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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 22, 2010 - 01:48am PT
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How long do you think before this bill is challenged in court? I, personally have no opinion on this matter, but the scenario I see playing out is becoming very polarized on the media. More than a lot of questionable initiatives being pushed down our throats. But I don't hear a lot of people that I come across talking about it lately. Word on the street is mum. Anyone else have this experience. Everybody is talking College Basketball. Go Cal!
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MisterE
Social climber
Across Town From Easy Street
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Mar 22, 2010 - 01:49am PT
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The abortion compromise was wayyy less drastic than I was expecting - it still allows it to be picked up at a state or independent funding level.
All in all, a great victory for care of the citizens over foreign policy, finally.
Yay!
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gunsmoke
Trad climber
Clackamas, Oregon
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Mar 22, 2010 - 02:12am PT
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It sort of seems like a lot of other countries can make this work w/o blowing up. Maybe it's time.
TC, if we decide to have a European-style society, I think we should expect a European result. To wit, we shouldn't expect to continue to have a higher median standard of living.
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gunsmoke
Trad climber
Clackamas, Oregon
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Mar 22, 2010 - 02:20am PT
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This will establish and secure health care as a right in this country. Wandafuca: Correct.
How long do you think before this bill is challenged in court? Wayno: Tomorrow. The real question is how the 9 USSC justices will come down when it gets to them. The question is whether forcing all Americans into a contractual agreement with a private health insurance company is a constitutionally permissible by the federal government. Or to put is more simply, can the government jail me (the ultimate curtailment of my freedom) for failing to purchase a product I don't want? (And don't compare this to car insurance, because I don't have to own a car, but I do need to breathe.)
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 22, 2010 - 02:25am PT
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The question is whether forcing all Americans into a contractual agreement with a private health insurance company is a constitutionally permissible by the federal government.
Automobile insurance.
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apogee
climber
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Mar 22, 2010 - 02:34am PT
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"It's not just a piece of health care legislation, it's the biggest step forward toward reforming the nation into a European democracy."
Gosh, I'm sorry I'm so late to this stimulating, intellectual discourse. But now that I'm here, let me just offer:
Gunsmoke, you are a Fox News brainless fecking Repug droid. You obviously know not of what yellow custard spews from yer arse.
Why bother talking about the fact that out of all the times that reconciliation has been used, the Repugs have been responsible for 4/5's of them. Why bother presenting you with historical facts, because you have chosen your own Repug-FauxNews-Kool-Aid view of the world.
I have (at times) been described as diplomatic (hah!). Not tonight. Gunsmoke, you and all the other Repugs who have railed against this issue for decades.....
SUCK IT
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apogee
climber
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Mar 22, 2010 - 02:55am PT
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"Hey, 500 bucks is a good deal for me. Why should I have to pay anything? I don't make sh!t. You should all have to pay for it for me."
GD, your cynicism is showing.
Look, I'm not trying to pick on you, but if you were in JT this weekend, and cratered on Double Cross because jdf chopped that damn bolt (again), breaking your tib-fib in 6 places, you'd be carted off to High Desert Medical Center, where, through the fog of the painkillers the Paramedics gave you, you'd realize you need to get the hell out of there before they harvest your organs.
Next, you'd wind up at Loma Linda, because you are a smart guy. And you'd tell them that you don't have any insurance, because the Outdoor Retail industry is something just above social work in it's income potential. The Loma Linda folks would look at you pitifully, and because they are very compassionate people, wouldn't turn you away. You'd get some level of care, even though it wasn't 'gamma knife surgery' (fattrad's favorite example), it would be far, far more than what you were ultimately able to pay for.
So where do you think the rest comes from? Those Loma Linda folks are very compassionate, but they have a business to run, too. So, they'd figure out some way to pad some other patient's insurance claim to make up for it, or they'd seek governmental funds, or if you really pissed them off, they'd come after you or your parents.
