Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: I still don't get why they're so angry. I constantly hear the talking point that the poor don't pay their fair share of taxes, that they have no skin in the game. Well, here's a tax they have to pay if they don't participate in the insurance system. They can't simply freeload by going to an ER and then skipping out on their bill. They're going to pay something. Why aren't conservatives happy about this? It's not like affirming Congress' ability to levy a tax is anything new. And this one is only going to apply to people that don't already have health insurance and won't get it, which means it doesn't apply to rich people at all. So what's with the rage?

Because they ONLY want the poor to pay in more. They shouldn't get anything in return.

So let me get this straight, Roberts decided to side with the liberal justices in order to make SCOTUS seem less partisan? That seems a little simplistic to me. The Supreme Court does not answer to voters. They are free to decide cases as they please, without fear of voter and congressional backlash. If the Chief Justice has reduced the Court to playing partisan politics, what's the point in having it? Just leave all constitutional decisions to the executive and legislative branch.
/I'm sick of Krauthammer's ugly mug and mouth

Or it could just be that he thinks taxes are constitutional.

LarryDan43: Imagine if they'd actually won.

The funny thing is they did win, this is a conservative plan that places a tax on mid to lower income people and subsidizes insurance companies. The amazing thing is that they are too stupid to know it because they think it makes Obama look good, they would rather the whole country burned to the ground rather then that.

Kibbler: If those are my entertaininment options when I'm old please shoot me.

When we're old we'll be able to hook a wire into our brains that will make us orgasm over and over and over again until we die. With breaks for commercials. I LAUGH at old people and their rage-tv. I laugh at them because they have nothing better to do. We're just going to come until we go, and it will rule.

JUDAS!!!!

hubiestubert: I don't see what the fuss is about. Romney finally gets validation for the Massachusetts heath care reform...

This. And not just Romney and not just MA. The individual mandate included in Romney's health-care bill was originally a conservative idea, pushed by such groups as the Heritage Foundation.

It was the best thing since sliced bread, before it was the death of freedom.

Look: conservatives. When you go around saying Medicare is socialism, that "we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free", and it turns out you were just being whiny prima donnas that got it 100% wrong ...what do you think millions of undecided voters are going to think of you when you pull EXACTLY THE SAME BLUFF with the ACA?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We've both been given these cards before. Yours are the losing cards. You bluffed last time too. And you lost big time.

Keep bluffing. Keep doing exactly what you're doing.

Just like with "death tax will make farmers lose their farms" (but there wasn't a single case the think-tanks could name).

Just like "we know how to get Bin Laden, and how dare you say you'll go into Pakistan" (and there he was, and now he's dead).

paygun: Or it could just be that he thinks taxes are constitutional.

It could also be that there's actually a non-ideologue on the court. That would really be something. Imagine...someone voting the Constitution over an ideology.

ClavellBCMI: God damn, the right simply *won't* LET. IT. GO!, will they? And will the derpaderp modmin who keeps greening these Roberts-is-Benedict-Arnold threads knock that shiat off?

Come on, you don't think it's hilarious that the right wing is calling for the Republican House to impeach a Republican-appointed Chief Justice while there's a Democratic President and a Democratic majority in the Senate?

Yakk: The funny thing is they did win, this is a conservative plan that places a tax on mid to lower income people and subsidizes insurance companies. The amazing thing is that they are too stupid to know it because they think it makes Obama look good, they would rather the whole country burned to the ground rather then that.

It's a big business Republican wet dream. It's corporate welfare at best and the insurance companies lobbied for it. I can't see any reason why liberals are so supportive of it other than just plain old team politics.

Yakk: LarryDan43: Imagine if they'd actually won.

The funny thing is they did win, this is a conservative plan that places a tax on mid to lower income people and subsidizes insurance companies. The amazing thing is that they are too stupid to know it because they think it makes Obama look good, they would rather the whole country burned to the ground rather then that.

And THERE'S the truth of it. Obama passed the Heritage Foundation's alternative to Hillary Care, and the Republicans are so short-sighted and stupid they can't even see that THEY WON HEALTH REFORM. Liberals wanted a public option, they wanted an expansion of medicare, they wanted SINGLE PAYER. Well, we're not getting what we want. We got this half-assed bullsh*t measure that expands coverage by keeping a broken system populated by crooked companies sustained. We should have murdered the health insurance companies in their sleep. We should have tied them to a chair, cut their ear off, doused them in gasoline, set them on fire and then bombed the remains with a f*cking B52. Instead, we let the Republicans win, and all they can do is scream bloody murder. Well f*ck those intransigent assholes. They can go screw.

paygun: Yakk: The funny thing is they did win, this is a conservative plan that places a tax on mid to lower income people and subsidizes insurance companies. The amazing thing is that they are too stupid to know it because they think it makes Obama look good, they would rather the whole country burned to the ground rather then that.

