Patterico's Pontifications

4/2/2013

The “Origination Clause” Attack on ObamaCare

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:08 am



The lawsuit has been around for a while, but the Washington Times reports that a decision from the District Court is imminent, so it might be worth taking a quick look at the concept in advance of the decision. The argument, in a nutshell, is that ObamaCare being a tax, the Constitution requires it to “originate” in the House:

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

The lawsuit is brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which explained how ObamaCare came about:

[T]he Obama Administration’s health care law did not originate in the House; it originated in the Senate, when Senator Harry Reid “amended” a bill the House had passed by striking out all of its text and replacing it with the Senate-written bill that eventually became Obamacare.

The Washington Times article says the government has (not surprisingly) filed a brief saying that shell bills are constitutional:

Using H.R. 3590 as a “shell bill” may be inelegant, but it’s not unconstitutional, according to the government motion.

“This commonplace procedure satisfied the Origination Clause,” said the brief. “It makes no difference that the Senate amendments to H.R. 3590 were expansive. The Senate may amend a House bill in any way it deems advisable, even by amending it with a total substitute, without running afoul of the Origination Clause.”

The brief cites a number of cases in which courts upheld shell bills, but foundation attorneys counter that those rulings involved the Senate substitution of one revenue-raising bill for another.

“Here, by contrast, it is undisputed that H.R. 3590 was not originally a bill for raising revenue,” said the Pacific Legal Foundation lawsuit. “Unlike in the prior cases, the Senate’s gut-and-amend procedure made H.R. 3590 for the first time into a bill for raising revenue. The precedents the government cites are therefore inapplicable.”

The original bill passed by the House of Representatives was the “Service Members Home Ownership Act of 2009.” Reid literally used that bill as a shell, eliminated every word, and replaced it with the language of ObamaCare. It is as cynical a bypass of the Origination Clause as one can imagine. The Democrats probably handled it that way because the sponsors of ObamaCare were claiming it wasn’t a “tax” — so why should they have to follow a procedure that admitted it was a tax?

No less an authority than Randy Barnett says: “If any act violates the Origination Clause, it would seem to be the Affordable Care Act.” The only way the violation could be more obvious is if the Senate hadn’t even bothered to use a shell bill, but had simply written a bill of its own without a shell.

We’ll soon learn if the District Court believes the Origination Clause means anything. It should be interesting.

389 Responses to “The “Origination Clause” Attack on ObamaCare”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. Political question?

    nk (c5b7ef)

  3. more like a political statement

    fascism is settling in for a long winter

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  4. I have not researched it but per PLF the court considers Origination Clause challenges to be justiciable.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  5. Was the Origination Clause considered at all in the Supreme Court case?

    AesopFan (730cb2)

  6. Did they argue it was a tax or a penalty?

    JD (3cbfc7)

  7. ‘Twould be wonderful if this was a mechanism by which the Chief Justice reversed his vote, but who knows if this will ever make it that far. We have less than a year before this abomination goes into full effect, and it’s hard to see how the Supreme Court could take it up, and decide it, before January of 2014.

    The hopeful Dana (3e4784)

  8. I don’t know for sure, but I think there’s a lot of wiggle room in the term ‘raising revenue’ that will probably allow the courts to avoid overturning the law. For example, is ‘raising’ a net term, in which overall federal revenue is increased, or does it refer to an increase in any category of revenue, such as the tax on medical devices?

    I’d put my money on challenging Obamacare by attacking the waivers that have been given. It just doesn’t seem right that HHS is able to arbitrarily exempt some companies from having to comply with the provisions of Obamacare. If the waivers are ruled invalid, there will be a whole lot of additional voices calling for repeal.

    steve (369bc6)

  9. It will be interesting to see the SCOTUS rule on this case. There should be no reason whatsoever to have a split along party appointment lines.

    NaBr (a094a6)

  10. If you consider the ACA an abomination, Dana, what is your solution to our 50 million uninsured, many of whom drive our per capita health care costs due to their visits to emergency rooms, where we have a moral obligation to provide treatment?

    You are great with your criticisms, but bereft of solutions, as are your fellow travelers!