Get it? The fact that you don't have insurance simply means that you have socialized the losses you incurred due to your DC epic. That's not fair, right?
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jstan
climber
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Mar 22, 2010 - 02:57am PT
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"TC, if we decide to have a European-style society, I think we should expect a European result. To wit, we shouldn't expect to continue to have a higher median standard of living."
Gunsmoke:
Just to make sure we have this correctly I went to the Census site link below and pulled up median adjusted gross income as reported by the IRS. The data file breaks the numbers out by state but I combined them and looked at the US as a whole. For a quick look on little notice this is as good as I am able to do. More work is required to get other measures. The economic collapse first appeared in the middle of 2008 so this data should not be influenced by that failure.
I have gotten other measures using government data suggesting there has been a decline during the past several years. AGI is only one of the many metrics available. But the point is the adjusted gross income data suggests we are in error of we just assume US standards of living are certain to remain at present levels as of 2007.
This data has not been adjusted for inflation. Were it to be adjusted the rate of increase seen would be decreased somewhat. When I adjust it for inflation we get the next plot.
Except for a bump around the time of the 2004 election we have seen declines in real AGI since 2000. Strong increases prior to 2000 were part of the boom that ended in 2000.
http://www.census.gov/did/www/saipe/data/model/tables.html
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 22, 2010 - 03:22am PT
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Well Ap, after all, they have been told over and over and over again that the world would end if America got national healthcare. So likely they are all quaking in their boots.
The commies are coming. The commies are coming..
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Fluoride
Trad climber
Hollywood, CA
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Mar 22, 2010 - 03:25am PT
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"The Cosntitituin is displayed on a daliy basis in the Capitol."
If you can't even spell "Constitution" you shouldn't be arguing about it. Period.
Today's vote is a step in the direction of reigning in health care being a FOR PROFIT industry. People's health should not be bought and traded for on profit margins.
Most first world nations have universal health care. Why shouldn't we?
Or should insurance companies make $12 BILLION in profit and deny people's claims because of "financial difficulty."
The mind boggles.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Mar 22, 2010 - 03:26am PT
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Apogee, I was messin' round lol. Thought I laid it on thick enough hehe.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 22, 2010 - 03:30am PT
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Good job Quaken. You tells them.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Mar 22, 2010 - 03:55am PT
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Millions at Steak?? SOUNDS TASTY!
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Mar 22, 2010 - 04:12am PT
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Oh, I'll bathe in it. If you'll bathe with me.
clothing optional.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Mar 22, 2010 - 04:17am PT
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Ahh... Matt "contributes" in typically useless fashion, and Pate, also in typical fashion, can contribute nothing of substance... only fallacious "zingers." Fortunately, those "contributions" are merely humorous.
At least John can usefully contribute at times:
You own a car, you drive it, you have to buy insurance.
You have a body, you live in it, you have to buy insurance. Everyone has insurance, the cost goes down instead of so many people having to use the emergency rooms.
This is a good contribution because it so beautifully demonstrates the distinction between negative and positive rights/duties that is the basis for the paradigm shift we have been seeing in this country. So, let me BRIEFLY (relative to what it really needs) explain that distinction.
And, unlike Gunsmoke, I AM a master of "fully developing a thought into a post that no one wants to read." But mrtropy asked for it. So here goes....
Negative rights can be satisfied by doing nothing. In a "negative rights" sense, I satisfy your negative right to life by simply not affecting you at all. I leave you alone, not infringing on you in ANY way, and by so doing, your negative rights are satisfied.
Positive rights, by contrast, are rights that can only be satisfied by me doing something FOR you. I cannot satisfy them by doing nothing. My satisfaction of your positive rights requires me to expend resources. Thus, necessarily, satisfying your positive rights takes away from me resources that are expended to further YOUR pursuits, and I thereby don't have them to further MY pursuits. To the extent that you HAVE positive rights under the Constitution, I must limit my pursuits to the resources I have left AFTER satisfying your positive rights.
