If the mandate is struck down, can the rest of Obamacare still stand?

[Little-Acorn]

You can't really believe that.

I've noticed that when leftist fanatics get their arguments blown out of the water, they will even resort to clairvoyance or mind-reading rather than stand up and admit they were wrong.

Some things never change.

 

[Rick]

Then consider it a starting point, which is more than anyone else managed to do. More people will have coverage.

More people will have FAKE coverage - this is the "universal healthcare" myth. Coverage will be >>RATIONED<<. People will face long waiting lines and subpar treatment. Existing cures will be disallowed because of cost, and people will die. Skilled doctors will leave the profession because it just isn't worth it anymore - they don't want government bureaucrat IMBECILES telling them how to take care of patients. They'll probably be replaced by "affirmative action" hacks, because once the government takes over every aspect of the system, it will be politicized. Half a trillion dollars has been looted from medicare to finance obozocare - docctors will just stop giving appointments to old people on medicare, who will die sooner. U.S. citizens' care will be depleted so that it can go to tens of millions of illegal alien invaders - future democrat voters.

The fake vision of "universal healthcare" served up to the legions of stupid, uninformed democrat voters is so far from the truth that it's sickening.

 

[Pepper]

I've noticed that when leftist fanatics get their arguments blown out of the water, they will even resort to clairvoyance or mind-reading rather than stand up and admit they were wrong.

Some things never change.

Your posts make no sense. Thomas has a conflict of interest. You approve of that conflict of interest. That makes you less than ethical.

More people will have FAKE coverage - this is the "universal healthcare" myth. Coverage will be >>RATIONED<<. People will face long waiting lines and subpar treatment. Existing cures will be disallowed because of cost, and people will die. Skilled doctors will leave the profession because it just isn't worth it anymore - they don't want government bureaucrat IMBECILES telling them how to take care of patients. They'll probably be replaced by "affirmative action" hacks, because once the government takes over every aspect of the system, it will be politicized. Half a trillion dollars has been looted from medicare to finance obozocare - docctors will just stop giving appointments to old people on medicare, who will die sooner. U.S. citizens' care will be depleted so that it can go to tens of millions of illegal alien invaders - future democrat voters.

The fake vision of "universal healthcare" served up to the legions of stupid, uninformed democrat voters is so far from the truth that it's sickening.

All of those things happen today, under the current system. Coverage is rationed. Doctors are leaving the profession. Treatments are uncovered by a series of insurance company tricks.

Other nations have universal health care. The US can as well.

 

[Rick]

Your posts make no sense.

Yes, it DOES make sense, and you have no rebuttal.

All of those things happen today, under the current system.

Uh, no they don't. Medicare wasn't looted of half a trillion dollars before obozocare. Medical care isn't rationed - you get what you pay for. Some doctors are leaving the profession because of leftwing support for tort lawyer predators, but it's nothing compared to the mass exodus that will happen if obozocare gets a strangle hold.

Other nations like the UK and canada have state rationed care. That's why desperate canadians head south of their border, if the choice is die on the canadian waiting list or go to the US and save your life. Same for tens of thousands of UK residents who head overseas as medical tourists each year, not wanting to die for the NHS.

 

[Pepper]

Yes, it DOES make sense, and you have no rebuttal.

You won't even admit it's a potential conflict of interest. It's crazy.

Uh, no they don't. Medicare wasn't looted of half a trillion dollars before obozocare. Medical care isn't rationed - you get what you pay for. Some doctors are leaving the profession because of leftwing support for tort lawyer predators, but it's nothing compared to the mass exodus that will happen if obozocare gets a strangle hold.

Other nations like the UK and canada have state rationed care. That's why desperate canadians head south of their border, if the choice is die on the canadian waiting list or go to the US and save your life. Same for tens of thousands of UK residents who head overseas as medical tourists each year, not wanting to die for the NHS.

Medicare wasn't looted. They made changes to Medicare Advantage. The Advantage was to the insurance companies, not to the elderly and not to the taxpayer.

Yes, we have rationing under the current system. Yes, procedures are turned down. You have a Fox News version of reality. Please use some other sources.

 

[Rick]

Medicare wasn't looted. They made changes to Medicare Advantage. The Advantage was to the insurance companies, not to the elderly and not to the taxpayer.