    Perry (9bd80a)

  11. Perry, Emergency room visits aren’t the cause of our healthcare cost rises. You ever go into the hospital on expected care and see what they charge you when they know you’re coming? $50 for Tylenol, $3000 to look at your chart, etc. The hospitals in this country have a payment system that increases prices for services by 10 fold.

    No one questions it because we’re protected by a wall of insurance that lowers the rates through deals we have no say in.

    Ever wonder what non-profit hospitals run multimillion dollar surpluses every year?

    NaBr (a094a6)

  12. Oh, there you are, Perry.

    nk the romantic (c5b7ef)

  13. That should have been “nk the Phineas and Ferb fan”.

    nk (c5b7ef)

  14. Also Perry, I don’t understand why anyone would support a solution that doesn’t fix the problem. We just had the government officials finally admit that the ACA raises healthcare costs.

    NaBr (a094a6)

  15. Perry – Enough of your bogus 50 million uninsured statistic which has been shot down here more times than I can count. If you had a shred of intellectual curiosity you would know that there have been a myriad of less costly alternative proposals put forward by the GOP than Obamacare to address the issue.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  16. “It makes no difference that the Senate amendments to H.R. 3590 were expansive.

    Sort of like how it makes no difference that the Secretary of the Treasury, who also is head of the IRS, is a known tax cheat. Then there are the socialism-drunk societies like Greece, which are notorious for all their people’s wheeling-dealing attitudes towards taxes, or all the under-the-table gameplaying in the “undocumented” sector of the US.

    Since America is becoming corrupt in a Banana-Republic-ish way, if we say “c’est la vie” regarding one area, we might just as well be consistent.

    whom drive our per capita health care costs due to their visits to emergency rooms

    How about at least treating such visits, in terms of the operator getting paid for goods and services, no less seriously than the way that people are treated when walking in (and out) the door of the local Wal-mart or K-mart? So such folks don’t even fork over a little cash before leaving the emergency room, but they have enough for cable-TV service, a pair of fancy sneakers, or for the folks south of the border?

    Mark (e5fd6c)

  17. Our Constitution is worthless except to protect women after murdering their babies in utero.

    Won’t get too excited about this until SCOTUS strikes down this abortion of a bill.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  18. #11 Imbecile.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  19. #9 LOL. You have not been paying attention to Liberals the last 100 years or so. Naive.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  20. daleyrocks @ 16

    No, I don’t know that daleyrocks. How about providing at least one cite?

    Moreover, if 50 million is not the correct number of American uninsured, what is?

    Finally, are you satisfied with our health care cost per capita, being half again more than the Norway, the next less costly, according to the OECD.

    Or looked at it another way, we are near 16% of GDP, while the next country down the line is Switzerland at about 13% of GDP. And, almost every Swiss Citizen is insured.

    And our health care outcomes are inferior to many other nations.

    Here is a recent outstanding study of our health care delivery systems. Check it out.

    And you are happy with this performance, daleyrocks? If so, your standards need to be readdressed, in my view.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  21. Perry–you are, and continue to be, so clearly uninformed about the flawed premise and completely unworkable inner workings of the utterly corrupt ACA that I can see why people don’t even want to bother trying to educate you anymore and just ignore your juvenile silliness. Have you even read any of the recent articles in those bastions of conservative thought such as the Washington Post and New York Times which finally focus on the many intractable implementation issues having zilch to do with “politics” that Mrs. Sebelious is facing? Things which were already painfully obvious to anyone with working brain cells back in 2010.

    You may be one of the sneaky progs who secretly “hee hee” and hope that an ACA failure will result in forcing single payer healthcare for all. But newsflash here Perry–America is broke and there aren’t nearly enough doctors to fill demand. You deny it now, but you or someone close to you will soon be a “victim” of legal rationing sanctioned/forced by the government. Enjoy!! This is what you voted for.

    elissa (9c074b)

  22. #20 I have been. I know it doesn’t matter. Also, thanks for the “LOL”, good way to show everyone you’re acting pretty arrogant. But whatever, you got you LULZ.