So, the distinction is actually simple: my satisfying your negative rights costs me nothing; my satisfying your positive rights costs me something.
Now, to John's analogy between auto insurance and health insurance.
The reason most people CHOOSE to buy insurance for driving a car is that driving creates the real risk of causing damage to somebody that you cannot afford to pay for, and tort law in this country is about making people "whole" (technical term) whether you can afford to or not.
By the way, nobody is REQUIRED to buy auto insurance. Every State in the US allows people to demonstrate their financial capacity to "make whole" a damaged person, a person that has had their negative rights infringed. However, most people cannot afford to "make whole" somebody else that has had their negative rights infringed in a car wreck. And, thus, "making whole" the damaged person would utterly bankrupt most people, with the damaged party having every RIGHT to STILL demand to be made whole! This concept of "wholeness" is a principle basis of tort law, and it is based upon the notion of what a person WAS before the damage, which is itself a function of what the person WAS before his/her NEGATIVE rights were violated.
Once you violate a person's negative rights (intentionally or unintentionally), society attempts to provide mechanisms for redressing that violation. Tort law says, in effect, that people have a positive right to be "made whole" once their negative rights have been violated. So, requiring you to demonstrate your ability to "make whole" the average person in the average auto accident is a preemptive move on the part of States to ensure that people have the resources in place to satisfy the positive rights of people that have had their negative rights violated.
It is of note that none of the approaches States take to preemptively satisfying the positive rights of an injured person (including auto insurance) can fully protect YOU (the causer of the accident) from financial devastation. Most people believe in error that once they have purchased the minimum coverage required by law, they are financially protected in the case of an accident they cause. Not true! An injured party has the right to be "made whole," and if your coverage does not make them whole, then they can still sue you for the difference between what a court calls "whole" and what your insurance company paid on your behalf.
So, let's follow the rights/duties relation in the case of auto insurance. People have a negative right to be unharmed by you as you engage in your own pursuits (including driving). You have a negative duty to leave other people unharmed, and you can satisfy that duty in the case of driving by simply not driving at all! Again, by doing nothing, you satisfy that duty and do not risk violating a negative right.
However, if you choose to further your own pursuits by driving, you risk violating the negative rights of other people. And, if you DO violate those rights, the violated person has a positive right to be made whole, and YOU have a positive duty to make them whole. You could have avoided this positive right/duty by simply not violating that other person's negative rights, but you took the risk to further your own pursuits, and now you have to be responsible in a positive sense for the positive right accruing to the person you violated. Auto insurance is just ONE way you can attempt to demonstrate your commitment to satisfying to potential positive duties to OTHERS, should you violate their negative rights.
Again, let me emphasize that auto insurance is NOT mandatory in ANY State in the US. You have various other methods by which to demonstrate your commitment to protecting OTHERS from the results of your actions that violate their negative rights.
By contrast, mandatory health insurance does not protect ANOTHER person's negative rights (THEIR right, in effect, to be left unharmed by YOU). Your OWN illness does not infringe upon the NEGATIVE rights of another person. You cover and protect ONLY YOURSELF with health insurance. You do not satisfy either negative or positive duties toward ANOTHER person when you purchase health insurance. You merely protect your OWN pursuits from catastrophic expense in the case of your OWN illness.
Now, please don't muddy the waters with the confusion that when I get sick or injured I DO affect other people negatively, that others DO have to pay for my illness, or some such claim. That sort of claim begs the question by assuming the validity of the rights-shift in thinking that has been taking place for decades already... a shift that has finally seen its culmination in this latest health-care legislation. As apogee says, "The fact that you don't have insurance simply means that you have socialized the losses you incurred...." Exactly! And the justification of this "socialization" is what is under debate. So, don't PRESUME that this IS justified when considering the underlying political philosophy debate.