Medicare advantage is part of medicare. From Heritage (the result of the obozocare looting):

MA enrollees will lose $3,714 worth of extra services by 2017 due to the MA reductions in ObamaCare. These reductions will also mean that 7.4 million beneficiaries who would have enrolled in MA in 2017 will be forced into less preferable options by the MA cuts. That’s a full 50% reduction in expected MA enrollment. The impact of the cuts will be even more dramatic in certain localities (as documented in the Book-Capretta analysis). This is one of the most concrete violations of the President’s pledge that “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” in the entire law.

Yes, we have rationing under the current system.

No, we don't. You can repeat falsehoods all day, but that doesn't mnake them true.

Yes, procedures are turned down.

If an insurance company doesn't fulfill the contract it has with you, you can sue them and win.

You have a Fox News version of reality.

You can always tell when a leftwinger is raising the white flag - they throw the "Fox" card.

 

[Pepper]

Medicare Advantage was an insurance company scam.

We have rationing right now. We have a substantial number of citizens who have no health care access, others with crappy policies that cover very little, and we all face the possibility of having the insurance company refuse to pay for a necessary procedure.

Yes, you can sue an insurance company, if you can afford it, and if you're still alive to do so.

You are reciting disinformation. Fox is probably the source.

 

[Rick]

Medicare Advantage was an insurance company scam.

Supporting facts? Arguments? Evidence? Nahhhhhhhhhh.......

We have rationing right now.

Uh, no we don't.

We have a substantial number of citizens who have no health care access, others with crappy policies that cover very little

That's not rationing - it's not coming up with the scratch. Rationing is like in canada, where it's ILLEGAL for anyone to get more than the miserable healthcare offered by the system. What you leftwingers want to do is make sure EVERYONE is miserable - you're not really solving any problems - all you have is all you ever have - the stupid, blunt, crude tool of statism and government control of people's lives.

and we all face the possibility of having the insurance company refuse to pay for a necessary procedure.

If we didn't pay for it, we took our chances. If we did pay for it, and they won't give it to us, we can sue them.

You are reciting disinformation. Fox is probably the source.

You are just tossing insults because that's all you have.

 

[GenSeneca]

We have rationing right now.

Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.​

Healthcare is not rationed. The fact that I can't afford to consume steak smothered in caviar with a lobster tail on the side, and wash it all down with a bottle of Dom Perignon, every night for dinner does not mean those things are being rationed.

 

[Pepper]

Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.​

Healthcare is not rationed. The fact that I can't afford to consume steak smothered in caviar with a lobster tail on the side, and wash it all down with a bottle of Dom Perignon, every night for dinner does not mean those things are being rationed.

You are making a very sad analogy. We aren't talking about luxuries, we are talking about necessities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_rationing_in_the_United_States

 

[Rick]

You are making a very sad analogy. We aren't talking about luxuries, we are talking about necessities.

His excellent point blew over your head at Mach 3.

 

[Pepper]

It was a dopey analogy. Chemotherapy for a cancer patient isn't like lobster in one's daily diet.

He also fails to understand what rationing means.

 

[BigRob]

It was a dopey analogy. Chemotherapy for a cancer patient isn't like lobster in one's daily diet.

He also fails to understand what rationing means.

I guess it has to be asked...do you think people have a right to, or are entitled to, healthcare?

 

[Rick]

It was a dopey analogy. Chemotherapy for a cancer patient isn't like lobster in one's daily diet.

He wasn't suggesting it was - you simply are too dense to understand what he said.

He also fails to understand what rationing means.

The only one who doesn't understand it is YOU. You are using the equivocation that is a staple of leftwing statist health system propaganda that will only fool the Koolaid Set.

 

[Little-Acorn]

I guess it has to be asked...do you think people have a right to, or are entitled to, healthcare?

Something I wrote a while back. True than, just as true now.

What Are Our "Rights"?

You hear an awful lot about our "rights" these days. And justly so-- our rights, in this country, are our most valuable possession, outside of life itself. And some people say that our basic rights, are even more important than life. When Patrick Henry defiantly told the British government during colonial times, "Give me liberty or give me death!", he was stating that he considered a life without liberty, to be worse than no life at all (death).

So, what are our rights?

The Declaration of Independence mentions a few, and implies that there are others. So does the Constitution-- in fact, it names many, and categorically states that those aren't the only rights people have.

The Declaration says that among our rights, are "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". It also says that these were given to us "by [our] Creator". Take that as you will, depending on whatever religious outlook you hold. But one of the implications is that, wherever our rights came from, they were NOT granted us by government, or by our fellow men at all. We had them long before government existed. And these various government documents simply say that government cannot take them away or interfere with them.