    NaBr (a094a6)

  23. Nothing will protect our nation from Obamacare: not prudence, nor good judgement, nor benevolence.

    Like the Civil War, Obamacare is a punishment from God for our wicked ways.

    Pious Agnostic (6ff605)

  24. Perry wrote:

    If you consider the ACA an abomination, Dana, what is your solution to our 50 million uninsured, many of whom drive our per capita health care costs due to their visits to emergency rooms, where we have a moral obligation to provide treatment?

    My “solution” is for them to buy health insurance on heir own, and if they can’t afford it or don’t want it, it’s on them, and not on me.

    I see no moral obligation to pay for people who won’t pay for themselves, and I certainly see no moral obligation to set up yet another welfare system, which is exactly what this is.

    Your arguments all assume that people not being insured is a problem we must address; I don’t assume that at all.

    The serious Dana (3e4784)

  25. Elissa, I said nothing here about the ACA. However, I believe it is a step in the right direction, since more Americans will be insured, and health care costs should decrease over time.

    And no, I amn not a “sneaky prog” who wishes the failure of the ACA. Do you wish it fails.

    Experience may teach that the ACA needs some modification, but have you noticed that out of all the developed nations, our health care delivery system is one of the worst, as noted above.

    And you are satisfied with this status quo ante, elissa? You shouldn’t be!

    Perry (9bd80a)

  26. Perry:

    A good number of the uninsured are those who choose to go without insurance (if there weren’t so many, there would be no need to ‘tax’ people who didn’t buy insurance).

    The stories claiming our outcomes are worse compare apples and oranges. For example, we try to save less-than-perfect fetuses, other countries abort them off. We spend money prolonging life as long as possible, other countries let their elderly die off. Furthermore, some of the statistics in the article are irrelevant. For example, what matters isn’t the number of hospital beds but rather whether someone can get a bed when they need one.

    As for the claim that we spend too high a percentage of GDP on health care, that too is a bogus view. People spend money on what they feel important. Having taken care of food and shelter, people are going to spend a good chunk of what is left making sure they live to enjoy their lives.

    And Obamacare does nothing to address any of the real problems.

    steve (369bc6)

  27. #27 With regard to the # of beds in the US. I believe we have more beds than we can fill. Although I don’t have a statistic to back it up. I heard a report on the chargemaster profit that I think talked about it.

    With regard to the percentage of GDP we spend for healthcare…we spend all that on insurance…which isn’t even healthcare. The ACA props up two industries and says they’re both necessary (insurance and healthcare).

    NaBr (a094a6)

  28. Dana @ 25:

    My “solution” is for them to buy health insurance on heir own, and if they can’t afford it or don’t want it, it’s on them, and not on me.

    I see no moral obligation to pay for people who won’t pay for themselves, and I certainly see no moral obligation to set up yet another welfare system, which is exactly what this is.

    That’s not a solution, Dana, as it leaves ill people improperly treated or not treated at all, and it drives up your costs for your health care.

    And as important, because of the economic distortions in recent decades regarding income and wealth, we now have about 44 million Americans living in poverty. What do we do about their health care needs? What is the position of your Roman Catholic Church on this issue? You are most definitely not in tune with their position, and, you offer no solutions. Worthless!

    Perry (9bd80a)

  29. Perry,

    Here’s an NPR transcript talking about the chargemaster medical costs.

    http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-02-27/us-health-care-costs/transcript

    The ACA does nothing to address this practice.

    NaBr (a094a6)

  30. #28: you’re wrong that all of the money is spent on insurance and not health care. It includes money spent on health care by those not covered by insurance, it covers money spent by the government (VA and military hospitals). As for the portion spent on insurance, take away the 10% or so of insurance company overhead and profit and the rest is spent on health care.

    I do agree that there’s a difference between health care and health insurance and that too many people mix the two.

    steve (369bc6)

  31. Steve @ 27, you present no data to back up your views, which is not helpful. On the contrary, I’ve provided some, and can provide more, if you are really interested in debating this issue. However, I have covered some relevant facts. Please consider tham.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  32. Perry, like so many other low info types, confuses health “insurance” with health “care”. It’s sad and it’s totally barking up the wrong tree with respect to the things that need fixing in our medical system.

    elissa (9c074b)

  33. Perry @21 – We have been over this exact same ground with you many times before and debunked your bogus talking points. The purpose of this blog is not to educate ineducable progtards who regurgitate talking points they have read elsewhere without understanding them.

