Keep these three words in mind.
Chinese.
Fire.
Drill.
The Kaiser Foundation has just issued a 28-page report on what the costs will be for families. These costs will be determined by 50 exchanges in the 50 states. So far, 17 states have issued estimates.
The exchanges are supposed to be ready for business on October 1. Coverage begins on January 1.
Where are the missing 33 exchanges? The federal government must run them. The federal government is staying mute.
With three weeks to go, there is no real understanding of what the costs will be for most premium payers.
This is going to be an administrative disaster. It is a programming disaster. It is going to prove to millions of voters that the federal government does not know what it is doing.
This will become evident on October 1, the day the new fiscal year begins.
This is going to be a spectator extravaganza of great entertainment value. This will be blame-shifting on a scale not seen since Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent.
This will be grist for a lot of anti-government mills.
Your family’s budget is on the line. How do you intend to budget for this? Who will help you figure it out? How soon?
I am on Medicare. No problem for me. My wife is exempt. She pays $1,000 a year to Christian Healthcare Ministries. So, we are pure spectators. You probably aren’t. You will pay for the entertainment. So, you might as well enjoy the fun. Get your money’s worth. How much money? Ask Nancy Pelosi.
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We do know that fraud obama care will destroy the country, mentally and debt wise! Under this regime they continue to murder America with lies, deceit and wasteful spending! We also know that this regime is destroying our constitution! We have a regime that is un american!
I'm still curious what skeleton the administration threatened John Roberts with to get him to change his vote at the last second and declare Obamacare "the law of the land"?
Yes, Danno, we all have been curious as well!
I'm still betting there's a Romneycare-style loophole that will allow me to go naked but then signup for immediate benefits if I need them.
expensive healthcare (obamacare) for the little people like myself and free and unwanted by the obama top administrator and congress, cause they refused it…they have the best medicine money can buy and we are stuck with substandard care.
There is an argument that what Roberts did was cozen the most leftist members of the court to agree that over-reaching "programs" like this can only be justified by powers of taxation rather than magical "rights" they find visible in the constitution. If the left bit down on that apple, they cannot take it back in the future. Stari decisis is a very powerful influence on future court decisions.
Moreover, I believe the majority opinion makes note that it isn't the function of the court to determine the wisdom of decisions made by congress — only whether the legislative action is constitutional.
When this piece of garbage finally stinks to high heaven and is rescinded by popular acclaim, Roberts may very well prove to be a great strategist in anticipating that outcome and using this law as a Trojan horse to put hard limits agreed by leftists to persistent leftist imagineering.
Roberts used a definition of penalty that includes the definition of tax. He then decided that a "tax" made te law constitutional.
There are three reasons to deny this. First, I can find no statement in the constitution that a tax can be used as a reason for constitutionality. Second, All taxes must originate in the House and Obamacare was a complete replacement of a House bill with the senate provided PPACA, therefore it did not originate in the House. Third, the tax that Roberts used is a capitation and Article 1, Section 9 specifically prohibits capitations.
If only stare decisis did prevail. The Roberts court is handing down decisions that fly in the face of that principle (Kelo v. New London, the Obamacare case). If Obamacare is a capitation tax, it has to be ruled by the apportionment provision, meaning it is left up to the individual states to determine how to lay and collect the tax on each state's citizenry based on the "census or enumeration".
A direct tax was made intentionally difficult — if not well nigh impossible — to collect as the founding fathers crafted it because each state would have to come up with a formula to impose it on its population, to say nothing of trying to extract it from the people.
But Obamacare is a naked grab of even more federal power. So we're back to King George III territory in the year 2013.
True, that's why the decision reads like Tax Law For Dummies. If it's a tax, it has to fall into one or the other of the 2 classes of taxes created by the Constitution: direct or indirect.
If indirect (such as an "impost, excise or duty"), the tax has to be ruled by uniformity: a federal excise on liquor, cigarettes or gasoline has to be the same across the 50 states. If you avail yourself of the service or product, the tax is mandatory. But you can always avoid the tax by choosing not to purchase the tangible good the tax is imposed on. That was the escape hatch for mandatory taxes.
Direct taxes OTOH were made intentionally difficult to lay and collect because of the apportionment provision, as described above. And for that reason — based on prior decisions of the Supreme Court (like Pollock) — they were made voluntary. Direct taxes were the breaking point for the colonists because the king of England imposed so many of them.
ObamaCare requires each person to have sufficient medical coverage from a qualified provider. The penalty tax applies only when coverage is declined and it is assessed at a uniform rate.
