Head to head debate

:clap:

You made an opinion. Congratulations on this first step.

Using a substitute bond measure simply frames the mandate in another way.

Insurance is a financial product. The fact that the government has decided to provide such insurance at a gross deficit through medicare and other programs does not prescribe that ultimately the tax payer must self insure through either a bond or a forced purchase.

Forcing someone to purchase a financial product is unconstitutional under the commerce clause/

Your shot.

My shot huh...OK...then you don't get two options. If you don't want to buy health insurance, you must sign a 'do not treat' waiver. If you get hit by a semi, have a heart attack or your appendix bursts, you're on your own. No paramedics, no ambulance ride, no medical treatment.

We'll call it: REAL personal responsibility.
 
How bout this solution... Find a better solution that doesn't require nazis to cram a mircoscope up your ass.

How bout the freemarket solution. It's never been tried. Where Healthcare becomes affordable for old, poor and everyone in the middle

There we go, the 'free market' Easter bunny. Just have government keep their hands off the Wall Street controlled health insurance cartels and they will play nice.

You've throw out a dogma driven mantra, now let's hear HOW it will work.
 
:clap:

You made an opinion. Congratulations on this first step.

Using a substitute bond measure simply frames the mandate in another way.

Insurance is a financial product. The fact that the government has decided to provide such insurance at a gross deficit through medicare and other programs does not prescribe that ultimately the tax payer must self insure through either a bond or a forced purchase.

Forcing someone to purchase a financial product is unconstitutional under the commerce clause/

Your shot.

I refer you to United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association, 322 U.S. 533 (1944).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._South-Eastern_Underwriters_Association
 
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Actually that's an excellent link. I'm a big fan of Dr. Katz. He's a prolific educator on health and wellness issues and a well recognized scholars. He seems to have that rare ability to communicate complex scientific information to lay people in a reader friendly and informative fashion that is neither a lecture or patronizing.

He does make a significant point here on health insurance vs auto insurance. Purchasing a car is voluntary. Getting sick or injured isn't. That is a profound difference.
 
The Preamble to the Constitution reads, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It's been recognized that it states the general intent of the Constitution. The purpose of the Constitution.

Promote the general welfare. It's reasonable to conclude that means doing what helps the citizens and the country, as a whole.

Whether it's defense or productivity a healthy person is more capable of carrying out those tasks than would an ill individual.

When it comes to health care take something as simple as Propranolol. It can prevent strokes and potentially increase ones life by 20 or 30 years and at a cost of $0.25 per tablet/day that is equivalent to one hour's pay per month at minimum wage. If any government claims to be concerned about the general welfare of it's citizens would not it ensure everyone who required it would had access to that drug regardless of their ability to pay for it?

If the government is responsible for ensuring drinking water and food is safe to consume in order to prevent illness/death why would it not be responsible for health care in order to prevent illness/death?

Surely it's reasonable to interpret "promote the general Welfare" to include the government doing what it can to prevent the unnecessary illness and death of citizens.
 
There we go, the 'free market' Easter bunny. Just have government keep their hands off the Wall Street controlled health insurance cartels and they will play nice.

You've throw out a dogma driven mantra, now let's hear HOW it will work.
How it works is easy.

- Repeal McCarran-Ferguson 1945 Act that separated insurance from 1 industry to 50 fiefdoms (Larger pool, lowers cost)

- Eliminate State mandates; create a single federal mandate that will serve as the single base policy for all Health insurance Policies. (A bare bones, Basic Healthcare, catastrophic coverage policy- (let me know if you need this one explained) Lowers cost)

-Mandate Medicare and Medicaid Pay $1 for every $1 of service. (currently .55 Medicaid, .71 Medicare) If you know nothing of economics. If one customer pays you less than cost, the other customers pay for that in the form of Higher prices to offset the loss. (Lowers Cost)

Those are the biggies, there is about a half dozen more minors ones but this isn’t the time or place to learn about FuzzyBunnyCare. But safe to say. All my ideas actually lowers the cost of Healthcare via free market, doesn’t cost the Federal Government/Taxpayer anywhere in the neighborhood of what their currently spending, and mine is 100% constitutional and American to boot
 
Promote the general welfare. It's reasonable to conclude that means doing what helps the citizens and the country, as a whole. .
You’re not promoting the "General" welfare. You’re only promoting the "minor/specific" welfare. Since what you’re asking for disenfranchise 3/4 of the population for the benefit of the 1/4.
 