    You merely repeat the same crap every time a subject comes up after having your butt handed to you the last time it was discussed on a thread. What kind of memory problems do you have?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  34. Perry wrote:

    And as important, because of the economic distortions in recent decades regarding income and wealth, we now have about 44 million Americans living in poverty. What do we do about their health care needs?

    We let them take care of themselves. If they can’t, tough! If a charity hospital wants to care for them, more power to the charitable, but creating yet another welfare system just results in more tax-consuming leeches on our society.

    What is the position of your Roman Catholic Church on this issue? You are most definitely not in tune with their position, and, you offer no solutions. Worthless!

    The position of the Church is one of charity, and I have no objection to the Church providing charity. But we have the living example of Greece, where a oh-so-progressive nation kept providing more and more benefits for people, benefits that they didn’t earn and benefits in excess of what the country’s production justified, and now they have gone flat fornicating broke. Cyprus is in the same boat, and Spain and Portugal and Italy are all headed down the same road, with no idea how to get off of it.

    It’s very simple: you cannot have more than you produce. The Europeans are finding that out, the hard way, and were it not for the dollar being the world’s reserve currency, something that just might be changing, we’d be in the same boat.

    The worthless Dana (3e4784)

  35. NaBr, re your reference, you need to pull out from that myriad of comments what you believe is important so we can discuss same.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  36. “Steve @ 27, you present no data to back up your views, which is not helpful. On the contrary, I’ve provided some, and can provide more, if you are really interested in debating this issue. However, I have covered some relevant facts. Please consider tham.”

    Perry – Just reread the last thread where your arguments were shredded and stop wasting everybody’s time.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  37. Perry,

    Where I live, state law requires that public and non-profit hospitals and community clinics provide medical care to people who don’t have insurance or can’t pay. Further, under EMTALA, all hospitals — public, non-profit, and private — must provide emergency care. Isn’t that how it works where you live?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  38. #31
    You are correct that it’s not all insurance. The point I was trying to make was that with the current system we have of requiring insurance…we spend that much regardless of whether we need healthcare or not.

    NaBr (a094a6)

  39. Perry – Do you realize that your talking point do not become more convincing the eighth time you repeat them than the the first or the “data” you present more relevant or useful each time you repeat a flawed comparison?

    Are you under treatment from a mental health professional? If not, seek help.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  40. I hope Chief Justice Roberts decides to be an umpire in this case, instead of a player.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  41. Maybe so, narciso, but I think the Administration is in over its head when it comes to any decision or work that doesn’t have a default partisan answer.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  42. ==more Americans will be insured, and health care costs should decrease over time.==

    No mention of whether it’s breathing unicorn farts, fairy dust or legal weed that produces Perry’s extreme optimism. But it surely isn’t math.

    elissa (9c074b)

  43. #36 Perry,
    I did pull out in a previous comment. I understand that it’s a long article and because it’s NPR you should be able to find an audio clip. Certainly hearing the whole thing will do a lot for understanding and I don’t expect you to do it now.

    But basically…chargemaster runs pricing for (nearly) all hospitals.
    Chargemaster raises prices of everything by about 10 times.
    Hospitals use chargemaster prices to negotiate with insurance companies for a discount.
    When insurance companies get a discount, they still pay 3-4 times the actual rate.

    The kicker, most hospitals are non-profit and bring in more money every year than Big Oil…and it’s untaxable.

    NaBr (a094a6)

  44. Dana @ 35, you are neglecting the teachings of your church regarding your “tough” stand on this issue.

    This is like saying to Kevin Ware on the Louisville basketball team regarding his horrendous injury: “Tough, you should not have been playing basketball.”

    Moreover, you obviously don’t ask yourself why folks are in poverty, you merely make the assumption, as stated many times, that these people are lazy, even after I provided you evidence that your assumption was false.

