As we head into the July 4th holiday, celebrating our independence, what an excellent opportunity to look forward to our freedom from the ridiculous dinosaur that is our healthcare system. I’ve told you many times before what I feel the outcome should be – your job should have nothing to do with your health insurance.
The two being joined together like a bad marriage has never made sense to me. Cobra or whatever “our” government has come up with as a patch between your losing a job and securing another one is too costly for many, myself included. There is no excuse in our society for someone to be unemployed, homeless or sick without adequate health insurance to cover medical treatment whether it be for a cold or cancer.
The argument against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is that Congress has exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause by requiring citizens to buy products they do not want. The 6th Circuit Court said this – Judge Sutton writing – “If Congress can require Americans to buy medical insurance today, what of tomorrow? Could it compel individuals to buy health care itself in the form of an annual check-up or for that matter a health-club membership.? And if Congress can do this in the healthcare field, what of other fields of commerce and other products?”
Sutton continues: “These are good questions. But there are some answers. First, healthcare is unique. Regulating how citizens pay for what they already receive – health care – never quite know when they will need and in the case of severe illnesses or emergencies will not be able to afford, has few - if any – parallels in modern life. Not every intrusive law is an unconstitutionally intrusive law.”
“Second, health insurance mandates exist at the State level. Yet no court has invalidated these kinds of mandates under the Due Process Clause or any other liberty-based guarantee of the Constitution. That means one of two things: either compelled purchases of medical insurance are different from compelled purchases of other goods and services, or the States, even under the plaintiffs’ (Thomas More Law Center – Michigan) theory of the case, may compel purchases of insurance, vegetables, car and so on. Sometime an intuition is just an intuition.”
In the majority opinion, Judges Martin and Sutton wrote, “We find that the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of legislative power under the Commerce Clause. The individual mandate is facially constitutional for two reasons. First, the provisions regulates economic activity that Congress had a rational basis to believe has substantial effects on interstate commerce, and, Congress had a rational basis to believe that the provision was essential to its larger scheme reforming the interstate markets in health care and health insurance.”
According to Politico, “Proponents of the overhaul and legal experts noted that in ruling in favor of the health reform law, Sutton became the first Republican-appointment federal judge to uphold the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Proponents of the law hope that Sutton’s favorable opinion of the overhaul will resonate with the conservative judges in the Supreme Court, which many expect will deliver the final decision on the constitutionality of the law and individual mandate sometime next year.”
In previous posts, I have advocated the urgency of a Supreme Court ruling on this. Although it is a criminal case, I’ve been watching, first hand, the unbelievable and unnecessary minutia in the Anthony v. Florida murder trial. Concurrent with this, I’ve been watching the inactivity, political posturing and childishness of the “our” Congress, which is, unfortunately, not unusual. I have less respect for the both our legal and legislative institutions. If you then add in the partisanship involved in providing affordable medical care for our citizens and the slowness of the process getting the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the reform, do the “officials” involved know that people are dying and suffering while they pontificate on behalf of all of us?
On a personal note, like most Americans, my health care is directly tied in with my job. For the moment, I am “technically” still employed by the trucking company I’ve worked for the past 7 years. I have benefited from receiving a small paycheck each week, but from that amount, I then have to then send a check to my employer to continue my health care – medical coverage. This “arrangement” ends in less than 15 days. Either I return to work as a full time employee or I have to file for unemployment, lose my health insurance or quickly secure another job that offers immediate medical coverage, in one of the worst recessions in decades.
I don’t feel I should be placed in this position. I don’t feel anyone should have to face this dilemma. That’s why we need to demand “better” health care reform – not so much as the President has crafted it – but in a better form that makes sense. I see nothing from Congress that meets this standard. Employers need to get out of the health care business. The burden, once affordable, something that might have been a nice “perk” or “benefit” to keep employees, has become too great for businesses, large and small. It is now past the time where Americans should have medical coverage – independent of their job or financial circumstances – provided for by private insurers, not necessarily the government.
Why is this (1) taking so long, and (2) why is the Congress and private industry so inept when it comes to reforming the present antiquated system? I just have to shake my head when educated and experienced adults i.e. the President and members of Congress have to publically debate each other over constant inactivity on the vital issues of the land. Again, I ask, do they realize people are suffering? Do they care?
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