the pre-existing condition problem. But the individual mandate is the preferred route because it's a massive giveaway to the health insurance industry. What other policies could possibly make coverage available for pre-existing conditions? I think that the government's contention that the individual mandate is the lynchpin could wind up being the undoing of the entire program. Not that I'd be disappointed. Single provider is the only logical path.

Not everybody can sit out a months-long waiting period.

discourage people from waiting until illness or accident strikes to get coverage. Years ago when NYS mandated coverage for pre-existing conditions, they instituted an open enrollment period so that people wouldn't do without insurance until they got sick. My opinion is that all of these attempts at insurance reform are futile.

Bottom line: Do away with ALL health insurance--public and private--and nationaize the healthcare industry. Single provider is the only logical way to get the profit out of healthcare.

This was the best that could be done, and it would have been much better than the status quo.

Millions of people don't have coverage through no fault of their own -- not because they decided to take their chances and wait to get coverage, but because they lost their job, or their insurer dropped them when they developed a serious illness, or they were denied coverage.

gets rid of the corrupt health insurance industry and leaves the corrupt healthcare delivery industry in place.

NATIONALIZE HEALTHCARE!

however I am very curious to see what's up with the preparing of executive orders.

in Selma was.

We need to keep demanding it and NEVER SHUT UP.

Better the current law stays in place and we work towards bettering that - because otherwise how many more years until we see change?

I have a question for those critical of "the individual mandate" but supportive of any single payer plan ... Wouldn't any single payer plan also have an "individual mandate" in the form of a payroll deduction (e.g., being allowed to buy into medicare)?

The only difference being the payment of premiums to a private insurance company or to the federal government. While I do not/would not like having to pay to a for-profit insurance company, it really is a status quo proposition for 100% of the currently, non-medicare/medicaid, insured.

We just want the bloodsucking middlemen permanently out of the picture.

But again, that is not how the ANYONE is framing the argument.

to tax. What's at issue here is whether Congress has the authority to compel me to buy something I don't want from a company I don't want to do business with.

an argument of semantics? As (and I'm not saying that this is a good idea, but) Congress can tax AND use that money to pay those very same insurance companies that you would otherwise not want to do business with.

I would prefer that the insurance middlemen be cut out of the equation, as they add no value to the system. But that said, it will not happen over night, and IMHO, nor should it. It will take time to transition from the current system and any abrupt change will cause dislocation of 1000 of insurance industry workers. This is a consideration that the administration also must consider ... especially during an election year recession.

The government levies taxes to pay for services in the public good. They use tax money for national defense, they don't compel me to write a check to Blackwater every month. If the government can do this, what is that they cannot do?

I see very little (practical) difference between my writing a check to the government (if you will) and the government writing a check to Blackwater, and my writing a check directly to Blackwater.

The Supreme Court has overstepped its jurisdiction by far.

Last week it decided a case on an issue not even presented in the case. This is outside the court rules.

lifetime positions. The founders did not realize that appointees could be less than honorable and also prone to bad decisions detrimental to the people of the land. This Supreme Court should just be called SCOTUS, Inc.

The Supreme Court was never meant to be a political body. It was supposed to be above politics, a sort of unbiased referee. But it's obvious now that those days are long gone.

think the court now is doing? Only they are worse. This court should go down as the worse court in history for the decisions they have made. Roberts will look terrible.

Unless you count John Marshall, who was certainly a founder, as a member of the constitutional convention, a soldier in Washington's army, the first supreme court chief justice, etc., but it was mainly he, and not, say, James Madison, who was responsible for the power grab of Marbury v. Madison. It's a historical irony that Madison himself wound up as a named litigant in this case, in that he could have precluded this power grab had he been more thoughtful in circumscribing the powers of the Suprem Court.

In Marbury v. Madison, John Marshall won for the court as chief justice power he could not have won for it had he argued for it at the constitutional convention. it was Hamilton, not Madison, who argued in Federalist 78 that the inherent checks on the judiciary made it the least dangerous branch, and yet I do think that we have reason to believe that Madison mainly agreed with Hamilton's argument, or we would have record of it.