    With you, it seems that it is all ideology, to hell with the facts, and to hell with a charitable approach regarding those who suffer.

    So yes, as you have characterized yourself as being hard-hearted – that certainly is true!

    Perry (9bd80a)

  45. narciso wrote:

    It’s almost as if they want the thing to ‘crash and burn;

    Oh, I’m certain that they do! President Obama didn’t have the balls to come out and say, “We have to do single-payer,” because he knew that would never pass. So they created this abomination, which is designed to fail, but which establishes the principle that the federal government is ultimately responsible for everyone’s health care. So, when it collapses, the left will throw up their collective hands and say, “See? We tried to do it through the private insurance system, the ‘conservative’ way, and it failed, and single-payer is the only thing left.”

    The Dana who's sure of it (3e4784)

  46. why are folks in poverty?

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  47. Assuming this is an accurate statement of the Supreme Court cases on the Origination Clause:

    The Supreme Court has occasionally ruled on origination clause matters, adopting a definition of revenue bills that is based on two central principles that tend to narrow its application to fewer classes of legislation than the House: (1) raising money must be the primary purpose of the measure, rather than an incidental effect; and (2) the resulting funds must be for the expenses or obligations of the government generally, rather than a single, specific purpose.

    It’s hard to see how the AFA complies with the Origination Clause.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  48. Perry wrote:

    Moreover, you obviously don’t ask yourself why folks are in poverty, you merely make the assumption, as stated many times, that these people are lazy, even after I provided you evidence that your assumption was false.

    When we are, in effect, importing Mexicans to work because good, worthwhile American citizens won’t do the jobs, then yes, that is all the evidence I need to see that those people are lazy scumbags.

    The Dana who's sure of it (3e4784)

  49. Ywa I know that, I’ve referred to the Hacker and Shakowski clips that reinforce the point. it’s like looking at the building of the doomsday weapon, and
    they tell us cobalt is good for you.

    narciso (3fec35)

  50. Perry:

    Dana @ 35, you are neglecting the teachings of your church regarding your “tough” stand on this issue.

    This is like saying to Kevin Ware on the Louisville basketball team regarding his horrendous injury: “Tough, you should not have been playing basketball.”

    Of course, that’s not what Dana is saying. Further, Kevin Ware would always be able to find treatment under EMTALA, because it insures patient access to emergency care.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  51. Perry has not yet figured out that this thread is not about the merits of Obamacare, but a legal challenge to its passage.

    Or perhaps he has, but the word Obamacare causes him to react like one of Pavlov’s dogs and spew rote debunked 2009 talking points like an animatronic progtard.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  52. DRJ – We have to burn the village to save the village.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  53. NaBr @ 45: By your comments you have made a good case for the Government being more involved in controlling health care delivery costs. Other nations realized this decades ago, and have taken steps to control costs while maintaining decent outcomes regarding such as life spans and infant mortality, just to name several. The cite I gave provides some information on this very topic.

    The ACA is our first attempt to tackle our health care costs and delivery problems, finally. Let’s work with it and improve it as we go along, but certainly not throw it out and then do nothing.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  54. happyfoots asked:

    why are folks in poverty?

    Because we pay them to be.

    We have created a system in which we tell people that we will agree to pay them enough not to work, if they will agree to live in poverty, a system in which we say that we will provide them with enough food on which to survive, if they won’t combitch (too much) that they aren’t eating well. We have created a class of people who have agreed to be poor, with the Faustian bargain that says they don’t have to work to not starve to death. If starvation was the result of not working, you’d see a whole lot of Americans who won’t work now, working.

    The heartless Dana (3e4784)

  55. Perry is back to repeating numbers that have been often debunked.

    Why do you keep repeating falsehoods, Perry? Because that’s what trolls do.

    It would be a shame if yet another Constitutional provision is read out of effect, so I’m hoping that this provision is given effect and Obamacare is struck down.

    Certainly on a more practical note, sooner or later Obamacare must be repealed or the economic damage it is causing will become permanent.