I refer you to United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association, 322 U.S. 533 (1944).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._South-Eastern_Underwriters_Association

Also Gonzales v. Raich

Among those who have joined in rejecting the century-old, long-defunct decisions on which Judge Roger Vinson's decision rests, are Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Chief Justice Roberts. They will have to twist their prior decisions and statements into pretzels in order to rule the individual mandate or other ACA provisions unconstitutional.

Specifically:

In his concurring opinion in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), Justice Scalia spelled out in exquisite detail how the necessary and proper clause gives Congress power to do whatever is necessary to make a broader statutory scheme work - whether or not the specific means employed would be, standing alone, valid under the commerce clause. In that opinion he wrote:
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Where necessary to make a regulation of interstate commerce effective, Congress may regulate even . . . activities that do not themselves substantially affect interstate commerce.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Scalia approvingly quoted Chief Justice Rehnquist in the Lopez decision that limited commerce clause authority: "Though the conduct in Lopez was not economic, the Court [Rehnquist] nevertheless recognized that it could be regulated as ‘an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme would be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated."

This is a precise characterization of the role of the individual mandate in relation to the insurance reforms in the ACA.

Scalia wrote that under the necessary and proper clause, the government "possesses every power needed to make [its solution to a national economic problem] effective."

Again, one could not ask for a more precise picture of the mandate.
 
Wow Bfgrn stepped up and actually has an opinion of his own that isn't from somebodyelsesleftwingopinion.org!
 
I guess that beats the 2-3 ever-changing opinions that Yurt has on any given topic on his own...
Yurt likes using the Socratic method of debate, often changing direction with his questions. I usually get him to snap out of it by asking why he is being deliberately ignorant...

:D
 
Where necessary to make a regulation of interstate commerce effective, Congress may regulate even . . . activities that do not themselves substantially affect interstate commerce.
---------------------------------------------------------------
.

I don't see where Scalia says congress has the right to regulate inactivity.
 
Promote the general welfare?
Promoting an idea IS NOT mandating an idea...
If the government is responsible for ensuring drinking water and food is safe to consume in order to prevent illness/death why would it not be responsible for health care in order to prevent illness/death?
The government does not mandate you eat good food or drink pure water or go to jail if you don't....
Surely it's reasonable to interpret "promote the general Welfare" to include the government doing what it can to prevent the unnecessary illness and death of citizens.
The government can't arrest you or fine you for getting sick, or dying ..your post is so stupid my response even sounds stupid....:palm:

My shot huh...OK...then you don't get two options. If you don't want to buy health insurance, you must sign a 'do not treat' waiver. If you get hit by a semi, have a heart attack or your appendix bursts, you're on your own. No paramedics, no ambulance ride, no medical treatment.

We'll call it: REAL personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility...now you're getting close....its personal...my health is none of your business,
my bills, doctor bills, phone bills, insurance bills, or any other debts I incur, is NONE of your business....

Here's my solution...we don't even need to address the constitutionality of the individual mandate. If you don't want to buy health insurance, you have two options; provide a $10,000 deposit for self insurance or sign a do not treat waiver. Either put your money where your mouth is or of your life where your mouth is.

The government has NO RIGHT to mandate a citizen purchase anything....not a grape, not a book, not a car, not a house, not insurance....
what I buy is my business....and how I pay for what I buy is also my business....
 
Wow Bfgrn stepped up and actually has an opinion of his own that isn't from somebodyelsesleftwingopinion.org!

I have plenty of opinions, but when I forward them I usually add citation. And often it is from Republicans and conservatives, who have little in common with the Beck, Limbaugh, Levin, Savage, Hannity, O'Reilly indoctrinated right wing authoritarians that dominate today's right.


The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
Friedrich Nietzsche
 
Personal responsibility...now you're getting close....its personal...my health is none of your business,
my bills, doctor bills, phone bills, insurance bills, or any other debts I incur, is NONE of your business...

Personal? You are focusing on the wrong word...it is RESPONSIBILITY.

It IS MY business if you don't have health insurance and get hit by a semi, have a heart attack or your appendix bursts...you WILL get treatment, and there WILL be a bill. If you can't pay it, everyone else who has insurance PAYS YOUR bill. It adds over $1,000 per year to everyone's policy premium.

You are the poster boy for personal IRresponsibility... a health care welfare queen...
 
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