Still, judicial review was not an unknown concept before Marbury, and we do have this, from Madison:

"In the State Constitutions & indeed in the Fedl. one also, no provision is made for the case of a disagreement in expounding them; and as the Courts are generally the last in making their decision, it results to them, by refusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character. This makes the Judiciary Dept paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended, and can never be proper."

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/a1_7_2-3s12.html

Here we have the crux of our current problem: what to do when the supreme court interferes with the will of the people by undoing the results of the poilitical process, in this case the result of a decades-long policymaking process on health care. I think Madison himself was far too apt to look at the supreme court as a solution rather than a potential problem itself.

Of course, I'm sure you know most of this, if not all of it, as it's mainly stuff we all were taught in 9th grade civics. What I'm reacting to--and I do it myself at times--is the idea that the "founders did this" or "the founders intended such and such." In truth, the constitution itself is product of a committee, and was intended in its "final" form by no one, inasmuch as the founders themselves were often not of one mind about very much.

In this instance, though, they were just plain wrong, or, rather, the outcome of this complex historical process was wrong, because it effectively gave power over to John Marshall to establish constitutional doctrine for all time. Within their lifetimes, Jefferson and the other critics of a strong federal judiciary were proved right, and nothing has been done about it, and so the power grab of Marbury stands up to the present day.

read it in detail. I always sincerely appreciate replies like this! Thanks!!!

I'm a political scientist. One of the things I have found is that most folks remember most of this stuff from school, but you forget it when you're not thinking about it regularly.

There are a lot of problems with the way most of us--myself included--think about the constitution is this belief that the founders did this or believed certain things or had certain intentions. There are very few cases in which we can say this in an unqualified way. Most of the time we turn to Madison, because he is the most important thinker behind the consitution, but also because he took the best notes. I just finished rereading "Decision in Philadelphia," which has been continuously in print for a couple of decades now. It's still probably the best mass-market overview of the constitutional convention.

I agree, in the main, with your point in the post above. As I mentioned, I do think Hamilton, Madison and the other federalists had too much faith in the judiciary, and did not foresee it becoming the partisan institution it became almost immediately. Of course, here again, we have to be careful about how we talk about the founders, because Jefferson, the founder of our party and a man who certainly must be counted among the founders (even if he was in France during the convention), made this quite precient remark in a letter to the Virginia jurist Spencer Roane

"In denying the right they usurp of exclusively explaining the constitution, I go further than you do, if I understand rightly your quotation from the Federalist, of an opinion that "the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived." If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our constitution a complete felo de se. For intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one too, which is unelected by, and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scarecrow; that such opinions as the one you combat, sent cautiously out, as you observe also, by detachment, not belonging to the case often, but sought for out of it, as if to rally the public opinion beforehand to their views, and to indicate the line they are to walk in, have been so quietly passed over as never to have excited animadversion, even in a speech of any one of the body entrusted with impeachment. The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass."

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_18s16.html

Jefferson was right: the people are to be trusted more than political institutions, which ought to give life to the popular will, rather than thwart it. And yet here we revere the constitution with great reverence, hold the institutions it created wth contempt, and mention the will of the people scarcely ever.

with your assessment.

I find the gop/conservative Constitutional Originalist Intent argument to be completely wrong-headed, as evidenced by the Founders' writings on the subject. I have come to believe that the Founders had intended that the document was to be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with advancing, for We D. People, those principles contained in that other document ... The Bill of Rights. And that interpretation is to give considerable deference to the current state of society.

Democratic legitimacy is to be found in the will of the people, rather than a panel of nine old people who would impose their personal interpetation of the intent of folks who wrote our constitution as the result of a political compromise over 200 years ago. Quite often what we find in the constitution is not the embodiment of some higher principle, but simply the result of a political struggle at the constitutional convention, much of which is not salient today. As we have seen with Scalia, supposedly the most learned among them, recent political events are usually much more relevant to their thinking on a given issue than anything in the constitution, about which there are always at least two opinions on any given issue in any event.