It's a big business Republican wet dream. It's corporate welfare at best and the insurance companies lobbied for it. I can't see any reason why liberals are so supportive of it other than just plain old team politics.

Because despite its flaws, it's better than the old system?

Scerpes: Imagine...someone voting the Constitution over an ideology.

It would be great but it will have to be proven to me before I'll believe it.

Subby seems to have gotten his definition of #winning from Charlie Sheen.

qorkfiend: Because despite its flaws, it's better than the old system?

Well that remains to be seen. I don't see how more of a bad thing is going to fix it but we'll see.

doyner: Has anyone seen anyone post "Roberts rules Death Panels Constitutional" in the derposphere yet?

Of course. I wonder how he got the scythe past security.



(Hot as a surprised Tea Partier).

I saw it somewhere else yesterday but can't remember where.

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: I still don't get why they're so angry. I constantly hear the talking point that the poor don't pay their fair share of taxes, that they have no skin in the game. Well, here's a tax they have to pay if they don't participate in the insurance system. They can't simply freeload by going to an ER and then skipping out on their bill. They're going to pay something. Why aren't conservatives happy about this? It's not like affirming Congress' ability to levy a tax is anything new. And this one is only going to apply to people that don't already have health insurance and won't get it, which means it doesn't apply to rich people at all. So what's with the rage?

On the surface, I agree that there are many things in the ACA that you would think that conservatives would like and support (and that makes sense, since it's mainly a rehashing of 1990's-era Republican answers to single payer). But the problem is that the modern Republican party is no longer moored to any sort of rational or objective analysis of policy alternatives. Policy is very much secondary to most Republicans; instead, they just care about their "side" "winning", even if it means we all lose, ultimately. This is why they have opposed everything Obama has done, even when he proposes things that they themselves supported in the recent past: the policy doesn't matter to them so much as denying Obama a victory does. This same mentality even extends beyond politics itself and into how they view the social sphere: their opposition to things like universal healthcare and the social safety net is not really about a genuine belief that removing those things is good for society (after all, the majority of Republican voters benefit from these things more than they pay for them). No, instead, they want there to be people who are destitute and suffering, because that makes them feel better about themselves. It's not about disagreement on the best way to help the poor, once again: it's about a Republican belief that there have to be losers in society in order for there to be winners. They can't conceive of a world where everyone is a winner in even a small part of life.

paygun: qorkfiend: Because despite its flaws, it's better than the old system?

Well that remains to be seen. I don't see how more of a bad thing is going to fix it but we'll see.

Because it prevents many bad things under the old system from happening? At worst, the bad things that will happen are the same bad things that would have happened without the PPACA.

I_C_Weener: Scerpes: mrshowrules: Also right that CNN was wrong to be calling this thing too early.

It wasn't only CNN that called it too early. Drudge blew it. FoxNews blew it. Frankly, it kinda seemed like both FoxNews and CNN were running with whatever Drudge had up. That didn't change until SCOTUSblog got it right. All of a sudden, Drudge, FoxNews and CNN flipped.

The decision first reads that "The mandate is not allowable under the inter-state commerce clause". Most went with that ... then read page two.

I think a lot of people just assumed that Roberts would vote to overturn, and thus if he's writing the majority opinion the law was dead.

qorkfiend: At worst, the bad things that will happen are the same bad things that would have happened without the PPACA.

I think you're right. I think that says a lot about the effectiveness of this law. Well, it might allow some insurance company execs to buy a second yacht so there's that.

You don't read so good, subby. Maybe you need to attend the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff.

The US needs a UK style Prime-minister's questions every week.

The fact that there isn't actually Republican healthcare plan at all would be dismantled in seconds, week-in, week-out.

Put it this way: it's a brutal weekly 30 minute version of the presidential debates, only that lying can mean you can be stripped of office and imprisoned.

Is being paralyzed a preexisting condition?

Bungles: Put it this way: it's a brutal weekly 30 minute version of the presidential debates, only that lying can mean you can be stripped of office and imprisoned.

Our government wouldn't last a month.

Unshavenhelga: You don't read so good, subby. Maybe you need to attend the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff.

What is this? A center for ANTS?!

mrshowrules: Scerpes: mrshowrules: Also right that CNN was wrong to be calling this thing too early.

