Thursday, June 25, 2015

Obamacare lives. (For now)

Image result for health insurance marketplace obamacare imagesIt looks like the supremes upheld the most important portions of the ACA today, and that's a big win for this president.

Now, as is to be expected, the right wingers are losing their collective minds.

"an act of judicial activism" from the Supreme Court designed to "protect the Affordable Care Act." ~Karl Rove~

"With today's Obamacare decision, John Roberts confirms that he has completely jettisoned all pretense of textualism. He is a results-oriented judge, period, ruling on big cases based on what he thinks the policy result should be or what the political stakes are for the court itself. He is a disgrace. That is all." ~National Review~

"[Roberts] will undermine his own credibility as a fair-minded jurist, because he has reached to bizarre and odd contortions in order to save this statute twice." ~Andrew Napolitano, Fox News~

 "an absolute disaster" and wondered "what does [this] mean for the rule of law?" ~Rush Limbaugh ~

"I braced for this decision by SCOTUS still shocked....folks country has fundamentally changed...another giant step toward Banana Republic" ~Fox's Charles Payne~

And on and on it goes.

It seems like only yesterday that Chief Justice Roberts was a darling of the right wing. But this just goes to show you how dangerous it is to throw all of your eggs in one basket when it comes to politics.

Of course this decision will never cause me to change my mind about Chief Justice Roberts. That Citizens United decision will forever tarnish him and his legacy in my book.

 "I am disappointed in the Burwell decision, but this is not the end of the fight against ObamaCare "

Jeb, I am sure you are.

"Five years ago, after nearly a century of talk, decades of trying, a year of bipartisan debate," the law is finally and firmly entrenched, Obama said, .....Health care, he said is "not a privileged for a few, but a right for all.".... The setbacks I remember clearly." However, "as the dust has settled, there can be no doubt that this law is working."

Show off.


















38 comments:

Scipio Africanus said...

Healthcare is not, and cannot be, a "right".

If it were, then healthcare providers would be compelled to provide it to anyone without any expectation of compensation, like a slave.

A decent society ensures fair access to healthcare and provides relief to the indigent such that no one dies in the street. That was America pre-Obamacare. After this monstrosity is fully implemented, healthcare rationing will ensure some people die in the street.

This decision is indefensible from a legal standpoint. The court has made this decision not on the basis of law, but of politics. The workings of our government have become completely divorced from the limits of the Constitution. You may think this is a good thing, but it is undeniable that the Constitutional Republic is dead. Where this all leads remains to be seen, but if history is any guide, it will not bode well for the majority of the people and particularly those on the bottom of society.

dinthebeast said...

Scipio Africanus that is utter bullshit and you know it is. I am one of those "on the bottom of society" and I can see right now because of the ACA. No way would I have been able to afford the surgery that stopped me going blind without it. There are, as you say, Americans dying in the street, right now: in the streets of states with gop governments that refuse to expand Medicaid.

-Doug in Oakland

Anonymous said...

"No way would I have been able to afford the surgery that stopped me going blind without it."

Bullshit.

dinthebeast said...

Believe what you like, but Dr. Huang did the surgeries at Highland Hospital, and Medicare paid for 80% of the more than $10,000.00 billed leaving me with more than $2,000.00 to pay out of my $1,200.00 a month disability check. Wasn't gonna happen.

-Doug in Oakland

Anonymous said...

From Wikipedia: In the United States, Medicare is a national social insurance program, administered by the U.S. federal government since 1966, currently using about 30 private insurance companies across the United States. Medicare provides health insurance for Americans aged 65 and older who have worked and paid into the system. It also provides health insurance to younger people with disabilities, end stage renal disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

FYI, 1966 was 45 years before Obamacare.

Porter said...

For readers of The Field Negro Blog not aware, the question before the court was as prosaic as can be imagined. The law stated that people qualify for handouts when purchasing insurance on an exchange “established by the state.”

Not established by the federal government.
Not established by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Not established by Tolerance and Inclusion.

The point is reiterated multiple times throughout the text. It would have been particularly amusing had congress appended the qualifier “and yes we actually mean ‘by the state’ John Roberts, you mincing faggot.” Yet you may be assured that verbiage would have only necessitated additional dance steps in the majority opinion, not a different outcome.