Besides, if the founders had actually been infalliable, they would have gotten it right with the Articles of Confederation, which, taken as a whole, actually does say what most conservatives today want the constitution to say.

A true political scientist! I could chop it up with you all day; but I think we would be merely repeating each other's points.

Though, the romantic in me would have the resultant document (i.e., the US Constitution) as the embodiment of a/the higher principle of partisans (though not necessarily, political parties) struggling against competing visions and ultimately finding consensus on what would work to express the will of the people. And, I agree ... what "worked" then, is not necessarily relevant to any expression of the will of today ... How could it be?

It seems this compromising spirit is completely lost on those currently (conservatives) laying claim to "true Constitutional fidelity."

which include slavery, the electoral college, the failure to limit standing armies, equal rights for women, and others, was the failure to understand how electoral rules determine partisanship. Interestingly, this was a subject Madison himself did know something about, because he know he read Condoset's work on the subject, but I think he overemphasized the supposed "checks" in limiting partisanship. The first past the post system we use today, inherited from the UK, practically guarantees the development of a two-party system. It's as close to an iron law as there is in political science.

I am romantic about the constitution too, but if you look at it as a technology for governing, it's out of date. You wouldn't keep patching up an automobile this long. Most modern constitions have better protections for people, and there is too often a case wherein the supposed checks and balances make it impossible for anyone to actually govern.

But I have issues with part of it....

Here we have the crux of our current problem: what to do when the supreme court interferes with the will of the people by undoing the results of the political process, in this case the result of a decades-long policymaking process on health care. I think Madison himself was far too apt to look at the supreme court as a solution rather than a potential problem itself.

This is not really a good example of the "will of the people" I didn't vote on this, did you? What we have is a piece of legislation that was put together by politicians through the normal process of back slapping and back room deals. The bill itself is an affront to the legislative process. At 2700 pages the bill is unreadable and is full of errors and missteps. I do not think for a minute that our leaders in Washington had the peoples best interest at heart when they wrote this monstrosity, how could they have?.

Nobody that I know with the exception of the re thugs would agree that it is time for national health care in the United States but this is a big deal, a very big deal. The amount of money involved is astronomical and the potential to do irreparable harm to our health care industry is real. This is one of the most important pieces of legislation since the New Deal yet it appears it was thrown together with little attention given to legality or functionality. We are suppose to have the best and the brightest in Washington, right? Then why can't we get a health care bill that works and will pass judicial muster. This bill was put together too fast. We all know that there was a lot of pressure from President Obama to get this legislation on the books as soon as possible and this is what happens when you put politics before what you know is right for the country.

I believe that President Obama is a good and decent man and wants whats best for the nation. I just think that everyone got into a big hurry with this piece of legislation and as a result we will pay the price. Already there have been talks of executive orders and other run around plays being used to forward the health care bill. Do we really want this done half assed? I don't. I want a well thought out comprehensive Health Care Bill that will work for all Americans. Our congress critters need to get off their butts and take a look at what went wrong and come up with something usable. There is time to do this right.

so they did not serve so long..

here's a complete list.. you can see how many served rather short terms..as it should be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Justices_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States


They should be a reflection of the "times"..and should NOT hold court throughout

decades.

I would like to see a MINIMUM age of 60 and a MAXIMUM age of 75.

By the age of 60 they should have had a full career that could be studied and vetted. and their kids should be grown by then and daily household duties would not interfere.

They should be FORBIDDEN from writing books, lecturing, going on TV shows for as long as they serve.

If they want a full public life with mega-money, they should resign.

At 75, they "could" be re-approved if they really wanted to stay on the court, but it would be for only 5 year terms after that age.

By having a maximum 15 year term, they would never span more than a few administrations, and the court would be less political.