It wasn't only CNN that called it too early. Drudge blew it. FoxNews blew it. Frankly, it kinda seemed like both FoxNews and CNN were running with whatever Drudge had up. That didn't change until SCOTUSblog got it right. All of a sudden, Drudge, FoxNews and CNN flipped.

Yes but you expect Fox to get it wrong. CNN swung to the right about 2 years ago.

I don't really see that. I think CNN went pants-on-head retarded. They put complete idiots on the air. I don't mean that because I disagree with them. It's because they say and do stupid things all the time. They play with touch screens, they walk down hallways, cameras looking over their shoulder, and of course, they get things wrong all the time. The competence level is near zero over there.

However I hardly ever watch even for a few minutes, so you may know things I don't.

qorkfiend: paygun: qorkfiend: Because despite its flaws, it's better than the old system?

Well that remains to be seen. I don't see how more of a bad thing is going to fix it but we'll see.

Because it prevents many bad things under the old system from happening? At worst, the bad things that will happen are the same bad things that would have happened without the PPACA.


Essentially. It's merely the difference between "massive, gradually accelerating de facto corporate welfare" and "massive corporate welfare, but with conditions that require a degree of improved service in return." It's a pretty serious stretch to call it good, but it is better, and worth supporting over the practical alternative (which was nothing).

Most liberals aren't exactly in love with it, but that makes the attempt to drag it back to nothing all the more infuriating.

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: Well, here's a tax they have to pay if they don't participate in the insurance system.

The "tax" is uncollectible; however, the rise in premiums for the middle class is.

Headso: Is being paralyzed a preexisting condition?

Yes. Spinal cord injury will bar you from purchasing insurance outside of assigned risk pool policies (available in limited states)

LouDobbsAwaaaay: Liberals wanted single-payer, or at least a Public Option

That's what I mean, this thing is neither one. It sure seems like what's in the law (which is neither) all became a good idea as soon as Obama signed it.

But feel free to make the case that conservatives supported this and liberals opposed it, if you feel like making an ass of yourself.

TFA: I think the [Court's] "mandate is merely a tax" argument is a dodge, and a flimsy one at that.

KM: I think the [Court's] "mandate is merely a tax" "corporation is a person" argument is a dodge, and a flimsy one at that.

/sitting back with popcorn, waiting for more fallout from yesterday's decision...

karmaceutical: Politics tab is looking like a real derpfest today... more so than other days even.

It's Fark Freeper Friday!!
Breitbart link due any second now.

Wasteland: It's a pretty serious stretch to call it good, but it is better, and worth supporting over the practical alternative (which was nothing).

I think anyone should be able to see it's better than doing nothing, but that's about the best you can say. The problem is that insurance companies are going to continue to act like insurance companies and that's what this system is built on. I don't think it will be long before we get to the "Hitler was nice to dogs" stage when we talk about the good parts of this law.

max_pooper: karmaceutical: Politics tab is looking like a real derpfest today... more so than other days even.

It's Freeper Friday on steroids.

Damnit.

daveUSMC: Is this really going to reduce the cost of health insurance, or the actual health care costs?
How does this not screw over the poor? Or are there subsidies for "free" coverage for people below a certain income level?

As I understand it, there are considerations for the poor.

I have yet to hear anything about how this law will control costs that isn't pie in the sky ramblings of a retard.

daveUSMC: Can someone correct me if I'm wrong here?

Currently:
- We pay for uninsured people's health care, because we don't deny uninsured health care (but it's mostly only emergency care)

Under ACA:
- The uninsured are compelled to purchase health insurance or pay a a fine out of their tax refunds.
- 26-year olds and younger can have their parents purchase their insurance.
- No denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

Is this really going to reduce the cost of health insurance, or the actual health care costs?
How does this not screw over the poor? Or are there subsidies for "free" coverage for people below a certain income level?



There's a lot more to it than that, including subsidies to buy coverage, expansion of Medicare coverage to more people, and comparative research to help hospitals, patients, and doctors understand what what works and how much it costs.

And a shiat ton of other things

paygun: daveUSMC: Is this really going to reduce the cost of health insurance, or the actual health care costs?
How does this not screw over the poor? Or are there subsidies for "free" coverage for people below a certain income level?

As I understand it, there are considerations for the poor.

I have yet to hear anything about how this law will control costs that isn't pie in the sky ramblings of a retard.

How would you feel about making people stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care? That will sure reduce costs.

Truly, the writer has a dizzying intellect...

Philip Francis Queeg: How would you feel about making people stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care? That will sure reduce costs.

Well that rambling isn't pie in the sky, but it is pretty retarded. The "Affordable Care Act" is an insurance law.