The seismic shift that has been decades in the making is this: Our nation was founded on a notion of negative rights, the rights we have to be left unharmed by other people. That was the essence of the Thomas Jefferson passage Gunsmoke quoted early in this thread. By contrast, today people think that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are POSITIVE rights... rights that you are supposed have to be SUPPLIED things by other people. So, the "right to life" has shifted from a negative sense, in which others in effect leave you alone in your pursuits, to a positive sense, in which others are expected to HELP you further your pursuits (whatever they may be).
So, with this background, let's again consider John's analogy:
You own a car, you drive it, you have to buy insurance.
You have a body, you live in it, you have to buy insurance.
Now we can see the confusion (and the error).
First, you DO NOT "have to buy insurance" in the case of automobiles. You can OWN a car without any demonstration of financial responsibility. And, you can demonstrate your commitment to financial responsibility without ever buying insurance. (BTW, why is there no correlative legislated commitment to demonstrating financial responsibility before you can have a kid?)
Second, you do not HAVE to DRIVE your car. Again, you can own a car without ever driving it, and your potential responsibilities to others are wildly different between owning and driving a car. Thus, treating "driving" like "living" is a bad analogy. You do NOT have to drive your car; you DO have to "live in your body."
Third, "driving your car" and "living in your body" bring about entirely different duties to others. I can "own" my car without driving it; so my decision to drive is a very intentional choice that goes beyond my most basic association with my car, and that necessarily puts other persons in danger that I will violate their negative rights. By contrast, I cannot "own" my body WITHOUT "living in it," yet I CAN "live in my body" without risking violating the negative rights of others! My mere "living" does not risk infringing upon the NEGATIVE rights of others.
Fourth, by buying auto insurance, I preemptively protect OTHERS by demonstrating that I am doing (in advance) what is reasonable to "make them whole" in the unfortunate event that I violate their negative rights. By contrast, by buying health insurance I protect MYSELF (in advance) from the unfortunate event of MYSELF getting ill. The former is a function of tort law designed to protect others from the effects of my actions on their negative rights, and it is critical to note that even this does not "protect YOU" from later suits if it is found that you did not succeed in adequately protecting OTHERS! Auto insurance is about protecting OTHERS from YOUR violations of their negative rights. The latter is a function of SELF-protection and is designed to protect only YOUR interests.
The rights-shift in the last 60+ years, however, turns these notions on their heads. It conflates negative and positive rights by making us all into a "collective." Why are seat-belt laws considered acceptable today? Because most people have accepted the notion that my medical bills for splattering myself against my own windshield "affect all of us." But WHY do they "affect all of us?" Because we have ALREADY gone so far down the path of conflating negative and positive rights!
During the FDR era, as never before in American history, the notion of people possessing a whole raft of positive rights became explicit. All sorts of positive rights "came into being" that were never contemplated by the Founders or the Constitution (part of what I think Gunsmoke was trying to demonstrate with his Jefferson quote). FDR introduced the notions of "right to a job," "right to a certain standard of living," all the way up to his famous "right to an interesting life." But all of these are POSITIVE rights: the ONLY way they can be satisfied FOR YOU is if I have a positive duty to satisfy them FOR YOU! Now, instead of my having a duty to leave you alone and not infringe on your negative rights, I have a whole raft of positive duties (which REQUIRE me to expend resources) to satisfy your positive rights.
So, now, when I splatter my face against my own windshield, it is PRESUMED that society is in the business of helping me not suffer the consequences of my own choices! When I choose to eat myself to the point of being an 800 pound, useless lump, it is PRESUMED that society is in the business of helping me to not suffer the consequences of my own choices. When I choose to not get educated and live a lazy, undisciplined life, it is PRESUMED that society is in the business of helping me to not suffer the consequences of my own choices. When I choose to have more kids than I can support, it is PRESUMED that society is in the business of helping me to not suffer the consequences of my own choices. And so on.
There has been a seismic shift in presumptions about rights AND responsibilities during the last 60+ years; it has been a shift AWAY from individual rights and responsibilities to a notion of collective rights and responsibilities. The net effect is that a whole raft of new "positive rights" have been born that must be supported by the collective.