There should also be FIFTEEN justices... That should make things infinitely fairer.

Since 1969 democratic presidents have appointed only FOUR (and most of them are dem-lites, in order to get republican approval in the senate)..republicans have appointed TWELVE..all of them right wing zealots

current model is broken and obsolete.

You never know what the founders were thinking when the SCOTUS was founded. Maybe they just thought they would do exactly what the institution was set up for?

interests of "we the people" in mind. However, it has now shifted to "we the corporations."

I have a formerly pot smoking liberal nephew and niece, now turned religious fanatics who can't figure out why, "We can't have some kind of limit for the elderly wasting money on all that health care from Medicare."

Don

He would be asked to pay for the healthcare of his elderly family members. That would overwhelm his budget unless he is very wealthy.

And he is counting on getting his share of any inheritance as soon as possible so he would probably be all for doing away with Medicare so the elderly family members would die sooner rather than later.

Don

his elderly, wealthy relatives would spend all their fortune on their healthcare. Thanks to Medicare there may be a little left for this poor fellow -- provided his relatives don't need long-term care -- in which case, he will never see a penny of the money.

Tell him his inheritance would be completely eaten up my the medical costs.

And he knows the only thing keeping them alive is good medical care.

Nice kid, eh?

Needless to say his parents are very disappointed in him. Disappointed enough that he has already been written out of the will. Same for his sister. She is just like her brother.

Don

let the bastards in congress try to oppose Medicare for All.

It's clear from the polls I've seen that a majority of Americans want the congress to try again if HCR is struck down. They clearly DON'T want to return to the old system.

Plus, I don't know how many people in their 40's that I used to hear say they wished they had Medicare...

Letting people buy in does not require expenditures of funds. It provides a cash in stream.

Highly doubtful.

brought about by the hemmoraging of health care costs for the American people.

q.e.d.

Regardless of party

Next, do the same with Citizen's United and something about those damn voting machines!

It is to laugh! The ACA does nothing to stop the crooks, in fact, it criminalizes those who don't want to pay to the crooks.

There is no reason that there should be a bloated, profit-making middleman interposed between the consumers of health care and the providers of health care. The only purpose it serves is to inflate the cost of health care.

But it has already been decided that any health care "solution" must incorporate the crooks. So those who support this law are left in the usual position of arguing that it is better than nothing.


-- Mal

Frederick J. Ryan, Jr, President and CEO of Politico.com, also serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation

Politico is owned by Albritton Communications. That's the same Albritton family that controlled Riggs Bank.
Try Googling "Riggs Bank" and "Pinochet", for example. Or "Riggs Bank" and "CIA."

Just sayin'

I thought most of those motherfuckers went to jail? When I first became a banker our regulator dragged us out to an old Riggs Bank branch and told us all about Riggs and how the government would fuck you sideways if you commit those kinds of regulatory violations.

We here all know they lean right and I can't help but wonder

why so many of the progressive shows on MSNBC all have

them on for "interview" -- especially since they're not up front

about their partisanship.

I see from so many here is almost entirely partisan. If this had been a republican plan that passed the outrage at how they are lining the pockets of the insurance industries would be non-stop. Oddly, I often see how that particular part of ACA is an old resurrected republican idea, but we like it now, because our team has the ball.

And I'm sure the "contingency plans a-plenty" don't include the only sane, rational conclusion: Single-Payer Health Care.

Hillary had mandates in her plan and Obama was adamantly opposed to it at that time..Democrats were also adamantly opposed to this same Health Insurance Plan when Republicans first introduced it in 1994.. I can not think of anything in this plan that was not first introduced by the Republicans...

... when it should be the other way around.

The things I opposed under George W. Bush, I still oppose. In that respect, the President is irrelevant.



Come to think of it: In many respects, the President is irrelevant: U.S.A. ™

PB

You forgot to mention the death panels.