    SPQR (768505)

  56. My solution to the fifty million uninsured problem is to have the thirty million of them who are illegally in the country go back to their place of origin and get health care there. The remainder are a rounding error to be covered by Medicare, emergency rooms, COBRA, and the like.

    luagha (f82fcf)

  57. Though Kevin Ware isn’t technically an employee of the University of Louisville, due to silly NCAA rules, for all practical purposes, he is, and U of L’s health insurance system is part of his compensation. Mr Ware is (was) working for a living, and I applaud anyone who works.

    My respect for those who will not work is less than infinitesimal.

    The Dana who likes NCAA basketball (3e4784)

  58. == you are neglecting the teachings of your church regarding your “tough” stand on this issue.==

    Perry’s condescension and faux piousness nauseates.

    elissa (9c074b)

  59. luagha wrote:

    My solution to the fifty million uninsured problem is to have the thirty million of them who are illegally in the country go back to their place of origin and get health care there.

    My solution is that whenever we come across an illegal immigrant who is actually working for a living, we keep him and deport an American citizen who won’t work in his place.

    The immigration Dana (3e4784)

  60. #55 Perry,

    That is not at all what I said, but that is clearly your pre-defined solution to every problem (guess that makes you a liberal).

    All I was trying to do is get us to agree on where the problem is before we can try to fix said problem. Something that Washington D.C. never does.

    Which is why the ACA doesn’t address this issue. Anyways, I get it, a lot of people are jumping on you for what you’re writing, so you won’t have a discussion…just snarky replies most likely.

    NaBr (a094a6)

  61. elissa wrote:

    == you are neglecting the teachings of your church regarding your “tough” stand on this issue.==

    Perry’s condescension and faux piousness nauseates.

    The problem with Perry is that the Democrats don’t actually understand Christianity. When he came upon a cripple, Jesus healed his handicap, so that the afflicted man could get up and work for a living; to the Democrats, the solution wouldn’t be to heal the handicap, but to provide a magic, ever-refilling begging bowl.

    The Catholic Dana (3e4784)

  62. Wait. The Supreme Court is supposed to apply the Constitution? When did they start doing that?

    Rob Crawford (6c262f)

  63. Or perhaps he has, but the word Obamacare causes him to react like one of Pavlov’s dogs and spew rote debunked 2009 talking points like an animatronic progtard.

    It’s what he’s paid to do.

    Rob Crawford (6c262f)

  64. Dana @ 50:

    Yes, there are probably some in poverty who are lazy, but you conflate that to all in poverty being lazy. OK then, consider this:

    #1 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income”.

    #2 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 57 percent of all American children live in a home that is either “poor” or “low income”.

    #3 Back in 2007, about 28 percent of all working families were considered to be among “the working poor”. Today, that number is up to 32 percent even though our politicians tell us that the economy is supposedly recovering.

    #4 Back in 2007, 21 million U.S. children lived in “working poor” homes. Today, that number is up to 23.5 million.

    Thus there are a very significant number of working poor in America. These are the uninsured Americans. As far as you are concerned, tough, we should ignore them.

    Fortunately for them, your view is not the prevailing view. There are plenty of caring Americans who are not hard-hearted like you, Dana, and who want the health care needs of these working poor provided, even if it involves the participation of our government, which it does.

    Do you still refuse to wear your seat belt, Dana? This is also about a similar mindset which would ignore the necessity of a head-of-household to take care of oneself for the sake of one’s family. In a like manner, it should be our obligation to look after the needs of our poor families, needs which they are unable, for whatever reason, to afford, say, health care for their own families. The same thinking is true for such as food, heat, and shelter, the basic necessities of life.

    This is not liberalism, this is humanism.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  65. elissa @ 60:

    Perry’s condescension and faux piousness nauseates.

    Is this because you don’t care, elissa? I suspect so!

    Perry (9bd80a)

  66. Perry, you are again misusing statistics in your usual trolling attempts.

    You’ve been shown to be intentionally dishonest often enough.

    SPQR (768505)

  67. Perry @ 60:

    Left out cite:

    Perry (9bd80a)

  68. #66

    Liberalism IS acting like you care about humans to get what you want done.