Here we refer, of course, only to normal law-abiding citizens. The Constitution contains the phrase "except by due course of law" in many places. If you rob someone, assault him, destroy his property, murder him etc., then you can legitimately be deprived of liberty (you go to jail), property (you get fined), or even life in some extreme cases (Death Penalty). Outside of such lawbreaking, your rights are held inviolate.

But today, our "rights" seem to be multiplying without end. This is not necessarily bad-- as we said, rights are extremely valuable. But, are we getting ahead of ourselves, granting to ourselves so many things under the name of "rights"?

"Old Rights"

Some are pretty indisputable, such as the ones mentioned in the Declaration. The ones mentioned in the Constitution, especially in the first ten Amendments (which was even called the "Bill of Rights" by its authors), are similarly vital... though they seem to be undergoing a methodical erosion. Freedom of religion, right to peaceably assemble, freedom of speech and of the press, the right to keep and bear arms, etc. all are very basic, and it is scary to think of trying to exist in a country in which any of these do not exist.

New "rights"

But lately we have heard about other "rights", such as the right to work, the right to decent medical treatment, the right to a decent standard of living. These all sound salutary-- what kind of society would we have, if working for a living were forbidden, decent health care were forbidden, etc.?

But there is a big gap between "forbidden" and "compulsory". The rights found in the country's founding documents, are compulsory, to the extent that we all have them whether we want them or not (who wouldn't want them?), and no one can take them away.

What about, say, the right to decent medical treatment? Those who favor this "right", point out that they don't necessarily mean the rare, exotic, super-expensive treatments; nor "elective" procedures such as cosmetic liposuction or a luxury suite in the hospital. They usually mean that, if you get sick or injured, you have the "right" to have a doctor look at you, make sure the problem isn't unusually dangerous, and administer the routine treatments needed to help you on the way back to good health. An absence of such routine treatment, could occasionally put your life in peril, obviously-- a simple broken bone could lead to infection if untreated, and possibly far more. But there are differences between the "Old Rights", as we've called the ones in the founding documents, and these "New 'Rights'".

Your "right to life" protects something that no man gave you-- you simply had it, from the day you were born. Nobody had to go to extraordinary effort to create it for you, outside of natural processes that move forward on their own without deliberate effort or guidance by humans, government, etc.

Same with the "right to liberty". You were your own man, as it were, the day you were born. Nobody had to go to special effort to create that status for you. In fact, they would have had to go to considerable effort to take those things away, by deliberately coming to you and killing you; or by building a jail and imprisoning you etc. If they leave you alone, you have life and liberty, and can pursue happiness. They have to work at it to deprive you of those things.

The Difference in the "New 'Rights'"

But this isn't the case with what we've called "New 'Rights'". In order for you to get the kind of routine medical treatment its advocates describe, somebody has to stop what he is doing and perform work for you-- the doctor who examines you, the clerk who sets up your appointment, the people who built the office or hospital where you get treatment.

If this routine medical treatment is to be called a "right" on par with our "Old Rights", doesn't that mean that you must be given it when needed? And doesn't it follow, then, that others must be compelled to do the normal things needed to treat you?

Uh-oh.

How does this compulsion upon those others (doctors, clerks etc.) fit in with THEIR rights? They "have" to treat you? What if their schedules are full-- do they have to bump another patient to make room for you? What if they were spending precious quality time with their families-- do they have to abandon their own kids, to fulfill your "right" to treatment that only they can give? Doesn't this fit the description of "involuntary servitude"?

This is an important difference between the rights envisioned by the country's founders, and the new "rights" advocated by more modern pundits. In order to secure your "old rights", people merely had to leave you alone... do nothing to bother you. in fact, they were required to. But these new so-called "rights", required that people go out of their way to actively contribute to you.

And that "requirement", in fact violates THEIR rights-- specifically, their right to liberty. They must be left free to live their lives as THEY chose-- free from compulsion to come and help you out. If they want to help you, that's fine-- often it's the decent and moral thing to do. But they cannot be forced to help you, no matter how much you need the help.

These new "rights", are in fact not rights at all. They are obligations upon others, imposed on them without their agreement or consent.

Beware of announcements that you have the "right" to this or that. Ask yourself if this "right", forces someone else to do something for you, that he didn't previously agree to. If it does, it's not a "right" possessed by you. It's an attempt by the announcer, to force others into servitude... an attempt, in fact, to violate the others' rights.