Now, most people on the Taco (at least the ones posting on this and similar threads) apparently think that this is a good thing. Now we're a more "humane" society, or some such thing. But two points should be made at this juncture.
First, the notion of rights/responsibilities we have today is NOT what our Founder had in mind, and it is NOT the notion of rights contemplated by the Constitution. Of course the Constitution can be changed, and courts interpret it according to their whims. But the evidence is overwhelming, indeed incontrovertible, that our Founders did NOT contemplate this present notion of rights/responsibilities. So, however you want to justify the shift in thinking over the decades, do not wrap the cloak of Founder's credibility around it. This was NOT what they had in mind, and they MOST EXPLICITLY said so (I am happy to support that claim at whatever length anybody desires)!
Second, with this shift in thinking about rights/responsibilities comes a shift in thinking about individual freedoms. Some years ago in a similar thread I warned about impending "fat vouchers" and such things. Since then, Japan (also with socialized medicine) has instituted a policy that employs force of law (including fines) to keep men from getting too large of waists. You get too large a waist (I think the limit is 36 inches), and you will be placed on a mandatory diet, exercise program, and time line to "help you" get your waist size under control. If you fail to comply, you (and your company) will be fined periodically as long as you are not in compliance. Many things we currently take for granted as freedoms will disappear as we work our way down the path toward full-blown collectivism.
Attempting to enact seat-belt and helmet laws would have been resoundingly decried 50 years ago. But that was before it was PRESUMED that we would ALL have to pay for the consequences of individuals' decisions.
It will not take too long before "high-risk" activities like rock climbing will be heavily legislated, and ultra-high-risk activities (like free-soloing) will be banned. We WILL see something like "fat vouchers" and mandatory waist-size measurements within the next ten-fifteen years, if this current legislation stands.
I wear my seat-belt because I do not want to splatter my face against my windshield, regardless of who is paying for it! But seat belt and helmet laws are just a function of the government protecting the COLLECTIVE from the impacts of individuals' decisions. There will be much more to come.
Now, here is the really interesting thing about the whole health-care debate. In another thread Alex is counseled against trying to free solo the Nose. Virtually all the responses on that thread encouraged him to "do his own thing for HIMSELF."
THIS is the American spirit, and THIS is the spirit that is being crushed! Under the collective model that most of you here on this thread defend, you have NO option but to defend the collective against the irresponsible actions of young men like Alex! How DARE he endanger himself in this way? How DARE he risk his future productivity (of such value to an increasingly cash-strapped collective) by risking his life for PERSONAL ends? How is his free-soloing ANY different from my opting to not wear a seat belt for any number of PERSONAL reasons? Why does Alex get to pursue his PERSONAL ends with flagrant disregard for his impact on the collective, when my supposed impact on the collective regarding my choice of seat belt deployment is so heavily legislated?
Honestly, you poor saps think you still have freedom, but you have willfully given up the very foundation of it! With individual freedom comes individual responsibility to live with your own consequences. If the collective assumes responsibility for your personal consequences, then necessarily it will also limit your individual freedom. The two causal relations are logically bound and historically supported. Now you can watch your individual liberties FLOW away from you, instead of the imperceptible trickle you saw before.
This is not a "right wing" vs. "left wing" discussion. I opposed Bush's policies just as I now oppose Obama's. It is ridiculous to single Obama out for special condemnation. He merely travels down the exact same path as his predecessors of the past six-plus decades. Republican vs. Democrat, right vs. left, are all confusions of the fundamental issues. The issue is libertarianism (upon which this nation was founded) vs. communitarianism (the camp in which most now firmly reside).
This will establish and secure health care as a right in this country.
