Constitutional arguments on healthcare law repeal still not adding up

This morning’s Reno Gazette Journal Op-Ed page was one of those all too rare but welcome days when the lightbulb came on … they truly ‘get it’. In this case it was about efforts to repeal the hated ‘Obama-care’, otherwise known as the Affordable Healthcare for America Act of 2009 on constitutional grounds.

Governor-elect, Brian Sandoval was reportedly all aglow - or atwitter - over the recent ‘decision’ by a Virginia judge, in lockstep with the Virginia Attorney General, contending that the law is unconstitutional because of the individual mandate that requires citizens to buy health insurance, if it is not otherwise provided them by their employer or the state.

You might hope that Brian Sandoval has bigger issues to grapple with. But maybe not.

When it all went down last year, I lay awake, my stomach in a knot over this very issue. It was obvious that the ‘individual mandate’  would be one of the worst calamities to befall our democracy. Worse than the worst hate crimes. Worse than Jim Crow. Worse than the war in Afghanistan. Worse than the Wall Street collapse. Worse than …. well, just the worst. I heard Glenn Beck say so. And, he should know. The Cato Institute told him so via his tinfoil helmet.

Brought down to a local level, the individual mandate seems to work reasonably well in most states - you are required by law to have auto insurance if you drive a car. Has this wrecked democracy as we know it? Not the last time I checked. Yes, there are those scofflaws that won’t buy insurance - probably the same folks with teabags dangling from their TriCorne hats. They’re probably staying awake nights, too - trying to figure out how not to pay income taxes and protect themselves from imminent home intrusion by United Nations troops.

But in the absence of the rational solution - a single payer system - it was the best that we could do. The individual mandate requires everybody to be a part of the system, since that’s what makes insurance work. Spreading risk over the widest and most diverse possible pool of members. The largest number of uninsured were in the age group from 19 and 29. This segment, like those who’ve come before, thinks they’re bullet-proof. It’ll never happen to them, and it usually doesn’t - unless, like me, you’re on a cross-country ride and the horse falls down a crumbling embankment. On top of you. Ouch. That was a long recovery. Broken in nine places. But mostly, the young are the ones that help keep the costs down for those of us who managed to survive long enough to get old. Older, I mean.

The truly ironic part, was that a wide variety of businesses and well-financed politicians were proponents of the individual mandate - they could smell the enhanced profits that would be coming from nearly 50 million new customers.

Unfortunately, what the law didn’t address, is how the individual mandate would weigh unfairly upon the backs of the working poor. There’s always that segment caught between having enough to buy insurance with a decent, reliable paycheck (in short supply these days) and those broke enough to be on Medicaid or other public assistance/subsidy program.

Poliiticians from both sides of the aisle were able to turn a blind eye to that ‘problem’ in their rush to stifle discussion of a public option and pass something … anything. Besides, the news media’s fascination with the far sexier story of ‘death panels’ was way more entertaining!

But the individual mandate was a success in Massachusetts, under a very ‘conservative’ Governor, Mitt Romney, of all people. The rates of insured went way up, the rates of uninsured went way down. “It’s worked out better than I would have guessed,” said MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who serves on the board of the Massachusetts program. “We didn’t anticipate the increase in employer-sponsored insurance.”

Don’t you just hate it when Commie-Pinko- Slippery Slope Socialism works?

One of the better arguments I’ve read regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Healthcare for America Act - and the ‘individual mandate’ comes from The New England Journal of Medicine.

Read it here:

Perspective

The Constitutionality of the Individual Mandate for Health Insurance

NEJM | January 13, 2010 | Topics: Health Law

Jack M. Balkin, J.D., Ph.D.

Once President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have passed a health care reform bill, conservative groups are likely to challenge parts of it as unconstitutional, arguing that it oversteps Congress’s powers. A key target will be the individual mandate, which is designed to coax uninsured persons into purchasing insurance.

The term “individual mandate” is misleading for two reasons.

Click to read more ...

Fight GOP front groups distortion of healthcare reform

I’m getting all kinds of messages from healthcare advocacy groups like HCAN - in addition to ‘reality check’ organizations like FactCheck.org - saying that the Shadow GOP is mounting a massive inititative to tarnish/destroy any House candidate who stood strong for healthcare reform. The ads, mostly from your usual bogus GOP front groups like the 60 Plus Association, are gaining strength around the country. They’re trying to convince mostly seniors that terrible … TERRIBLE things are in-store for them as Medicare is destroyed thanks to “Obama-care”.

This isn’t just taking some numbers out of context, or putting a spin on various provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, passed earlier this year. It’s much worse. They are telling outright lies. Never one to take it all for granted or at face value - unlike most so-called ‘conservatives’ - I went to the assessments provided by the Chief Actuary of the Department of Health & Human Services. It’s not gripping reading, but I wade through this stuff anyway. Although I may not be the most sophisticated in reading a lot of statistical information and graphs, I can understand some basics like money saved over a period of time.

Medicare is going to save a boatload of money under the PPAC Act. A vertible, verifiable boatload. In excess of $500 billion, in fact, over the course of the next nine years. Much of these savings will be in the form of much needed reform of widely reported fraud and waste within the system.

Why would anybody fight that? Citizens wouldn’t if they would simply read the actual numbers. The insurance and private hospital industry and their lobbying groups would.

They stand to be cut out of the rich feeding frenzy they’ve had for too many years - unregulated and all theirs for the taking.

Are you willing to just sit there and let corporate America take away hard won gains toward a rational, democratic and modern healthcare system?

Can you just read through the real facts and disseminate them to everybody you know? Especially to all the senior citizens you know - since they are the unwitting targets of these front groups employed by the GOP corporate machine.

Here are the resources you need to fight back:

HealthCare for America Now - point by point on what the Act will and won’t do, despite GOP claims to the contrary.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - a rundown/ClifNotes of what the Act really says.

Americans United for Change - read the press release regarding the memo that was sent to frighten seniors in Ohio. Remember, what gets around in Ohio, gets around everywhere these days - including Nevada.

And, while you’re at it, check out the people behind the 60 Plus Association. Read the resume of James L. Martin, their Director. Note the curious gap in it - like 23 years. His claims of achievement seem to center around his Korean War experience and his involvement in 60 Plus. What the hell was he doing in between … besides wagging his finger at us?

Their President, Amy Noone Frederick seems to be a bit light in the resume department as well, but we know that she loves to cook, run, golf an sail.

Finally, their national spokesperson is Pat Boone. Doesn’t that just tell it all?

And remember, thanks to the horrible SCOTUS Citizens United decision, we aren’t able to know who is funding the 60 Plus Association.