Endgame – ObamaCare Will Force Employers To Drop Health Coverage

Mata, your points are excellent. There are a number of things that could help bring down health care costs, but the Democrats refused to do them. One is tort reform. Texas enacted tort reform, including medical tort reform, and the positive results manifested themselves almost immediately. Medical malpractice insurance rates dropped, doctor’s services also dropped in cost, rural communities that had a doctor shortage were seeing doctors, including specialists, move into their area.

Also, why not let doctors, hospitals and labs openly advertise their prices? If you have a choice between two state approved labs, and you need a blood test, one charges $125.00 and the other $100.00 which would you choose? Competition never increases cost, it lowers cost.

Also, many retirees maintain their health insurance as part of their retirement package. Due to the wisdom of a Democrat Congress, when you turn 65 Medicare becomes your primary, and they allowed the insurance companies to use the Medicare scales of payment for reimbursement. Your ESI then becomes your secondary, and you could still wind up with medical debt because your secondary is no longer covering at its original percentages. Again, the Congress tinkering with health care insurance has short changed the American public. Why not allow people to use Medicare as secondary insurance and keep their ESI as the primary? How much would that save?

Also, there is the matter of abuse of medical services, which is no small matter. I know many people with young children that rush their kids off to the doctor, or the ER, any time the kid sneezes. They don’t worry about the cost because they are covered by ESIs. Now, children are developing resistance to antibiotics because they have been perscribed antibiotics so often do to parents that doen’t know that rest, Tylenol and a little Vicks on the chest is the best medicine for the common cold.

Once again, your posts on this threat are stellar.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

Several points;

One, I was initially simply making a true statement that some companies that provide health insurance coverage are dropping that portion of their business, as Obamacare makes it harder for them to do profitable business in the market. That never is a good thing, as more choices to the consumer always benefit the consumer, and vice versa. Whether or not some companies drop the benefit of health care coverage to their employees remains to be seen, however, one has to look at companies like McD’s, who requested a waiver, and wonder why they did so, if it wasn’t for the reason of continued coverage for their employees(those that rate it). My guess is that there will be some companies that drop that benefit, and the result will be an increasing burden upon everyone to provide them with coverage. Don’t you ever wonder why the progressives have stated that their end goal is a single-payer, government provided healthcare system? Tell me how that is a good thing.

Two, as Mata pointed out above, one really has to stretch the “commerce clause”, or look at it with extraordinarily wide latitude, in order to convince themselves that Obamacare falls under the purview of powers granted to Congress, and by extension, the federal government. I really hate repeating myself, as I have commented on this clause in previous topics, and the expansion of federal government power under it, in complete disregard to the original intent, as outlined within the Federalist Papers. You may choose to disregard those writings, however, it doesn’t change the fact that they were written in defense of the Constitution, as written, and supplied the original intent of nearly every questionable, or as you put it, ambiguous language, contained therein.

The continued disregard for the original intent of the clauses, phrases, sections and articles within the Constitution by politicians is responsible for the overreach of the federal government over the course of our country’s history. The Constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land, correct?

Article IV;

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;

However, it cannot be held as a standard to which all other laws and regulations are compared to when the meanings of it’s contained clauses, phrases, paragraphs, etc., continue to be stretched to include items not meant within the original intent of them. At that point, there is no standard to compare to, and every law or regulation simply becomes the whims of men, and rule by law, which our nation was founded upon, dies.

Furthermore, the Constitution itself provides for changes to itself, and has been used over the years in a handful of cases, one even to correct the change. Why is this not done? It would be perfectly within the rights of congress, and the states, to enact an Amendment in order to expand the federal government’s powers, even to include such things as Obamacare. Why isn’t it done that way? Instead, congress, and the presidents, have continued to expand those powers by the continued disregard of the original intent of the clauses, phrases, paragraphs, etc., and argue, based on ever changing stated definitions of those clauses and such, in order to “progress” our country. UnConstitutional is unConstitutional, no matter how you look at it.