Because the problem with those words is only about a third of the states have erected exchanges. Thus a finding for the plaintiffs would leave many nibbling mice sans their government cheese. And since Roberts’ occupational assignment is to protect the work of liberal executives, and certainly not to be influenced by mere words on paper, he found himself again in the role of crafting another meticulous rationalization. Let’s hope the herd again agrees to swallow it whole. Antonin Scalia did not:

Perhaps the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will attain the enduring status of the Social Security Act or the Taft-Hartley Act; perhaps not. But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.
I dissent.


Alas for Justice Scalia, we live in a time where men of principal must bow to the whims of men of expedience. What might be expedient tomorrow?

dinthebeast said...

I was talking about the remaining $2,000.00 that Medicaid paid because I qualified under Obamacare. Without that, I was on my own for that amount, as I was before Obamacare was enacted. I am keenly aware of what Medicare is; without it I couldn't have had my surgeries either. I am supremely thankful for both programs. Going blind is no fun at all.

-Doug in Oakland

Anonymous said...

"Going blind is no fun at all."

I am sure it isn't, and I am glad you received the surgery you needed. Maybe there was some other way for you to get it other than to shred the Constitution and mortally wound the US healthcare system for the 95% for whom it worked.

This law has been incrementally implemented to shield the Democrats from the political fallout of its full effects. Most of the provisions affecting the majority of people will not take effect until at least 2017.

Who, whom? said...

As farcical as the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision was, it was only the second worst ruling of the day. In a 5-4 decision, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court has upheld the “disparate impact” standard of discrimination:

“WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court handed a surprising victory to the Obama administration and civil rights groups on Thursday when it upheld a key tool used for more than four decades to fight housing discrimination.

The justices ruled 5-4 that federal housing laws prohibit seemingly neutral practices that harm minorities, even without proof of intentional discrimination.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote, joined the court’s four liberal members in upholding the use of so-called “disparate impact” cases. …”


In other words, if black people are disproportionately failing to succeed in something, then it is not their fault. It is the fault of institutional racism, discriminatory policies, “the legacy of slavery,” etc.

It is a historic decision for Black Run America (BRA) which is based on the proposition that nothing is ever the fault of black people and that the promotion of black people above all others is the highest good of the social order.

"Disparate impact" asserts that all types of people are exactly the same in terms of talents and proclivities, and therefore must be equally represented in all venues and occupations.

I presume the NBA is facing full dismantlement.

The Purple Cow said...

Quote:Scipio Africanus

"Healthcare is not, and cannot be, a "right". If it were, then healthcare providers would be compelled to provide it to anyone without any expectation of compensation, like a slave."

Like the education system, the police force and the fire department you mean?

They all slaves????

The Purple Cow said...

Yesterday's Supremes decision has already made your five biggest publicly traded insurance companies $3 billion richer.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-supreme-courts-obamacare-decision-is-already-worth-3-billion-for-insurers/

Anonymous said...

@Purple Cow: Was that the stated intent of Obamacare, that insurance companies get richer?

Scipio Africanus said...

The Purple Cow said...
"Like the education system, the police force and the fire department you mean?"

Education is not a right. I cannot demand that Stanford teach me how to code.

And the police are not there to protect your rights, they are there to assert the authority of the state.

If a private entity provides a service that is considered a right, then that entity is compelled to provide that service even without fair compensation for their effort.

As a society, we have lost the ability to make a distinction between access to a service and a lien on the labor of others. Privileges are not the same thing as rights.

dinthebeast said...

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-supreme-court-victory-for-aca.html

-Doug in Oakland

Yīshēng said...

Couple comments from a person who strongly disagreed with the version of Obamacare that's in effect today:

1) No entity required by law for people to have should be provided by for profit organizations. The opportunity to be a greedy is just too damn irresistable to the greedy mofos who run insurance companies.

2) Repealing ANY version of it now would certainly have resulted in numerous deaths of the poor, elderly, and minorities. Of course, this country doesn't give a damn about the poor, elderly, or minorities anyway.

