatever you want to call them unless you buy things they want you to buy, it does seem likely that the relationship of the individual to Congress has been fundamentally changed. Congress often wishes to do certain things it does not have the money to do, and it is constrained in raising the money to do those things because of electoral pushbacks against taxation. This is a fundamental mediating process.

But if Congress can mandate that individuals purchase products of a certain type or description from private companies, and if it can pass those laws when they only affect a small portion of the population, then Congress gains a huge amount of power. Further, it raises questions under due process/equal protection grounds. That is the real reason the individual mandate in ACA is unconstitutional. I doubt it will be more than touched upon in the ruling here, but if ACA were to survive this test, it would eventually be struck on equal protection/due process grounds.

There are also several issues over taxing powers in this case, and the Wiki article mentions some of the cases which were brought up in the oral arguments today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxing_and_Spending_Clause
Transcript link
http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/11-398-Tuesday.pdf