As an exercise, why don’t you explain to the readers here exactly how a mandate to engage in commerce, no matter if one wishes to or not, is allowed by the “commerce clause”. I will wait patiently for the explanation.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

which does go to the core of the entire Left vs. Right debate.

It does do that, and is commonly represented as conservatives on the right seeing the document as exactly what it is, while the left tends to view it as a “living document”, to be changed and molded(the clauses and phrases) with the times, to fit the times. That they do so in disregard of the mechanism provided by it, for changing it, and instead rely on ever changing, or expanding definition of those clauses and phrases, in conflict with the original intent of them, is why many have problems with what they do. They, the left, have, in effect, changed the document from the supreme law of the land, by which all other laws and regulations are compared to, to that of a piece of paper that means relatively little as compared to when our nation was founded.

Imagine, if you will, a set of rules in a workplace. One rule, for example, disallows smoking within the enclosed building of the company. However, certain people are allowed to smoke cigars within the confines of their offices, and the company allows this, as the smoke itself is not a bother to others within the building, and is nearly completely contained within the office of the smoker. He, or she, does not have to go outside, in the heat of summer, or cold of winter, in order to get their fix of nicotine, like those who do not hold their own offices are forced to. A strict rule is broken, but is allowed to be flexible for certain people. In effect, the company has no strict workplace rules, but only guidelines that can be crossed, based on ones’ access to certain aspects of their job that allow them to be in non-compliance with the rules. This is what the left has made out of the Constitution. A set of guidelines, instead of it’s original intent of being a strict set of rules for the federal government to follow. As such, we, as a country, have devolved into the rule by the whims of men, without any standard, or limitations, placed upon them. And that being the case, the people with the most influence upon them, in many cases those with the most money to offer them, are the ones making the rules the rest of us must live by.

Without the Constitution being the standard, anything goes, and even the smallest excursion across the lines of limitations it sets takes the country further down that path. I, for one, do not wish to see it happen any more.

@johngalt:

By this logic, it is illegal to require drivers to carry car insurance. Ah, but you say, one could choose not to drive a car, and then the government could not force you to purchase insurance. A faulty analogy – as currently constituted in the US, any health care facility cannot refuse to treat a sick person. As regards the health care system, each and every person ‘has a car’, and therefore must be insured. Congress has wide latitude to pass laws that do not infringe any provisions of the constitution. What clause would you suggest the individual mandate breaches?

Economics folks=—-SUPPLY AND DEMAND.
There are not enough doctors.
Why not?
Because the doctors have a lock on the number of medical schools.
That’s the answer.
Nobody says it.
The AMA keeps new medical schools from being built.
The goal is to keep it an elite field.

I went to schools with doctors. They take one class in microbiology.
I was a microbiolgy major. I will never forget the fight I had with an
MD who told me to put gentamycin on my foot. I said I
would not use it. The doc asked why not. I said because I knew the
side effects and was a microbiologist. The doc seethed “I’m the doctor!:
I attended went to grad school with med students. They know a lot
about NOTHING.

That is the dirty little secret out there. There were 6 grad students in my
class and we were with about 100 med students. We even had separate
exams. We scientists had “think” questions. The docs had memorization
questions. They are glorified technicians. (sorry for the few docs that
are actual scientists, but you are the extreme minority)

I had four years of microbiology and here I was fighting with some
dufus with an MD about the side effects of a drug. The public
needs to use common sense with MDs.

I have a friend with cancer. She spoke of radiation and chemo.
I asked if she was making green drinks. She said “why?” I told
her blah blah blah from a natural health standpoint. She said why didn’t
her doctor tell her that? I said why should he….he gets paid for you to
be irratiated and chem treated. It’s common sense.

The system is set up so unless you use your common God-given sense
you are doomed. Go up against these people. They will lose their
power. Eat healthy. Eat raw food. You’ll see. Your pancreas
won’t have to work as hard either and fewer people will have diabetes.
And when did your doc tell you to eat raw that it would help control
your blood sugar? No…………………………………what’s in it for him?
Why would he tell you?