The Supreme Court granted certiorari on the Health Care Reform cases, carefully defining what it intends to hear and defining an extraordinary series of oral arguments. As we knew we could rely on him to do, Lyle Denniston explains what’s up:
The Court will hold two hours of argument on the constitutionality of the requirement that virtually every American obtain health insurance by 2014, 90 minutes on whether some or all of the overall law must fail if the mandate is struck down, one hour on whether the Anti-Injunction Act bars some or all of the challenges to the insurance mandate, and one hour on the constitutionality of the expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled. The Court chose those issues from appeals by the federal government, by 26 states, and by a business trade group. It opted not to review the challenges to new health care coverage requirements for public and private employers. It left untouched petitions by a conservative advocacy group, the Thomas More Law Center, and three of its members, and by Liberty University and two of its employees.
Accepting the constitutional dispute on its very first examination of the cases brought to it speedily by lawyers, the Court wrote three separate orders outlining how it would deal with the cases. That meant that they would not be grouped together, but that they likely will be heard close together, if not back-to-back on a single day.
The allotment of 5 1/2 hours for oral argument appeared to be a modern record; the most recent lengthy hearing came in a major constitutional dispute over campaign finance law in 2003, but that was only for 4 hours. The length of time specified for the health care review was an indication both of the complexity of the issues involved, and the importance they hold for the constitutional division of power between national and state governments. (In its earlier years, the Court customarily held days of oral argument on important cases; the modern Court, however, ordinarily limits oral argument to one hour per case.)
The Healthcare Reform law is not perfect, but it is a good start. I’m not sure why some people think healthcare for everyone is a bad idea. People without health insurance don’t get preventive care. It is no secret that preventive health care saves lots of money. So when these people do get sick, they have to go to the emergency room and sometimes have a lengthy hospital stay. Who pays for this? We all do.
Health insurance companies hate this law. Here are a few reasons why:
1. Insurance companies can no longer denying children coverage based on a preexisting condition;
2. Starting in 2014, insurance companies cannot deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions; and,
3. Insurance companies must allow children to stay on their parent’s insurance plans until age 26;
4. Insurance companies are prohibited from imposing lifetime dollar limits on essential benefits;
5. Insurance companies must justify their premium increases to be eligible for new grants; and,
6. The law requires that at least 85% of all premium dollars collected by insurance companies for large employer plans are spent on health care services and health care quality improvement. For plans sold to individuals and small employers, at least 80% of the premium must be spent on benefits and quality improvement. If insurance companies do not meet these goals because their administrative costs or profits are too high, they must provide rebates to consumers.
YLHL, those are all excellent points, but unfortunately, they all fail against the immutable axiom that “universal healthcare is socialism and socialism MAKES BABY JESUS CRY!” You simply cannot argue rationally about the good (or bad) aspects of ACA when approximately half the country belongs to a deranged cult whose chief dogma is that any attempt by the government to improve the standard of living for its citizens will inevitably lead to gulags and forced labor camps.
Personally, I think we should have just given everyone cradle-to-grave Medicare and raised taxes to pay for it, but we can’t because SOCIALISM MAKES BABY JESUS CRY!
I just love how Republicans package their bullshit and catch phrases like “Obamacare” and feed it to the ignorant masses, who are strangely always hungry for more. Funny how they said the same things about FDR, but the elderly sure do love that social security and medicaid.
Alan @ 9:31– Well said. Shameful ain’t it … that those people have no shame. I don’t understand how they can go through life with their minds permanently throttled back to slow idle … they never reach operating temperature.
Ben @ 11:31 – It’s the rise of the idiocracy, wherein the anti-universal care folks are among those that feel their ignorance, and exercise thereof, is as good or better than the book learned smarts of the Obamacare supporters. If they don’t like the concept, no rational investigation is necessary ’cause they don’t need no book learnin.’
Who was it who said “you can’t reason a man out of a position that he didn’t reason himself into”?