By Ted Belman
Jews support Obamacare because universal healthcare is the right thing to do. They are not trouble by the fact that it may be unconstitutional. Legalities should not be an impediment to doing the right thing. Is it as simple as that?
The Daily Beast has a very thought provoking article titled IMPEACH JUSTICES IF OBAMACARE IS OVERTURNED. In it, the author makes a good case for arguing that the law is constitutional based on a number of decisions.
- One exception was the great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who argued that where economic regulations are at stake, judges must respect legislative decisions aimed at protecting society’s most vulnerable members. Our Constitution,
It doesn’t say whether or not this was a dissenting opinion. “Holmes was so devoted to judicial restraint that he rarely found a law he was willing to strike down.” Not so, the author argues, with the present Court.
By way of example he argues,
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And then cameCitizens United, in which the court struck down a popularly supported, bipartisan effort to place limits on the ability of the wealthy to dominate political discourse. Income inequality is a fact of life in a capitalist system. But when it comes to choosing our elected representatives, the people are supposed to stand on equal footing. Your right to control your destiny by electing people who share your visions and values is not supposed to depend on the fatness of your wallet. But now, thanks to five justices, it does. In ruling that corporations have a First Amendment right that precludes Congress from regulating how much money they can spend to support political candidates or causes, the court propped up a regime where the voices of the wealthy drown out all the rest.
As for Obamacare,
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The vacuity of the arguments against the health-care law has been well covered (see especially, Akhil Amar’s analysis in Slate).
I will add only two points.
First, Congress’s authority in passing the law rests on an elementary syllogism: You don’t have to drive, but if you do, the government can make you buy insurance. The logical structure at work here is that if you are going to do something (drive, for example), the government can make you purchase a commercial product (insurance, for example), so long as it has a good reason for doing so (making sure you can pay for any damage you do). That logic is obviously satisfied in the health-care context. You are going to use medical care, so the government can make you buy insurance in order to make sure you can pay for it. Liberty, like every other human and constitutional right, is not absolute. Under some circumstances, it can be regulated.
Which leads to the second point: critics of the health-care law say the only reason the rest of us have to pay for medical services used by people who have no money is that laws require hospitals to treat people who come in for emergencies regardless of their ability to pay. In other words, the critics say, the only reason there is a social cost—the only reason the syllogism works—is because of the underlying laws requiring hospitals to treat the poor.
His bottom line,
- You don’t have to pull the analytical thread of that reasoning very hard to see that it boils down to an argument for allowing the poor to die. And if the Supreme Court strikes down the health-care law, that is exactly the ideology it will have to embrace.
It will be saying that Congress cannot guarantee medical coverage for the poor and then implement a system to pay for it. In other words, the only people entitled to health care are the people who can afford it.
His call to arms,
- it is the duty of the people to protect the Constitution from the court. Social progress cannot be held hostage by five unelected men.
Isn’t that what Obama said, more or less.
Mark Levin in his book Liberty and Tyranny equates freedom with “liberty” with socialism with “tyranny”. Palin fully supports the Constitution as the guarantor of our freedom and liberty. The Governments role is to protect the individual from the state, it is generally said. Socialism, on the other hand diminishes our freedom in favour of the collective.
The author cites another case and calls for balance
- Oliver Wendell Holmes’s view was historically and constitutionally correct, and the court finally acknowledged this in a pivotal 1937 case, West Coast Hotel v. Parish. In West Coast Hotel, the court ruled that the Constitution safeguards not just individual liberty but community interests as well; and in matters of economics, it is the legislature’s job to strike the appropriate balance between those two. If the Roberts Court overturns the Affordable Care Act, it will be mimicking the discredited court of 1935.
