dayman

I'm real concerned about that. Thanks for the heads up.

I support this article. haha...if for nothing else than to see the most conservative of conservative flip out

The additional obligations, when combined with existing Medicare and Medicaid funding shortfalls, leaves taxpayers on the hook for an extra $82 trillion over the next 75 years. LOL Talk about a useful article.

Let's go BOOZE! LET'S GO BOOZE!

Based on the questioning you would think that this court would have opposed income tax, social security, etc. I'm sure if they want to they'll ignore Wickard.

rooster sizes?

It's just bad for the average person there's a veil of propaganda over the eyes of the voting body that votes for tort reform. When you are injured you get a day in court to make your case and an arbitrary cap won't provide justice (and isn't constitutional) when every case is different. This is how the court's work, this is a question of fact for the jury to decide. Tort reform is not the answer. "It'll save costs though!"...well ya...save costs in what manner? Taking money away from an injured plaintiff who made their case and a jury of their peers awarded them a set amount they found compensated them for their injury. That isn't the way we want to save on costs. People before profits. People's rights before corporate lobbying. If that makes me a leftist nut to you then I'm ok with that. EDIT: Also most studies show the impact damage awards actually have on medical costs in negligible. It's more the pay-for-service system and patients higher service expectations than defensive medicine. Also, the concept of "frivolous lawsuits" being out of control is complete propaganda. Tort reform is simply an industry trying to limit individuals ability to obtain fair compensation for their injuries.

*yawn* ...can't believe you all "debated" that situation for 20+ pages...

I don't see why that is the case. If a company wants to do business in a state, comply with the law in that state. That's the case in many industries. The states regulate many things. LOL, please God no.

Haha, I am not as you and some others must think. Fairly moderate. You all are so combative it's hard to be moderate though. Well if that isn't a set up for a Romney joke I don't know what is haha...

FYI DC Tom, it was sort of interesting the scenario you put forth a while back and all I could say is nobody talks about that problem, no lawyers, no economists etc...I did a little snooping today about my day and found out why. I don't have a link for you b/c I just asked a lady I know who works in regulatory affairs and has worked with congress and directly with the white house on this very bill. She said the simple answer is buried in the bill you will see that it is impossible to simply do the cost benefit analysis, pay the fine when you are young and healthy, and then purchase. If you get a preexisting injury during that time if you do that then you are SOL despite the guarantee issue. AND on top of that apparently there's a scheme where if you don't get it when you can you get "locked out" of the market for a set period of time or something also...don't have have all the exact facts but just figured I'd put that out there. Nice point you made there though, it's not like any of us have read all those pages. Got me thinking anyway, but just so you know the Bill accounts for your scenario. It figures in all it's length they've thought about at least the most basic of problems. Haha, I was being sarcastic man. Certainly wasn't proposing some crazy world.

Well candy bars are smaller now, so I guess we're on the right track. hehe

I think everyone agrees any policy based on people actually doing anything differently not a very wise one. Who knows though, we're probably 5 years a way from cigs being $20 a pack (at least in the city) so maybe at one point there will be no more daily smokers. Now if we can only do that for all other goods that hurt us (all goods).

You can't. The real question is how can we make our system more efficient giving high cost services to those who need it, and lower cost service to those who do not.

Haha, made me laugh. Leave it to this board to sit here and talk about if the "tables are properly sourced." Jesus...

Also it must be easy to just trash everything, even industry in dire need of reform, and then just say "I'm not going to get into any ideas that may be better." You should be the speaker of the house. Well if you hate the bill because you don't think it's fair that's fine but where was your first amendment grounds haha? There are no first amendment grounds. I would like to here your argument there.

Haha, ok so then the mandate is constitutional b/c it's actually optional if it's cost effective to you!? What? Were you not of the opposite opinion earlier? (I could be wrong I don't keep a notebook of everybody's positions). Anyway the idea there is no link between everyone having the means to afford care, and everyone receiving care isn't something I'll debate. The idea that there should still be FURTHER reform directed at the care industry itself, is fine but doesn't depend on this bill being destroyed. And the point is the uninsured freeriders are ALREADY shifting the burden to the healthcare companies/doctors/us which you know, so they need to be coerced into a plan. Nobody on either side, and no economist, predicts the plan will result somehow in more freeriders and more shifted costs. The scenario where all the healthy 25 year old blow off the mandate in enormous numbers wait until they get sick and then go get insurance they can't be refused and thus take down the entire industry is not something any economist or lawyer has argued. The healthcare industry, if having no other thoughts about the plan, views it as a way to expand the quantity of policy holders getting more healthy people in the pool (reducing the cost of insurance) as well as reducing the amount of uncompensated care doctors end up giving out (and thus reducing the cost of care). To me, Clement put on a show. He was a far superior advocate to any of the other lawyers who argued this issue. Also, I don't think he made Kagan look like a fool.

But do you not think there are problems in the insurance market? This has some real reform to that note. It's a fair to say you want more done about costs but repealing this isn't going to further that. If anything isn't this a serious start to reform? Insurance is socialist it just is...everybody should have it I mean is that what you are really against? What is the main sticking point that makes this something that can't even be worked with? Basically what sort of reform would you imagine that would replace this and needs this to die to exist?

1) Yes, this link is from "Esquire" haha 2) It's still something worth thinking about given the "entitlement mentality" is a popular thing to talk about for many aging baby boomers who comprise the tea party. The War Against Youth The recession didn't gut the prospects of American young people. The Baby Boomers took care of that. Twenty-five years ago young Americans had a chance. In 1984, American breadwinners who were sixty-five and over made ten times as much as those under thirty-five. The year Obama took office, older Americans made almost forty-seven times as much as the younger generation. This bleeding up of the national wealth is no accounting glitch, no anomalous negative bounce from the recent unemployment and mortgage crises, but rather the predictable outcome of thirty years of economic and social policy that has been rigged to serve the comfort and largesse of the old at the expense of the young. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human potential has been consistently growing, generating greater material wealth, more education, wider opportunities — a vast and glorious liberation of human potential. In all that time, everyone, even followers of the most corrupt or most evil of ideologies, believed they were working for a better tomorrow. Not now. The angel of progress has suddenly vanished from the scene. Or rather, the angel of progress has been sent away. Nobody ever talks about generational conflict. Who wants to bring up that the old are eating the young at the dinner table? How are you going to mention that to your boss? If you're a politician, how are you going to tell your donors? Even the Occupy Wall Street crowd, while rejecting the modes and rhetoric and institutional support of Boomer progressives, shied away from articulating the fundamental distinction that fills their spaces with crowds: young against old. http://www.esquire.com/features/young-people-in-the-recession-0412

Anyway it's besides the point. I doubt the medicare expansion is seen as unconstitutional and I still feel there is no way to tell for sure what will happen to the mandate.

And my point is it is fine to feel that way but that quote isn't an example of that.

Well it's not Kagan's fault for characterizing something as it is, as opposed to something you wish it was.

My point is I understand your analogy is dramatic but I agree with it generally and just point out that is the federal government. Through the constitution the states vested the federal government with certain powers. They function exactly by taking money, and doing things with it giving back in many instances under their own terms. That is the system. The more the states take and give in...well...

But what is your point? That this should not go on in the State/Federal dynamic? That there should be no federal government?

You guys realize that congress controls the money right? It isn't Kagan's business she doesn't care one way or the other she was concerned with how it's coercive. If you want to focus on that, that would be fine.