The RW wants to preserve the private sector middleman, it's compromises to them that got us all those shitty things about the ACA that so many of us hate...it's us crazy far leftists who are constantly accused of being critical of our centrist President that want to kill the mandate and end the private sector robber-baron middleman of for-profit health insurers.

You're not going to be arrested if you don't buy insurance.

but whether it's this solution or a future solution, the goal is compulsory universal coverage...that's going to include a criminalization or sanction component whether it's under ACA, Medicare-for-All or Single-Payer.

Compulsory universal coverage by-necessity means sanctions for those attempting to "opt-out" or avoid paying their share.

but criminalization for "opting out" is a Right Wing talking point.

there is a sanction for trying to opt out in order to compel participation. There is going to be a sanction regardless what solution is utilized.

said criminalization.

Are the penalties voluntary? Or will they be garnishing wages and seizing assets for them? Because if it's the latter, insisting people stop saying "criminalize" is hair splitting on an epic scale. When the government comes after you for something you did or didn't do, most people would consider it criminalized, even if that isn't the exact definition of the word.

As posted TWO posts up.

So as I found it.

sitting in black robes at SCOTUS, Inc who will strike this down to help the Republicans' dream of failing Obama. I don't care for ACA, but there is a lot of good in it and if we don't keep this, we will get worse with no hope of anything different from the Republican nuts that are stealing our elections in order to make us all penniless.

So, yeah, I guess I will support better than nothing instead of back to the same and more of the bad than we ever had before.

With this big an issue. I would be surprised that nobody secretly informed the leadership of both parties. If just to make sure there wasn't going to be any panic.

If they yank everything else they'll pull health insurance from millions of Americans.

payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security? I believe if one goes they all go...

A tax used to pay for a government service is not the same as mandating the purchase of a private service.

It isn't like the VA where you go to a government hospital. Everything is done by a private service and you are mandated to pay for it through payroll deductions..

Taxes are constitutional.

If you don't like how your Medicare deductions are being spent, you have some representation (theoretically, at least).

If Aetna decides to blow your premiums on corporate retreats and golden parachutes, you have virtually no say.

If they want to throw out ACA and Medicare in one stroke, they can. I would not put it past them. They like to issue broad rulings.
If that happens, we can't do a damn thing about it without a Constitutional amendment.

If ACA is overturned, it won't be the first time a federal law has been overturned, nor will it be the last.

and how can you not keep providing care for those who are now feeling the benefits of what has already passed.

I was - and still am - for single payer/medicare type health care for all Americans - and admit I was frustrated with Obama when he negotiated with the insurance companies - but I don't want to see what has been achieved go down the toilet - I want to see it as something we can build on.

So contingency plans - good - it is good to know they are thinking of the different outcomes.

just sayin

On the other hand, an executive order could probably eliminate the age requirement for Medicare.

Robert Reich ?@RBReich
If only mandate is struck down, insurers will demand Obamacare be amended so they don't have to cover sick people with pre-existing conds.

from a contributing editor at GQ.

Executive Orders. I personally hope they are overturned. It seems to me like it is a means to subvert the legislative branch, IMHO.

That is, SCOTUS can't rule on Executive Orders because they're internal to the Executive Branch...instructions about how to apply and enforce the legislation passed by Congress and rulings of the judiciary. That's a power of the Executive...the only branch that can limit EOs is the Executive and it would have to be done with an EO.

Much like the sometimes runaway SCOTUS that we have because the Constitutional Convention never foresaw the partisanship of the judiciary; we have limitless EOs on account of nobody stopping to ask if they needed to be limited.

EO on something this contentious will shed more light on this...or not.

can they not? If not, what's to prevent a sitting president from issuing EOs that are contrary to existing laws on the books?

You can't challenge the capacity of the Executive branch to issue them. Even to challenge the contents of an EO requires one to establish legal standing to do so and that's not easy to do as a private citizen.

Especially with human rights issues like health care and education.

If President Obama could do that for good, the next Republican could do it for not so good.