What say you.
the arguments enshrined here are wrong in a contextual way and take no account of the practical and pragmatic .
socialised medicine does not work and the british example is for all to see !
so in fact in britain there are parallel systems for those than can afford the extra costs because the national health service is a bottomless pit.
obamacare has the same problem in its structure and whateever the claimed costs treble them !!
the quality of service goes down because the system overloads and third rate doctors and nurses are employed .
obama the illegal who thinks he is mastermind..pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee and see’s himself as dictator, and we all best NOT suport him..media doesn’t let the world know his court case of ilegal is in process. does anyone listen or hear what he says behind closed doors. even the Dem’s are turning against him. his plan to take America down, turn us over to the EU and UN and take all our money over to the Islamic nations. you would think the game Hitler played worked, so he is doing the same thing. Israel has the truth how they feel having ilegal arabs on their land,,think Gaza, where many won’t work or follow the laws . people who work so hard all their life , no one has the right to force them to give it all away..most that want free..don’t want to work but suck on the tit of American people..Scripture says,,a man who does not work should not eat and G-d says they are infideles…who is right? men or G-d..who says it is better to believe G-d than man. Big charity is here , millions donated..but more sneak over the border and gov is bringing in more..
sorry, your mistake was to ask what say you?….I dont see any reason for technological advancement unless it inures to the benefit of all the people. In the same way the govt funds and supports compulsory education it should fund and support universal health care. This is a hallmark of a developed society, and so it should be. There should be allowance for those who prefer a private system. There is no community that consists of a pack of dogs fighting over a piece of meat and no reason for the continuance of that community. There is a difference between free enterprise and a god of capitalism. Obamacare’s failure is that it is a hybrid which is appearing to give universal health care but whose basis is to satisfy the private economic interests of the AMA,Drug, Insurance and medical supply companies. Therefore, the forced insurance purchase clause. the big interests put the american people through too many hoops to get medical care. Also, it is disgraceful in a modern society that so many people have to go bankrupt to get treatment. Surely medical care is more important than education. The society has apparently found a way to fund and support govt education so why not universal health care? Apparently the vision of the most advanced capitalist society is that when technology reaches its pinnacle and can deliver everything by robotics then the world will consist of billionaires with all the benefits and those starving in poverty because they are no longer needed for labor. Therefore, society must make technological advancement accrue to the entire society and not just the economic controllers. If the free enterprise/capitalist system cannot adjust to distributing the gains of advancement then the citizenry will depose it constitutionally or unconstitutionally. After all, a law is constitutional until the constitution is amended, therefore the constitution is organic. I should thing that the ingenuity of the free enterprise system can come up with intelligent solutions but the greed of the entrenched gluttons will continue to thwart real solutions until the demand is for complete change.
Are not those underlying laws state laws?
Please do not compare car insurance with health insurance, one is an apple the other one is an orange. Driving a car it’s not personal and private, it’s done on roads to which everyone has access, therefore everyone needs protection. My health and my body are mine, private and personal. I don’t need the government to tell me how much my BMI should be, or my bloodpressure or the sugar content of my blood. Government should not be in business to regulate human physiology. This is arrogance and condescendance. All I need is access to a doctor of medicine to prescribe for me treatment when I have a disease. I do not need to be treated for risk factors for those are mathematical expressions. I don’t need to pay for all of the above with government mandated health insurrance policy.
@ Laura:
It’s a bad thing, just like Obama.
Someone please tell me, I am not the smartest guy around and I understand what he is doing to this country of ours, what the hell do the smart people think who support him???
Liberals will support any democrat even if it were a pile of s–t.
Socialized Medicine Horror Stories: Ripped from Britian and Canadian Papers
http://theconservativepost.com/WordPress/?p=1940
He’s correct. I don’t know why you are pushing socialized medicine for America Ted. From what I hear it isn’t working so well in Canada.
The so-called “poor” who claim they can’t afford health insurance, have cars, cell phones, cable tv etc. It is a matter of priorities. Again, what is the obsession with “free” health care? Why not free housing and food since those are necessities? Socialism is a monumental failure of a system.
It is both unconstitutional and the wrong thing to do in any case. Obamacare is horrible and will lead to inferior medical care and rationing and of course as Sarah Palin said, death panels. 90% of Americans are covered, so don’t believe the hyperbole saying otherwise. I don’t understand this obsession with socialized medicine which btw is not really free since it requires high taxes to pay for.