3) Why whooteemoos continue to support interests that don't help them worth a damn is baffling to me. But then again, the whooteemoo mindset could never make any sense to anyone with a brain anyway.

Anonymous said...

Yīshēng said...
Of course, this country doesn't give a damn about the poor, elderly, or minorities anyway.
--

Whether or not it is the true motive, everything this country does is in the name of the poor, elderly, or minorities.

And why has this country supported your 40 year quixotic quest to be a doctor? Because of your white privilege?

Your sense of entitlement is all-consuming.

Yīshēng said...

@2:00PM stalking asshole,

Why does my country support me? Could be for a couple of reasons:

1) MY SLAVE ANCESTORS WORKED IN THE MUTHAF**KA FOR FREE FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS AND MY EDUCATION IS A MINUSCULE FORM OF PAYBACK!!!

2) Health disparities are real and the many (majority?) of Whites and Asians in the healh professions don't want to touch, much less treat people of color.

3) People with FAR more common and academic sense than you'll EVER have recognize that it's FAR cheaper to prevent serious disease in an population prone to the most serious chronic diseases known to man,, than it can be to treat them. Unless you think the multi-billion dollar profit margin of the pharmaceutical companies is a fignet of your whooteemoo imagination.

3A) Seriously ill people cost most people a LOT of money. But not you because you're collecting a disability check for being morbidly stupid and deranged.

4) Working while earning MULTIPLE degress is just how we Caribbean descended folks do the damn thing!

Now do YOU have an endpoint for your endless jealousy of me and my continued academic and professional success? Nah, keep it up it gives your life PURPOSE and me likey!!!!

BTW, the sooner you get over the fact that you're the poster child for white priviledge failure, the sooner your Psycharicist will lower you meds enough for you to get a job at the local piggly wiggly.

Anonymous said...

Yīshēng said...

Why does my country support me? Could be for a couple of reasons:

1) MY SLAVE ANCESTORS WORKED IN THE MUTHAF**KA FOR FREE FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS AND MY EDUCATION IS A MINUSCULE FORM OF PAYBACK!!!
---

In your previous post you said this country doesn't give a damn minorities.

You are completely incoherent and filled with hate.

It is no wonder you have failed so epically in your attempt to be a doctor.

The Purple Cow said...

"@Purple Cow: Was that the stated intent of Obamacare, that insurance companies get richer?"

Of course not, and that is exactly the point I was making.

America needs a proper system of socialised medicine, free at the point of delivery.

Anonymous said...

What's the purpose of electing people to anything when they don't the best interests of the people in mind?? Don't the Republicans have health care? Why shouldn't everyone else?? Because they have money makes them better than those that don't?? When Mother Nature grips your behind, she doesn't care whether you have money or not. If she gets really mad at you and kill you, your money meant nothing. To all of you who think you're better than others, you're really not. We're born, we grow up, we die. Nothing important at all!!!!

The Purple Cow said...

Quote:Scipio Africanus

"Education is not a right."

There you have it ladies and gentlemen, direct from the fascists mouth.

You thought every child has the right to education in a civilised society, but NO! If your kids want to read and write they gonna have to hand over their pocket money. That's how you make society's fair.

"And the police are not there to protect your rights, they are there to assert the authority of the state."

Spoken like a true fascist.

And of course the fire department are not there to save your life or stop your house burning down, they are there to.....ummmmm.....wait a minute.....Ummmmmm.....er........I'll think pf something....

....stop people burning down Washington?

Yīshēng said...

@2:42, if you truly thought I was failing or had tried and failed to become a Doctor, you would have stopped stalking me YEARS ago. Not only that, the fact that you either failed to do the same or much more likely, just aren't smart enough to even contemplete such an academic goal, makes your anus triple thump with anger and jealousy, LOL! In fact, you're so angry about my academic DOMINANCE over you (which a high schooler could achieve) that your soul burns with the red hot intensity of 1000 suns!!!

So BURN BABY BURN!!!

BTW, YOU DON'T NEED NO WATER, LET THE WHOOTEEMOO BURN!! BURN MUTHAF**KA, BURN!!!

ps- To all the frats out there, forgive me for incorporating a portion of your chants in my repsonse to White Priviledge Failure (AKA Whootee WPF, LOL!!!)

