Supreme Court Obamacare Case -- Pros and Cons

I'm for the bill, though as you say, it's not strong enough.The major complaints, as I've heard them, deal with the mandate. People feel it is unconstitutional for the government to force you to buy something. I can sort of see the argument, but if that's the case, there are a lot of things that I'm forced to buy that I wouldn't necessarily want to. The ones I can think of off the top of my head, though, are all state laws, not federal ones.Edited by Perdition, : Replaced Giantish "fo" with English "of"

People feel they don't need to buy insurance because they "never go to the doctor." This, of course, is untrue. Everyone, at some point, has to visit some sort of doctor.The common response is, "Well, if I do go, I'll pay for it myself."The cost of surgery or even setting a broken bone, however, is far above what a common individual could just pay for.

Exactly. People tend to see only the impact on themselves and their loved ones. They assume they're taking the risk of a major injury or illness upon themselves, but in reality, they're putting it on everyone else.This is what needs to be voiced far and wide. Health insurance isn't there to protect you (though it does that, too) it's there to protect everyone else.

I completely agree. With one pool of people, the costs would be significantly lower, both for medical procedures and for medicine.Without the profit motive, there would be a lot more morality to the coverage, as well. No more would there be much incentive to gouge people who are already going through a tough time.As you say, this law isn't perfect, it's only a first step on the long road to rational healthcare, but I bet, assuming it stands up in the court case, that in a decade or so, people will feel this can't be gotten rid of, much like Medicare and Social Security.

This issue was the very one argued today. The government was very vocal in saying that nothing in this bill was a tax. There was a penalty, a fee, for not buying health insurance, much like there is a penalty or fee for breaking traffic laws.In court, it was argued that this was, in fact, a tax, and therefore could not be challenged until it was actually collected, in 2015, meaning this court case couldn't proceed until then.The Supreme Court saw through this argument, and agreed that it wasn't a tax. Now, the interesting thing is, the government will still argue that they can levy this fee under their taxation powers, because the SC has allowed the government the right to levy fees under their taxation powers that are not labelled or described as taxes.Confused yet?

Part of it is the cost of the doctor. They spend a lot of money, time and effort to become doctors, and presumably, you don't even want the ones that put all that effort in and came out last in their class, you want the best of the best. That's going to cost you.But there is also the cost of the procedures: the machinery being used (CAT scans, PET scans, X-Rays), the labs being run (techs, equipment, materials), any time spent in the hospital (food, heat, electricity, construction, expansion, etc).But the proftability of the insurance companies is also a large part of the cost. That's why I favor a public option, the profit motive is removed, and the risk of anyone being uninsured goes away almost completely. Any remaining risk is spread across the entire population, diluting it quite a bit. Since there are competing insurance companies, there is no monopoly, and under conventional economic wisdom, the competition should keep costs down (it doesn't but oh well). But yeah, I support a public option, which removes much of the concerns of the second half of your quote above.

If that was all doctors did, we could get rid of them right now.

If the law passes the Supreme Court's muster, I'd be very surprised if they didn't use it this way. However, this case has been on the way since almost the very moment the law was signed, so while the Republicans have been using it as a rallying cry (to some effect), if it is ruled unconstitutional, the Democrats who were using it as a cudgel could seem to have quite a bit of egg on their faces.I think it was more of a wait and see how things pan out before we really tie ourselves to it.

Wow, your doctor sucks. Mine does exams, orders tests him/herself, councils on health style, and yes, writes prescriptions and refers me to a specialist if needed.But even if all they did was write scripts and send you to specialists, do you not find that a useful occupation? Would you know what medications to take? Would you know who to go see for an ailment? If so, why are you going to the doctor at all?

Then it seems your doctor is doing everything you want him to. What's your complaint again?