The power to tax implies not only the power to destroy but also the power to assess penalties and interest for not paying a lawful tax. Businesses are required to routinely provide all kinds of nonsense documentation, whether or not a tax event is incurred. Failing to file, in any case, draws an immediate penalty for failing to perform (make the filing). It is neither an excise nor a direct tax. A moot point, really.
The real conundrum is that Roberts had to completely ignore legislative history which demonstrates proponents of this bill stoutly denied it was being passed as a tax. That said, the question he was answering was whether the Congress had any lawful basis for passing this bill — not whether those promoting it understood how that power was made available to them.
King George was nuts but he offered a far better bargain.
Specifically on this point: "a complete replacement of a House bill"
The contents were replaced and the bill was renamed, but the bill itself was a legitimate "money bill" which originated in the House. Dirty pool, perhaps, but procedurally permissible. If the House objected, all they had to do was declare it DOA when it was returned from the "other place". They did not. They blessed it.
"It is neither an excise nor a direct tax. A moot point, really."
It has to be one or the other: there are no other classes of tax. Anything else is "void for vagueness". That's always been the problem with the "income" tax: the courts are in complete chaos as to what kind of tax it is.
As for the blizzard of paper shuffling and red tape businesses and individuals are "required" to perform for government: the time and expense all non-governmental entities waste annually with compliance is being deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law, simply by government coercion and fear of reprisal. Just because a law compels Americans to do something the government wants, does not make the law constitutional. Everything Hitler did was legal and backed by laws.
"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution, are null and void." ~ Marbury v. Madison.
Quite right. But the constitution also says states may permit circulation of only gold and silver as lawful money. So what? The constitution has been gradually sucked dry of any real meaning. "Like the hagfish, the New Deal entered the old form [of the constitution] and devoured its meaning from within." Garet Garrett was not commenting on events which might threaten someday, but events which had already taken place during the Roosevelt regime. The New Deal is a done deal. Put a fork in it.
The idea that the constitution of Madison and the other Founders remains a directive or constraint on government is a sham. When a statist like Jimmy Carter publicly expresses the view that the US is no longer a functioning "democracy", the jig is plainly up (though the jiggering surely will continue until a final collapse).
The meaning of the constitution is no longer determined by objective analysis of plainly written law and consideration of legislative history, but increasingly by raw visceral instincts of political predators dressed up as lawyers and judges. The only way to slow the continuing damage is to fence out the predators wherever possible.
The constitution offers the same illusion of safety in 2013 that the main deck of the Titanic offered in 1912.
Are you SERIOUS?
True. I guess we're approaching the stage where civilization descends into jungle law and — to carry forward your Titanic reference — lifeboat ethics.
We're already there. Congress provides luxurious lifeboats available only to its own members and their various loyal "friends" who keep them afloat in public office. It's sink or swim for everyone else.
Wouldn't be surprised if they threatened his life or that of his family, particularly kids lives. This is a criminal administration and a president that has no problem with killing those who want to expose him: like his grandmother, a brother, two of his gay friends in school, and many more.
We have to pass it to find out what is in it. And of course, every democrat read the 20,000 page bill before voting for it. Still no one knows what is in this bill and what it is going to cost various groups of people. Laws have to be passed to finish implementation of the thing which says that the law was not complete, except they are not laws, they are just simply things that others will do. The bill was incomplete to begin with, something that no law should be. And it seems like every day, Someone or some group IS GETTING EXEMPTED FROM THE LAW.
There is speculation that BO threatened Chelsea to keep her parents in check
The cost of Obamacare is obvious up front. What is hidden is the loss of wages, having to work two or more, when one job was adequate. How many people just will not be able to find those extra jobs? Now the cost of 'fines' because they can't afford to pay hundreds every month plus the thousand in deductions before the insurance pays anything.
I've read some interesting comments stating that this could be precisely what the government wants, a complete fiasco where it will be such a mess that the left comes in and says that only a single payer health system will work. The current administration knew that they would never get single payer through at this time so they created such a monstrosity full well knowing that it could never succeed and so was purposely designed to fail. With failure, whether it takes, one, five, ten or whatever amount of years, they get to come forth with what was and always has been the final goal, that of a single payer government nationalized health care system.
You're the only other person I've come across who also believes the grandmother was done in (personaly, since no one else had the stomach to kill a grandmother). He traveled back to Hawaii right before the election, and POOF she was dead. No one left to tell young-Obama stories first hand.