Yīshēng said...

When Mother Nature grips your behind, she doesn't care whether you have money or not.
>>>

If you think having resources doesn't buy the rich time (ie Steve Jobs, the longest living stage 4 pancreatic cancer patient I've EVER heard of), you're EXTREMELY naive.

Better yet, take a looksy at the people in the lobby of cancer treatments of america, I guarentee you there aren't ANY "poor" people there.

field negro said...

"Education is not a right". It is very clear from the musings of the right-wing nuts that they wholeheartedly endorse this statement.

Scipio Africanus said...

The Purple Cow said...
Quote:Scipio Africanus

"Education is not a right."

There you have it ladies and gentlemen, direct from the fascists mouth.
---

No one has a right to someone else's wealth. I cannot walk into Harvard and say my child needs $500,000 dollars for an Ivy league education and you must therefore provide it to her because it is her right. Education is not a right just as healthcare is not a right.

It is clear you don't know the meaning of the word fascist, but in your formulation, it is more "fascist" to take someone else's wealth in order to get something you want.

Education is a privilege, not a right. We are fortunate to live in a rich democracy where access to some level of education is provided to everyone. It is a privilege that should be protected, but when you start asserting the 'right' to other people's labor and resources, you are imposing some level of slavery.

Scipio Africanus said...

And neither the police nor the fire department is legally obligated in any way to respond to your call for assistance:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect-someone.html?_r=0

Yīshēng said...

Anonymous Scipio Africanus said...
And neither the police nor the fire department is legally obligated in any way to respond to your call for assistance:
>>>>

Especially if you happen to be Black or Brown.

Ace Freely said...

According to new information from the House Oversight Committee, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration [TIGTA] Russell George and Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Tim Camus, the IRS deleted hundreds of backup tapes containing thousands of emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner, the woman at the center of the conservative targeting scandal. The tapes were destroyed nine months after a congressional subpoena was issued to the agency demanding they be preserved and turned over.

On July 19, 2011, Ms. Lerner requested IRS IT to attempt to recover data from her crashed hard drive because, according to her, she had “personal information” on the drive. The IRS IT management agreed and requested assistance from the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI). After receiving the hard drive from the IT technician, the IRS-CI technician attempted, but was unsuccessful in recovering data, so he returned the hard drive to the IT depot at the IRS headquarters building for its ultimate destruction. According to the IRS-CI technician, he noted some scoring on the top platter of the drive, and he believed there were additional steps that could have been taken to attempt to recover data.

Oh, and then they deleted the back-up tapes -- which by law they're supposed to keep.

As AP reports, according to the Inspector General's deputy Timothy Camus, two "lower-graded" employees at the IRS center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, erased 422 computer backup tapes that contained as many as 24,000 emails to and from former IRS official Lois Lerner.
It gets better: the tapes were erased in March 2014, months after congressional investigators requested all of Lerner's emails, and months after Zero Hedge, among many others, said to simply track down the server backups.

And the punchline: according to George, who before "investigating" IRS crimes, was a page for the 1980 Democratic National Convention and a founder of the Howard University College Democrats, the workers might be incompetent, a lead investigator said Thursday, but there is no evidence they were part of a criminal conspiracy to destroy evidence.

Don't worry, though. The Inspector General has cleared the IRS -- see, it was all just an "unbelievable series of coincidences":

The IRS erased backup takes with Lois G. Lerner's emails even after the messages were subject to a congressional subpoena, but it was an "unbelievable" chain of coincidences rather than a malicious intent to subvert Congress, the tax agency’s inspector general said Thursday.

As many as 24,000 emails may have been permanently lost, but the inspector general has managed to recover about 1,000 messages from the tapes because the IRS only "degaussed" the tapes but didn't destroy them.

Still, the move to erase the tapes after they had been requested by Congress didn’t sit well with Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who accused IRS chief John Koskinen of obstructing Congress‘ investigation into the emails and tea party targeting.

"They destroyed evidence. That’s what they did," Mr. Chaffetz, Utah Republican, said.

