-
Not Just the Media: First Amendment Under Attack
May 22, 2013 | 3 comments
-
Curl is Right: Don’t Dismiss Benghazi
May 22, 2013 | 2 comments
-
Artur Davis Says Scandals Are Real
May 19, 2013 | 3 comments
-
Good New Book: ‘Precipice’
May 19, 2013 | 1 comment
-
A Long Record of Obamite Thuggery
May 16, 2013 | 4 comments
The Spectacle Blog
At CFIF, I explain why it is absurd to say that the health care market and the health insurance market are effectively the same thing, despite the administration’s contentions to the contrary.
[N]o reason exists to require insurance at all, even at the point of purchase; instead, all that is needed is to requirepayment, whether via insurance or by the traditional means of paying for anything else, namely cash or credit card. There is no reason, except in relatively rare “life-or-death” situations, why the same laws governing other contracts can’t govern medical care…. Ordinary contract law allows plenty of means for providers of any good or service to recover unpaid bills, including access to courts.
View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/03/29/the-missing-argument-on-obamac
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- Screwtape Talks Turkey
- Downton’s Class System — and Ours
- The Demise of Money and Credit
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
H/T to National Review Online
ADVERTISEMENT
C Bowen | 3.29.12 @ 7:56PM
Is Medicare Constitutional, Mr. Hillyer?
Is Medicare Part D, Constitutional?
We lost a long time ago with these sorts of arguments. Hope we pull this one out, but trust that it was already lost.
Floyd Looney | 3.30.12 @ 12:59AM
Haven't you listened to Kagan, she put down her pom-poms long enough to say she didn't think this thing was coersive, because it's a gift from the benevolent masters in DC.
WL| 3.30.12 @ 1:29AM
No!!! She says it's just a "boatload of money"...as if it doesn't have any strings attached...telling us how to spend the money they are sending back to us rubes after they took it...
She is what she is, just like all liberal judges are what liberal justices are.....
Bob| 3.30.12 @ 1:40AM
Ugh, that Kagan, when she should be recusing herself because of her role in forming the law, she's up there defending the law. What a rat.
Stan REdmond| 3.31.12 @ 3:48PM
AND she's is a complete ignorant fool.
Mimi| 3.30.12 @ 9:34AM
I wish I knew for sure...seems like I read it somewhere....the fact is incredible now.
Van Jones wrote and concocted this health care plan...long before Obama got sworn in...
Others say it was The many leftist law clerks, who conjured it up. Mitt Romney gets some of the blame.
What a STORM this has caused the nation at a worse than ever time ,after the near financial collaspe and downward economy ! Everything has come to a halt causing this unnecessary slow growth with all its uncertainty. Considering all the PAIN this has caused the citizens of this country....The MESS must end...start over in the American Way style...A simple 3 page bill will do.
Any Justice who votes for this ....ANY should go down in History and be an INDELIBLE mark of disgust against the Liberty, Principles, and the greater good of this land!
PCC| 3.30.12 @ 1:06PM
Quin hits an important nail on the head when he makes the distinction between the provision of medical services and medical insurance.
The fact is, the fundamental challenge facing consumers is rising healthcare costs, not rising insurance costs, which is merely the symptom, not the disease.
It is also a key point in the debate over the constitutionality of the "individual mandate". There are many wealthy, and even merely well-to-do, people who self-insure all sorts of risks: life, property & casualty, and medical, among them, because they reckon they'd rather pay the bill in cash (because they've got plenty of it) than pay for insuring for the risk.
This is a rational decision in many instances and should not be ignored in the debate as to whether people should be forced to buy medical insurance.
Trinacria| 3.30.12 @ 3:05PM
"The fact is, the fundamental challenge facing consumers is rising healthcare costs, not rising insurance costs, which is merely the symptom, not the disease."
This was true prior to the passage of Obamacare; however, like most efforts to address market problems by government intervention, this bill not only fails to address the problem of increasing healthcare costs, it creates a new probelm: rising insurance costs. When insurers can no longer deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, the overall risk to the insurer increases and the increased risk is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher premiums. Moreover, when the insurer is no longer permitted to offer "customized" policies that are tailored to an individual's needs, the consumer is forced to pay for a full spectrum of coverage, regardless of need. The net result? Higher insurance premiums.
Trinacria| 3.30.12 @ 3:20PM
By the way, that was the whole point of Obamacare. The end goal is and always has been a single-payer healthcare system. Emperor Obama knew this was a bridge too far, so the plan was to move in a stepwise manner.
Step 1: Create a system where individuals have a choice between private insurance or "government insurance"
Step 2: Drive insurance companies out of business by prohibiting denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions, mandating full coverage packages, and making the private option more expensive for consumers than the government option (unlike private companies with shareholders, the government can lose money and remain "in business")
Step 3: As insurance companies begin dropping like flies, the government steps in to provide a vital service that "isn't adequately served" by the private market. Badda bing, badda boom - Single payer.