Yup, along with your right to have more kids than you can support and expect the collective to pay for them. Along with your right to eat yourself into a useless lump and expect the collective to pay for it. Along with your right to spend money with flagrant disregard for your own future needs and expect the collective to pay for it. Along with your right to buy more house than you can afford and expect the collective to pay for it. Along with your right to buy more car than you can afford and expect the collective to pay for it. Along with your right to smoke, drink to excess, and/or drug yourself into a stupor and expect the collective to pay for it. And so on.
I'm glad you are required to have insurance now, just as I am glad drivers are required to have car insurance. It would be a lot easier if individuals took full responsibility for their actions... but they don't. Therefore, as a society, we now require that everyone pay into the system that already covers your arse. Revolutionary, I know.
Finally, somebody that gets it! It WOULD be a lot easier (and better, and back to the really "revolutionary" notions upon which this nation was founded) "if individuals took full responsibility for their actions." But no, because we have fallen all over ourselves for decades to give everybody more and more "rights" WITHOUT the corresponding responsibilities! You want to return to the days of individual liberties AND responsibilities? Of course not! It's those pesky responsibilities that BITE!
Was that enough of an answer for you, mrtropy?
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Mar 22, 2010 - 04:37am PT
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Quaken is awesome. Never stop posting.
It's still pretty sad how much these changes are misunderstood. I listened to some republican representative rage on the floor tonight about how there was "not one single thing in the bill that reduces the rising cost of health care" and in the next breath raved against Obama "not wanting women over 40 to get mammograms" and the evil Medicare task force that will be able to cut Medicare spending without Congressional oversight. The point of the taskforce is that it will be able to cut reimbursement for things that we are spending money on that don't actually make anyone healthier....and the way that mammograms are currently recommended is one of those things.
Access was one giant hurdle that needed to be fixed. The second is reimbursement. Cutting wasteful Medicare spending will be good, but what we really need to do is completely gut the horrible, horrible fee for service system that we currently have. It is easily the most broken thing about healthcare.
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Mar 22, 2010 - 05:00am PT
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apogee wrote-
//"Gosh, I'm sorry I'm so late to this stimulating, intellectual discourse. But now that I'm here, let me just offer:
Gunsmoke, you are a Fox News brainless fecking Repug droid. You obviously know not of what yellow custard spews from yer arse."//
LOL
well said
hey madbolter-
that's (yet another?) long, boring, uninspiring effort on your part that nobody will ever follow to the end...
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slayton
Trad climber
Here and There
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Mar 22, 2010 - 06:03am PT
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Well, I did get through Madbolter's post. In theory, I agree with much of it. Personall responsibility is something that seems to be losing ground in so many aspects of American society. And yet. .. ... somehow his post just paints a picture that is just too black and white.
Should there be no net whatsoever? Yes, we can choose to own a car and drive and therefor pay for insurance or have the finances necessary to meet the requirements of the law. It's a choice. But none of us chose to be born (despite what some might say about reincarnation). Illness and disease are a part of being alive and not all of us are going to be able to pay for the outrageous costs of health care and some aren't even going to be able to pay for insurance. If someone gets sick or hurt but can't afford the medical bills should this person do the personally responsible thing and just slit his wrists and be done with it?
Personal responsibility is a part of the issue. But that doesn't speak to the fact that the medical industry and the insurance industry doesn't work for many, many people in this country. If you're wealthy and can afford it great! But if you're not should we just say the hell with them because their not smart enough to climb the rungs of success that is the American Way?
If nothing else, this bill gives us the opportunity for dialogue. A means to move forward in some direction. It just boggles my mind that in a nation as wealthy as ours we spend VASTLY more on defense spending than we do on the health and education of our citizens. We own the government. We are the government. What the hell is wrong here?
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Route Loser
Trad climber
Lake Almanor/Chico, CA
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Mar 22, 2010 - 06:09am PT
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After assessing the intelligent comments on here, and happening upon this very telling graph, I can only assume most in here are excellent climbers. Thank God (sorry if that name offends anyone) I can only climb 5.6!
But more importantly:
-Mike
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