We may not like how the checks and balances work out, but I don't want any politician of any party to have unfettered power.

until GWB, EO's were seldom used. The president that had the most up until GWB was who else.......GHWB. I am of the opinion that they are becoming used as a short cut around the legislation and if Congress doesn't get it's shit together, they are on the verge of becoming irrelevant. This is how dictatorships are born.

I have them as well.

I just feel with the influence of corporate money on our system... it feels more like we are bypassing so much more than legislation.

Getting creative may be our only option.

Otherwise, we end up being accused of propaganda, or worse, we appear ignorant of the facts.

What you stated is absolutely incorrect - executive orders go way back, were often used, and no, GHWB didn't have the most up until GWB...in fact, he had the lowest number of the past 12 Presidents.


GWB: 291
Bill Clinton:364
GHWB: 166
Ronald Reagan: 381
Jimmy Carter: 320
Gerald Ford: 169
Richard Nixon: 346
LBJ: 324
JFK: 214
Dwight Eisenhower: 486
Harry Truman: 896
FDR: 3728

FDR had almost as many as the next ten Presidents combined, and he didn't become a dictator. EOs have their place, but they shouldn't become a replacement for legislative action.

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/disposition.html

Really? That's not a source; that's a rumor.

Sorry, but I don't do twitter for real news. I'm sure President Obama has some ideas of what to do if the SCOTUS ruling is against ACA. But Ambinder's just guessing, and guesses don't count for shit.

I am torn about what I happens when SCOTUS rules. I am leaning on them to gut it completely b/c all we get year after year is less coverage for more money (our office just switched companies and the coverage under the cadillac policy was still a used pinto). I read that SCOTUS may delay the ruling until after the election. If so, I think they want to wipe it completely but do not wish to fire up our base before the election. Scalia and Roberts know it might get us the public option. In that case, just before I could leave a bad employer in 2013, it would be gone. As an attorney, it still feels weird speaking of SCOTUS as a partisan branch, not to mention extremely sad. Once respect for the Court is lost altogether, people will start to take matters into their own hands. Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito will be viewed by history as the beginning of the end!

you'd want the whole thing to go through.

Sadly, I don't think we'll get anything otherwise and it is a disaster for me and so many others

Medicare for all! Ahhh.

.. can they do that?

It's about time he stood up to these thugs.

The President is not a King, he can not order the people to do anything. He can enforce existing law, to the extent he is given resources to do so, and he can direct the Executive Agencies in how they should or can proceed, but that's all.

1. Have HHS change the definition of medically disabled for the purposes of Medicare enrollment to anyone who has been denied private insurance due to a pre-existing condition. That will allow a whole bunch of people who really need health care to get it now. It will also eliminate the "high risk pool" scam which charges folks tens of thousands a year in premiums while giving them five thousand in deductibles. Since many of these folks work, they will not get SSI---just be allowed to get Medicare. You will see a whole lot of basically healthy people with things like mild HTN and mild asthma or over 40 who are currently uninsurable to sign up---and they will love Obama. So will the nation's ERs. And it will not break Medicare's budget, since most of them will receive less in health care than they pay in premiums. Same for fertile females who often can not get reasonable insurance. Their pregnancies are already going to be paid for out of gov't dollars (Medicaid). So, why not pay for some contraception instead?

2. Cut the wait time from getting disability to getting Medicare to zero.

3. Automatic Medicare for people will a whole list of diseases, not just end stage renal disease on dialysis. Those that have private insurance through their jobs will appreciate the Medicare as a secondary insurance, but again ,it will not break the budget since their primary provider will foot most of the bill.

4. Allow employers to opt out of private coverage and contract with Medicare for (much cheaper) insurance on their employees if they claim that the high cost of private insurance is going to force them to stop providing insurance. Make the privates compete with Medicare in an open marketplace.

The GOP will have a fit, but it will make the public very happy. Seniors can be reassured that having all these relatively healthy folks paying into Medicare will help ensures the solvency of the program for them.