Oldefarte| 3.30.12 @ 3:10PM
Bingo, bullseye.....Quin's article nailed it! Obama's/Democrats' WELFARECARE is an institutionalization of WEALTH RIDISTRIBUTION. As he indicates, how is it that a person is allowed to walk into a medical facility, demand/receive medical services and NOT BE FORCED TO PAY FOR SAME? I'd suggest to anyone that they enter a department retail store of their choosing, pick out several articles of say clothing, jewelry etc and then proceed to walk out of that store without first paying either by cash, credit card or personal check for same. What would be the consequences of such action? First arrest, then prosecution, then possibly jail incarceration or community service punishment. Why is it not also the same result with anyone so STEALING MEDICAL SERVICES? Why should not the emergency room victims either be required to produce a check or credit card before receiving medical care or for said medical institution to agree to EAT THE COST OF SAME [ie for the hospital to provide the medical care free of charge and NOT TRANSFER OVER THE AMOUNT OF SAME ONTO THE BILLS OF OTHER HOPSITAL PATIENTS HAVING THEIR INDIVIDUAL INSURANCE COVERAGES? Again, there's a wod for this activity and its called STEALING OR THEFT. This WELFARECARE in effect seeks to institutionalize into federal law this now current accepted policy that occurs within medical facilities of cost-transfer. When Obama/Democrats talk about the need for rich flks to pay a little bit more, we should all understand what in hades he's referring to now!!!!!
Oldefarte| 3.30.12 @ 4:31PM
Although I prefer Quin's reasonings, Betsy McCaughey's are also justified and correct:
'....All Americans Don't Consume Healthcare
Friday, March 30, 2012 10:42 AM
By: Betsy McCaughey Supreme Court watchers are parsing every word the justices uttered this week, trying to predict which way the court will vote on the Obama health law. But if the Court votes to uphold the law's mandatory health insurance, that ruling will turn on a lie. The 26 attorney generals leave the Supreme Court after the final day of oral arguments. The Obama administration's lawyers argued that all Americans consume healthcare, therefore they are engaged in health commerce, so Congress can use its commerce power to compel them to buy insurance.The premise — that all Americans consume healthcare — is false. Yet it was repeated over and over during the oral arguments in the high court, and virtually no one challenged it.The truth is half of Americans consume virtually no healthcare. That fact proved decisive to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the only federal appeals court to reject the false claim that all Americans consume healthcare and the only federal appeals court to strike down the individual mandate. Judges Frank Hull and Joel Dubina, the bipartisan team that ruled against the mandate in August 2011, warned that the mandate is "woefully over inclusive." It conflates "those who presently consume health care with those who will not consume healthcare for many years into the future."According to the federal government's own data, 50 percent of the population needs so little healthcare that they account for only 2.9 percent of the nation's healthcare spending. Their mean expenditure for an entire year is a microscopic $238. (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, January 2012.) Many people don't need healthcare until they reach retirement age. For the under age 65 population — the group affected by the mandate — far more than half are medical non-consumers year after year. They are healthy.The Obama administration lawyers argue that all Americans consume healthcare and are engaged in healthcare commerce, so Congress can use its Commerce Clause power to compel them to pay for their care via insurance.Healthcare consumption is "universal" and "inevitable," the administration's lawyers insist. No one is "inactive" or uninvolved in the health care marketplace.Hull and Dubina used facts to gut that Commerce Clause argument. Many people go for years without needing healthcare. The true purpose of the mandate, said the judges, is to force healthy people to buy expensive health plans they don't use in order to subsidize insurance companies — which in turn are compelled to provide unlimited coverage to people with chronic illnesses and pre-existing conditions. That healthcare non consumer who uses a mere $238 a year of care would have to have a plan worth $3,588 in 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office, or a family plan valued at $11,026. Insurers collect mandatory premiums from the healthy to pay for politically popular changes in the insurance laws.The 11th Circuit ruling paved the way for the showdown earlier this week,when lawyers for the 26 states and other parties challenging the law went up against the Obama administration's legal team during three historic days of oral arguments. Day two focused on the mandate.The Obama administration lawyers will claim that the individual mandate is intended to prevent "free riders" from using healthcare without paying for it and shifting the cost onto others. But Hull and Dubina cited copious statistics to rebut that claim. They showed that over half of free riders are either illegal immigrants (exempt from the mandate) or low-income Americans, who will get coverage under the new law's vast expansion of Medicaid. The mandate affects neither group. "In reality, the primary persons regulated by the individual mandate are not cost-shifters but healthy individuals who forego purchasing insurance." That 11th Circuit ruling provides a window on what is likely to be the key issue.
Hull and Dubina concluded that compelling people to enter healthcare commerce is different from regulating them once they are consumers. Only the latter is constitutional.Hull and Dubina said that the federal government has compelled Americans to do only three things by virtue residing in this country: serve when drafted, file income taxes, and complete the Census. When Congress passed the Flood Insurance Act of 1968, it devised incentives for people residing in flood plains to buy coverage but never considered compelling such a purchase.
