The Supreme Health Care Debate

I am going to do something here that I normally prefer not to do publicly, dive into a heated political debate.  Actually I am using a Washington Post editorial to do the talking because is comes closest to how I feel about this issue.  With that said, here are the excerpts that I believe best summarize the key issues. ..... Thomas


The Supreme Health Care Debate ( my title .... Thomas )
via The Washington Post, Editorial
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-supreme-courts-civics-lesson/2012/03/29/gIQASfdZjS_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

Civics lessons from the Supreme Court ( their title, my bolds )
By Editorial Board, Published: March 29


"...the Supreme Court this week ...  treated to a challenging civics lesson on federalism, liberty and the limits and potential of government authority. Three points in particular struck us.
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[ first ]...We share in the disappointment that the justices on both sides of their ideological divide are, for the most part, so predictable. That’s not, in the ideal world, how judging is supposed to work. But we also think there’s a kind of cynicism, or at least intellectual laziness, in asserting that this is an easy or obvious call — that no justice could possibly strike down the mandate out of honest, reasoned conviction. ...it’s not an easy question.
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...The health-care market is different from all others because virtually everyone, like it or not, will become entangled in it. ...The government, already deeply involved in regulating the health-care market, has a legitimate interest in encouraging you to prepare for such an eventuality.
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second point — the idea that no American should go without health care, and that society as a whole should be willing to pitch in toward that end, strikes us as much more of a slam-dunk.
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...Congress could have created a system of incentives to draw in young, healthy people. Or it could have enacted a broadly based tax to pay for the health care it wants to subsidize.

It didn’t — and this brings us to the third point — for a couple of reasons. One was that reform advocates didn’t seriously entertain the constitutional vulnerability of the mandate. But the bigger reason is a more familiar one in Washington these days: None of the politicians wanted to acknowledge the costs.
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But you can’t get something for nothing, not even something as noble as universal health-care coverage."

Many people are saying this is win or lose.  I disagree.  What we have done is put the issue on the table.  All parties, political, individual and financial, have been served notice that something must be done about the issue before it devours us all.   .... Thomas