He wondered whether it was a “coincidence” the erasure came just a month after President Obama dismissed the tea party-targeting scandal as a nonissue.


I concede -- it is in fact "unbelievable." Look that word up in the dictionary.

So, the government is officially just an outlaw now, huh?

Then what basis is there for any of us to obey it any longer?

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Mr.-J.-Russell-George-Mr.-Timothy-Camus-Testimony.pdf

The Purple Cow said...

And neither the police nor the fire department is legally obligated in any way to respond to your call for assistance:

...and people say America isn't completely fucked.

Your children have no right to an education, the police don't have to serve and protect you if they don't feel like it, and the fire department can sit and laugh as your house burns down and your family is burned alive.

Lovely.

I hope you are all very happy there.

The Purple Cow said...

"...but when you start asserting the 'right' to other people's labor and resources, you are imposing some level of slavery."

So let me get this straight, you are saying that doctors in America are slaves under Obamacare?

They have no right to be paid for their work?

They can be forced to work 20 hours a day for 365 days a year?

They have no free will?

They have no control over their own lives and family?

Wow! Who knew?

But here's the thing. If you don;t want to help sick poor people to get better, don't be a doctor. You remember the Hippocratic Oath? Respect it, or go be something useless like a lawyer instead,

Don't want to teach children to read and write? Don't be a fucking teacher.

Don't want to save human lives? Don't be a fucking firefighter, do something fucking useless like soldiering instead.

To suggest that for medical staff to be expected to save human lives, or to expect firefighters to save human lives is tantamount to slavery, is beyond weird, beyond sick, it's truly fucking deranged.

Oh, and I know what fascism is sunshine. It's is saying that the police's job is not to protect and serve the public, but to impose the will of the state. That is as pure a demonstration of fascist thinking as I have ever heard.

Scipio Africanus said...

The Purple Cow said...
So let me get this straight, you are saying that doctors in America are slaves under Obamacare?

They have no right to be paid for their work?

They can be forced to work 20 hours a day for 365 days a year?

They have no free will?

They have no control over their own lives and family?
---

No, none of that, because healthcare is not a right, it is still a service.

To a greater or lesser extent, it will be the case should healthcare be defined as a legal right.

Scipio Africanus said...

The Purple Cow said...
But here's the thing. If you don;t want to help sick poor people to get better, don't be a doctor. You remember the Hippocratic Oath? Respect it, or go be something useless like a lawyer instead,

Don't want to teach children to read and write? Don't be a fucking teacher.

Don't want to save human lives? Don't be a fucking firefighter, do something fucking useless like soldiering instead.

To suggest that for medical staff to be expected to save human lives, or to expect firefighters to save human lives is tantamount to slavery, is beyond weird, beyond sick, it's truly fucking deranged.
---

Why stop there? Let's make tax advice a "right", and compel accountants to provide it for free. Let's make haircuts a "right", and force barbers to cut everyone's hair whether or not they feel like paying for it.

If people don't have a choice whether or not to sell their labor and what price they can ask for it, you are damn straight that they are to some extent a slave.

Scipio Africanus said...

The Purple Cow said...
Oh, and I know what fascism is sunshine. It's is saying that the police's job is not to protect and serve the public, but to impose the will of the state. That is as pure a demonstration of fascist thinking as I have ever heard.
---

Self-awareness is not your strong suit. The police are the institution with which the state asserts its monopoly on violence in the pursuit of the state's interests. This is exceedingly clear when the state is controlled by leftist fascists such as yourself, who would use those police to force others to provide whatever labor or resources they deem necessary to satisfy the requirements of the "rights" they have created.

dinthebeast said...

If you don't like paying taxes to support the common good, try Somalia, I hear there is very little government interference there. If you like the infrastructure, physical and social, pay for it. It's not that much of a burden.

-Doug in Oakland

field negro said...

Well stated, Doug.

Anonymous said...

Somalia has too many black people for there to be any common good.

Anonymous said...

There is a lien placed on homes that many black elderly own. The will not be able to bequeath those homes to their kin the govt takes the home. Watch out for the medicaid subsidies! The aca believers don't tell you it is way to distribute black wealth back to the govt.

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