Yet now Congress seeks to compel Americans who do not need medical care to buy costly health insurance plans — like forcing Americans who live on top of hills to buy flood insurance.
Seeming to ignore what the 11th Circuit said, virtually all the participants in this week's Supreme Court showdown simply presumed that healthcare needs are "universal." The administration's lawyers repeated the claim, lawyer Paul "Clement, arguing for the challengers, didn't question it (facts are seldom contested at the appeal level) and the Justices for the most part repeated the false claim as well.Justice Kagan in fact, said that the argument over the mandate is simply over "when" Americans have to pay for their care, and paying ahead is not so different from paying at the point of care.How sad that the outcome of this epic constitutional struggle might turn not on founding principles but on a lie.....'
Perdido| 3.31.12 @ 3:53PM
The problem is mandating doctors and hospitals treat all comers. When they can choose to treat those of whom can pay the whole " insurance" and "medical care" house of cards comes down. And so will the cost of treatment
Perdido| 3.31.12 @ 4:01PM
We FORCE doctors to work for free? Who else works without 5th Amendment takings clause protection?
jim wheatley| 3.31.12 @ 4:02PM
This is so obvious, why was it missed by these brilliant lawyers and judges?(Of course not including at least Sottomayer and kagan, who could hardly be more light weight.) I never consulted a physician between 30 and 60, although my employers paid heath insurance premiums for me. Long after I was 50, I had an insurance physician examine me for a long term disability policy with the law firm I was joining and had to tell him I had no Doctor and when I asked if that was bad, he said that assured my coverage. Were the premiums paid by my employers wasted? Not if we are talking about real insurance instead of this Communist Frankenstein, claiming to be insurance.
Thom| 3.31.12 @ 5:29PM
Central also to this debate is that Health Care Insurance does not perform as insurance. The 8000 billionaires and millionaires in this country don’t need health “insurance”. Most of those making between a million and 250,000 a year could write a check out of petty cash for their medical care most of the time. Most of those between 18 and 30 can’t afford their portion of the premium payments now and would get very little benefit from the “insurance” over most of their lives vs. simply saving for future cost and having an “insurance” that covered the worst cases. In practice it is pre-paid medical benefits for those that use/abuse it on an ongoing basis. Prior to Medicare/Medicaid health care expenses as a part of GDP was running about 2.9% and most people didn’t “need” insurance to pay for most of their life time expenses even if they had “insurance”. From that moment forward it has risen faster than inflation and now at 17% of GDP. Why? Because government created an artificial demand for health care services by making it “free” for tens of millions of adults and children that no longer had to save for their future needs. Give a $1000.00 annual beer (only) allowance out to the “poor” and those 65 and older and see what that does for beer sales (and price).
Like SS for which the first generation receivers of a “free” retirement income typically paid on average into the system what their first month’s check paid out, the tax mechanism and rate only hold for the first generation of “free loaders” and after that the subsidy declines until individual premium payments equals average individual expenses. You see this in everything government “subsidizes” including education, housing and healthcare. The broader the base of benefactors, the faster the decline in subsidy. Basic Econ 101 here.
My adult life to date insurance “premium” cost (my part and my employers) in current dollars when I reach my full retirement age in 6 years will be about $175,000. My life to date expenses up to today is about $18,000 including one 40 hour trip through the Emergency room ($7,000) and three outpatient surgeries totaling about $5,000. If my accumulating excess premiums had been invested in the “market” over about 47 years of continuous work and coverage at the 50 year market rate of 11% there is virtually no medical procedure I could not afford.
As the saying goes, “if you build it, they will come”. Free (heavily subsidized) healthcare, housing and education (K through college) has run away cost exceeding the inflation rate by a wide margin. We recently saw what happens to home prices when government creates an artificial demand and subsidizes that through mandates and “free” loans to people who can’t afford the loan. My house is still assessed at 2x what it was 7 years ago and my taxes and insurance cost to cover that is 2x too which adds more than one month’s house payment to my annual expenses. Government creates the problem and then government tries to benefit from the crisis it creates….. Time and time again.
Consider how investment based life “insurance” works vs. healthcare “insurance”. I’ve paid into life insurance since 1975. When I reach 65 years old I’ll get a very large sum of money paid back to me minus the portion of my premiums the insurance company kept to cover their cost and profits. Why doesn’t health “insurance” work that way? Everyone dies. Because the healthcare “insurance” is a benefit to be consumed by a large portion of those that have it and most of its cost is not born by the benefactor. Just like free education and housing.
The mechanism is the same every time; only the part of the market and emotional arguments change over time. If the goal of our “smartest and brightest” masters is to give Rodney King the medical coverage Warren Buffet can afford then virtually no one is going to be able to afford healthcare “insurance” in time.