A federal judge in Texas on Friday ruled the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, was unconstitutional based on its mandate requiring that people buy health insurance, a decision in a case that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court. -snip
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of 20 states that a change in tax law last year eliminating a penalty for not having health insurance invalidated the entire Obamacare law. -snip
O’Connor ruled that under the logic of the landmark 2012 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law, the individual mandate, which required that most Americans obtain health insurance or pay a tax, is now unconstitutional. -snip
“In some ways, the question before the Court involves the intent of both the 2010 and 2017 Congresses,” he wrote. “The former enacted the ACA. The latter sawed off the last leg it stood on.” -snip
About 11.8 million consumers nationwide enrolled in 2018 Obamacare exchange plans, according to the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. -snip
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement the law would remain in place pending its expected appeal to the Supreme Court. -snip
"If this awful ruling is upheld in the higher courts, it will be a disaster for tens of millions of American families, especially for people with pre-existing conditions,” Schumer said in a statement." -snip
This has been in the works for some time now after Trump and a Republican controlled Congress failed to outright repeal the ACA as one of his first big moves in 2017, so they attacked it by chipping away at it. Morally corrupt? Yes. But no denying it was a clever tactic.
If (when?) the SC rules for this ruling and Obamacare goes away, we go back to how it was before, with people in dire need being denied or priced out by insurance companies because they pose a monetary liability. "Can't cover you, your heart desease is a risk." "You can certainly have your cancer meds Mr. Johnson, but they're $3,800 a month now."
Trump supporters on the ACA are voicing concerns over losing their insurance due to preexisting conditions, which is just odd as Trump was very clear about his hatred of Obamacare and it's destruction during the election. Preexisting conditions can include symptoms like having diabetes, cancer, a previous back injury, being born with a bad heart or even being pregnant.
Let's just hope and pray this statement is accurately fact-checked.
One of the problems we as a nation face is that employer-funded health insurance shields the majority of workers from the cost of health insurance. Get rid of that and a national healthcare system would get put in place tomorrow.
While Schumer's comment is hyperbolic, there's almost 12million people on the ACA (and facets thereof) and some of those people do indeed have preexisting conditions and even those that don't, could easily be priced out when seeking insurance if the ACA goes away if they're deemed a financial risk to insurance companies.
I get my and my family's medical insurance through my employer, so I'm safe here. This doesn't affect me.
No offence to the majority of Americans who are honourable and didn't vote Republican, but **** me, what a horrible group of people run your country, they are as bad as the Tories.
Also, based on how it works, the ACA plans, by heir very design, are predatory against the poor who do not have jobs that offer insurance plans. These risk pools exist to make a net positive off of the people they insure. What are these pools really doing? Profiting off of poor people. And the dumbass Democrats pretend we are harming poor people when insurance companies already have their hands in the pockets of the poor.
"But, but, but....dadudemon, the poor get subsidies!" And those subsidies only cover a fraction of the people using ACA. By the very design of how insurance works, they will take more money than they payout. Sometimes, negotiated rates do save money. Great. But often, paying cash for your care saves you even more money than insurance. It's not a wash, for sure. But the argument is week.
We need to make a Medicare for All Plan. I've done the math. Bernie's plan, however inflated it is, will save us trillions. ACA is a corrupt law. Needs to be torn down.
Agreed. A tear down without a better replacement ready to go is just so f**ked.
It that was too hard (which seems so, as they failed previously) they should have reworked the ACA, improving what worked, taking out what was shit and added as needed and just renamed it "Trumpcare" to get the orangutan to sign-off on it.
He deliberately inflated the issue by using that language, tens of millions doesn't make people think 12 million, they think much larger. More garbage language used to make news.
And just think for a minute if your employer stopped paying their part of the premiums. That would cause a huge surge in a public option we're talking closer to 90% plus. Paying the premium started after WWII to offset the fact employers didn't/couldn't pay higher wages. Time for some changes.
If that's all you want to focus on, cool, you do that.
I'd rather not go without health insurance. eg my wife a month ago had a severe allergic reaction, she ended up in the emergency room and had to stay overnight (never figured out what was the cause even after a battery of test), that one night stay cost $19,871.16. We only had to pay $500.00 of that out of pocket. Now imagine being someone who that happens too and you've lost your insurance. No thank you. That's what 12million people on the ACA have to worry about now.
It's like burning the parachute you're currently using and there isn't a soft body of water for you to dive in. Have the pool below you built first, before doing the stunt.
I'm not saying you should lose your insurance, I'm saying that to make the change to a social platform we would need to get rid of group insurance.
Everyone has a story about their potential/real insurance costs. I'm saying that if we REALLY wanted to create a national platform group insurance would have to go.
The Tories are doing something similar to the National Health in the UK. I get pretty good VIP BUPA EXECUTIVE healthcare, but I'd be a **** if I just Sald0 what they should do is and didn't acknowledge it wasn't going to happen.
The thing is people are largely pretty happy with their employer based insurance, so running on "Hey let's get rid of it" is a losing argument.
Also if ACA goes, that will also affect employer based health insurance - things like life time limits and what not will come back, which is not a good thing.
If we could transition directly from ACA to a full single payer system then that'd be fine, but that's not in the cards right now and probably won't be anytime soon. What will happen is that if ACA goes then we'll revert to how it was before ACA, where insurance companies would be able to turn people away for cancer treatment based on the fact that they had their tonsils removed when they were 12. People with pre-existing conditions would be ****ed on the federal level. However, I imagine most heavily blue states would implement similar protections to ACA on a state level so that's something at least.
In the end though this ruling probably will be overturned either in appeals or by the supreme court. The supreme court has already ruled in favor of ACA being constitutional twice now, no reason to think they would change that now.
KMC Community Forums
Dec 18th, 2018 08:59 PM
