The Affordable Care Act

For those of you reading this post far after it was published, let me put you in the moment.  This morning, the Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act was constitutional.  And so I would like to offer my thoughts in a rambling post.

"The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command. The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax," Roberts said in his opinion

“The Framers created a Federal Government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today. But the Court does not express an opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.”

“It is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without insurance.  Such legislation is within Congress’ power to tax."

I think that having health insurance is a good idea.  I also think that the health care system is "broken", in that the current situation is not good for people getting insurance and it is not unreasonable to imagine it getting better.

I also believe people should have the liberty to do stupid stuff.  And that includes not getting health insurance and then having to deal with the high costs of something actually happening.  I also think that health insurance companies are businesses, and while they should work on improving their product and trying to increase their business, they are also entitled to have a profit and should be able to avoid things that take away from their profit.  And if the customers become unhappy with how that last part is working out, they can switch to another health insurance company, or if none meet their needs, then to start a new company.  It's called capitalism - if there is a need in the market, it will be filled.  And remember, an insurance company is basically betting on people not to get sick.  They love people that will pay for insurance but end up never using it.  With enough people like that, the company won't be dragged under when paying for people who do get sick and require costly treatments.

And so it shouldn't be surprising that I am not a fan of the Affordable Care Act.  Forcing people to do something good is still forcing them to do something.  Let people make up their own mind.  Let people be stupid.  On a side note, I'm not a fan of employer-provided healthcare.  It is a remnant of WWII wage-freezes.  During WWII, wages that companies offered were frozen, so businesses could not offer better salaries to lure better employees.  To get around that, they offered healthcare benefits.  So why do I dislike this?  Because I want to choose my healthcare, not have it chosen for me by an employer.

The arguments for the Affordable Care Act illustrate how much it expands the power of the federal government.  The commerce clause?  If you are participating in interstate commerce, you can be regulated; if you are not participating, you can be forced to participate and be regulated.  The necessary and proper clause?  Granted, Congress thinks almost everything it does falls under that clause.  I found those constitutional arguments to be unconvincing.  In fact, it only serves to illustrate how much power the federal government wants to give itself.  But that's the subject of another rambling.

And before finishing with how the case was decided, some stuff on what both major parties have been saying leading up and following this.

The court is failing in its duty if it rules against this reform which was passed by a majority of Congress.
-The court's duty is to determine if it follows the Constitution.  If the majority passes something that is unconstitutional, the court should rule against it.

If the act is affirmed/ruled against, it is because of the political interests of the liberal/conservative justices.
-Every ruling is due to the particular method of interpretation of all of the judges.

"means now for the first time in the history of the country, Congress can force Americans to purchase any product, any service."
-Not technically true.  You can still choose to not buy anything, including health insurance.  It's just that you pay an additional tax if you do not purchase.

"For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," Obama said, noting that "right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs."
-Not the best analogy.  It's more like damaging your own car, with no other people involved, and having the choice to pay for it out of pocket or through an insurance company that would then increase your premiums.  No, I don't like that analogy either....  Health insurance doesn't compare too well to auto insurance.

"[...]I will do on the first day if elected president of the United States, and that's to repeal Obamacare"
-Presidents don't repeal things on their own.  Congress does that.  I should do a ramble on the increase in Executive power sometime.

 "The president of the United States himself, promised up and down that this bill was not a tax,"
-Actually completely true.

It turns out that the Supreme Court agreed that those two arguments didn't hold water.  Instead the ACA is upheld as a tax.  Which is what many supporters of the ACA had been arguing it was not.  Because it would sound bad during elections.  And expanding Congress's power would sound good....

Because nobody was really arguing that it was a constitutional tax, I am not as familiar with the Taxing and Spending Clause and the history of its interpretation.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

There is the clause and I'm sure I'll see plenty of articles discussing it shortly.  But looking at Wikipedia, it looks like this case is similar to taxing to indirectly regulate - which was struck down in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. and then reaffirmed in US v. Butler.

"To say that the Individual Mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it," Scalia said in dissent. "Imposing a tax through judicial legislation inverts the constitutional scheme, and places the power to tax in the branch of government least accountable to the citizenry."

Considering this expanded power to tax the people, it makes me wonder what the limits are to this power.   Look at the previous post.  Where is the line?  I have no idea, and that makes me quite worried.