Clarence Thomas wants to retire. You know he hates his job. But he told his wife he wasn’t going to quit until Anita Hill apologized for all those lies. So …

It was interesting to read the comments today from Scalia, who said, if reports are accurate, that if the mandate falls, then it’s the “heart” and so the whole ACA falls.

So Congress expands Medicaid in a separate bill. No problem. It expands it in the ACA, it falls.

Congress adds an independent board to look at costs in Medicare, not problem, but if the wholly separate mandate falls, then Medicare fixes fall.

And there are dozens of other provisions totally unconnected with whether people in the individual market should be required to buy insurance.

There doesn’t seem to be an ounce of integrity there; just pure tribalism.

as the first gay chief justice, i trust roberts to do the right thing

Obama should have just gone all out for a single payer model and avoid this whole ‘constitutional’ circus.

Considering that Roberts, as his first public duty, screwed up the Presidential Oath of Office, you might be right.

The insurance industry was dying without PPACA. Nobody can afford it individually, employers are dropping it everywhere.

So I can totally see Roberts upholding. Not because of the GODawful mess we’d be in, of course.

Well, if this ACA legislation goes down and we can’t get the sensible Single Payer option – how come I can’t choose to join a public option vs. a private one…it’s my money – here’s what I’d like to see happen.

Draft Howard Dean to develop the “Democratic Health Ins Plan” and offer it as a not-for-profit insurance plan. Cram it full of progressive goodies – well baby, preventative check-ups, etc – and market it to registered Democrats and businesses. That’s a pool of 55MM+ people. Let Indies join at a small surcharge and Republicans at, say, twice the premium offered to Democrats. I’m paying $1400/mo for private health ins and getting squat for that investment. I’d sure as hell would prefer to get more benefits with less aggravation and a reduced premium…

I suspect there might be some political benefits to the Democratic Party by offering this.

Oh, and it would drive a stake through the heart of for-greed private insurance companies. Now what will the Republicans do?

so heads, everyone in america has to buy insurance, tails the insurance industry keeps fleecing us like they always have?

For some reason my 2nd edit didn’t take. Added: Oh, and it would drive a stake into the heart of for-greed private insurance companies – freemarket! – then what will Republicans do?

How is that picture not evidence of child abuse? A tiny tyke tux with shorts? Where’s Tim Gunn when you need him. Justice Roberts take heed. Dr. Laura dressed Deryk in little boy clothes so long he turned into a vicious psycho when he left the nest.

Oh yes, that would be a tremendous win for Obama.

Much like the USFL’s tremendous antitrust win over the NFL.

Roberts is a corporatist before anything else. He really believes that the Business of America is Business.

I think he’ll come down on the side of more corporate power.

Little-Lord-Kick-My-Ass returns!

Slightly OT: Were Scalia and Gingrich separated at birth?

Same bowel movement …. differentiated turds

If you look at the justices questions today you will have your answer. They specifically asked what happens if they decide to gut or kill ACA. The answer is Congress would need to act to replace it with something that is more constitutional and the obvious answer to that is the public option.

Of course GOPers and their healthcare lobbyist overlords would sooner stick needles in their eyes then let that happen. So the Justices won’t go there or……go nuclear which won’t make “single payer will rise like a phoenix-unicorn from the ashes” but it is one of many steps closer in that direction…which is why I don’t think the Justices will go there. They have bigger fish to fry to politicize their right wing agenda. Trying to do it with ACA would be too messy and will do more harm to their agenda than it will achieve.

Dahlia Lithwick has a bit of a different take on this:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/03/the_supreme_court_is_more_concerned_with_the_politics_of_the_health_care_debate_than_the_law_.html

She seems to think the court will uphold ACA in order to screw others later….

I had a somewhat similar idea back when it was looking like they weren’t even going to manage to pass what we got, but mine was a little different. In mine, it would have been a nationwide co-op kind of deal, and it would have been aimed at destroying individual state insurance markets. Would have had a pool of people nationwide making contributions to get the backs of the people in whatever the target state of the moment was and provide them with coverage while they told their insurers to take a hike. I figured you could start with the lowest population states; once Congress saw the implosion of the insurance markets & insurers in say, Wyoming and North Dakota, and started getting panicked calls from the insurers in every other state, they would have gotten off their asses to pass something.

Fortunately it never came to that. I say fortunately because these days, the citizenry isn’t all that great about getting on board with DIY political solutions, so of course it never would have happened. But theoretically, there’s nothing to stop anyone from setting up a non-profit insurer.

Urrrum call it unconstitutional…like they always do for anything they don’t like….facts be damned.

Then why are they hearing the case now? They could have waited until the madate actually kicks in.

Was just helping a friend make some decisions about how to join Medicare, Social Security. I was interested to see that if she did not join Medicare Part A within ‘X’ number of months before and after her 65th birthday, she would be liable for a fine of about 10%….

“Chief Justice John Roberts still craves the image of a serious jurist …”

Oh, that ship has so sailed but he’s certainly stupid enough to believe it hasn’t.

Fat Tony (75) and Swinger Tony (76) are both getting up in years. Ginsburg is likely holding on for the next election to be over. That’s potentially three justices for the next president to appoint. And Clarence the Mime is 63. There is a real potential to change the course of the court ahead.

Why anyone takes the Supreme Court rulings as anything other than political partisan decisions anymore is beyond me. I don’t really care about Obama’s watered down health insurer give-away and I don’t think there is any chance for single payer. In short, I think that America is doomed. We had a good ride that peaked in about 1969 with the moon landing. It has really been a farce ever since, with each decade more ridiculous than the next. There is no hope for a return to greatness. Decline is decline. Our lives will be filled with progressively lowered expectations in every facet of our existence with the possible exception of some really cool computer gizmos. In ten years, this will seem like the good old days. We will have weathered at least two more wars by then, and probably more. A couple of more nuclear disasters will have occurred and people will be talking about getting the troops out of (fill in the blank). We still won’t have a decent health care system, music will be even worse than it is currently, no effort will have been made to convert to solar power, the population will continue to rise unsustainably and people will still argue about birth control. Kids out of high school will have great opportunities like joining the military and …. joining the military. Does anyone really doubt any of this?

Little Lord Kick-My-Ass must be in his teens by now. Bet his classmates at St. Albans–or wherever it is that he goes–would looooove to see a snapshot of that Eton suit!

I’m concerned with the politics of it as much as anyone else.

If it is struck down, I’ll be more concerned with the people whose lives will be worse and shorter than they could have been in a world where ACA withstood review.

Sometimes I can’t stand this stupid country.

Why anyone takes the Supreme Court rulings as anything other than political partisan decisions anymore is beyond me.

Most of them don’t, actually. Rachel Maddow showed a poll last night that showed a majority of people (I forget the actual percentage) believe that the ACA SCOTUS decision will be decided along partisan lines, for partisan reasons.

She also showed poll results that show that when you ask people about “Obamacare” they’re against it, but when you ask them about the individual aspects of the bill they’re all for it, frequently by 3 to 1, even among Republicans/Tea Partiers. She said, “It’s almost like if you asked someone, ‘Would like you a pepperoni pizza?’ and they replied, ‘No way!’; but then you asked, ‘How about some tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni baked on a flat, round piece of bread?’ and they replied, ‘That sounds great!’”

Yes, I doubt a lot of ‘this’. The US population is rising only because of immigration, which we need to take care of the old folks. China is going to be in a world of hurt real soon if they don’t open their immigration gates AND make their country look like a place people want to move to in order to take care of old people. The wars we have gotten into up to this point have been wars to maintain our empire, which is in deed in decline. The next war is likely to be a big one, and after it the US dollar will have lost its status as a reserve currency. THAT will change everything.

WWII happened for the UK in 1939, 10 years after the US stock market crash which started the Great Depression. As a result of WWII, the UK got their national health service. This time around, the US stands in for the UK as the declining imperial power, and so we can look forward to getting our single payer health insurance as a result of WWIII, due to start in 2018.

If it makes you feel better, Obama will not be given credit for our single payer plan, since he will be out of office before WWIII; instead, credit will be given to Vermont, which plans to have their single payer insurance in place by 2019.

As others have pointed out to me on another site where I proposed this, the problem still lies with the core issues of-

(1) pre-existing conditions and
(2) human predilection not to pay for something until they need it.

I guess this is what is dogging the whole discussion about heath ins. Without acknowledging why an individual mandate takes precedence over one’s freedom not to carry insurance, our ability to control heath ins costs can’t get out of the starting gate. With a mandate, I think we could come up with a lot better options than for-profit heath ins.

On the other hand, my mother-in-law has a friend who was turned away from the local hospital for ‘not having insurance’ when she admitted all she had was Medicare to pay for a broken ankle.

The next war is Iran. It is coming right after the election. One more war in the next 9 years and I’m correct on that. Do you really still doubt it? The difference between WWII and WWIII, by the way, is that nukes were only used at the very end of WWII. If you think we are going to have a national health service after winning or losing or drawing in a nuclear war, then that is some kind of optimism.

I’m a doctor and if Fat Tony and the Mob kill ACA, I would personally and professionally be better off moving to Canada.

Killing ACA will never lead to single payer. Keeping ACA alive could eventually lead to single payer when we got tired of wasting money on insurance middle-men. But kill ACA and here’s what Fat Tony will bequeath us:

More of the same. Can’t afford your health care bills? Don’t incur them, or if you do, don’t pay them, and if you don’t pay them, declared bankruptcy. And on the upside, if you’re rich and famous and 71, some dead person will give you the heart you never had.

The ACA was a seriously compromised bill, but if the corporate shoe-licking Roberts court can’t uphold it for the sake of all those insurance company personnel who suck up health care dollars without providing any actual health care, then surely the Supreme Court is a wholly subsidiary of the Koch Brothers.