    NaBr (a094a6)

  69. Rob Crawford, the best clue that the Supreme Court is actually applying our Constitution to a decision is when all four liberal justices dissent in a block.

    Democrats don’t really like Constitutions. Because destroying the foundations of successful institutions is their mantra.

    SPQR (768505)

  70. Perry – your beloved ObamaCare is increasing costs, increasing the uninsured, and running private docs out of the system. Win-win for your secular humanists.

    JD (3cbfc7)

  71. NaBr @ 62:

    All I was trying to do is get us to agree on where the problem is before we can try to fix said problem. Something that Washington D.C. never does.

    The problem is that we have a high number of uninsured and that our health care costs are extraordinarily high.

    In my view, the ACA is an attempt to address this problem.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  72. NaBr @ 70:

    Liberalism IS acting like you care about humans to get what you want done.

    Now there’s the snark for ya!

    Perry (9bd80a)

  73. Perry, ACA was not an attempt to address any problem. It was solely an attempt to push this country away from private insurance.

    ACA is a failure on all the points it was sold to be a solution for. It is pushing more people out of health insurance than its adding to health insurance. Its is raising costs of health insurance. It is raising costs of health care itself. And its suppressing employment.

    Failure.

    SPQR (768505)

  74. SPQR @ 75

    Citation please!

    Perry (9bd80a)

  75. CBO estimates seven million people will lose health insurance as a result of ACA. Federal Reserve reports businesses reducing staffing, and reducing staff hours to avoid effects of Obamacare.

    Failure.

    That’s what ACA has brought.

    SPQR (768505)

  76. Perry wrote:

    This is not liberalism, this is humanism.

    It is, unfortunately, both, and the two cannot be separated. And humanism means godlessness, and death, and poverty and oppression.

    I am not a humanist. The Bible does show us the way, and if we should have sympathy for the poor and those unable to work, we should not enable those unwilling to work. “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.'” 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

    The Catholic Dana (3e4784)

  77. Perry’s condescension and faux piousness nauseates.

    High faux moral high ground is his schtick.

    JD (3cbfc7)

  78. Irrespective of the merits of origination clause argument, Pro or Con – Does anyone believe that SCOTUS would issue an opinion whereby Roberts would have admit making a major oversight.

    Keep in mind that you have 4 justices that made virtually no attempt to address any constitutional issue in the bill.

    Joe (debac0)

  79. The problem is that we have a high number of uninsured and that our health care costs are extraordinarily high.

    And your “solution” exacerbates both problems.

    JD (3cbfc7)

  80. CBO reports seven million to lose health insurance due to Obamacare

    Federal Reserve reports Obamacare leading to job losses

    From Federal Reserve:

    “Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.”
    “Fifth District—Richmond: Employers across the District continued to cite the Affordable Care Act and its unknown impacts as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.”
    “Eleventh District—Dallas: Outlooks were cautious. Some contacts noted concern that client companies are hiring the absolute minimum to get by due to uncertainty about the Affordable Care Act.”

    Failure. And Perry is too dishonest to admit it. Instead, Perry repeats statistics debunked four years ago.

    SPQR (768505)

  81. Perry, Obamacare is a disaster. The Federal government will be forced to repeal it to save us from economic collapse. Probably by the end of this year.

    SPQR (768505)

  82. Obama is probably secretly begging the Supreme Court to overturn it now.

    Otherwise, he’ll be known at the Herbert Hoover of the 21st Century.

    SPQR (768505)

  83. The fact Reid and the Dems used a shell bill shows malice/dirty hands. It is a willful misrepresentation to the American people on their part, no different than any other kind of fraud. None.

    Chris (f68a75)

  84. Can someone post a link to the bill passed by the house prior to its move to the senate.

    Joe (debac0)

  85. SPQR@75–it is very obviously supressing private employment. But you forgot to mention in your list another cuddly “feature” of ACA to the left–the need for hundreds of thousands of new government workers/bureaucrats/IRS agents paid for by our taxes–more human government drones who are “needed” both in Washington and in the states to implement and “oversee” ACA paperwork and compliance, while adding absolutely nothing to the actual provision of medical care to the sick or injured.

    elissa (9c074b)

  86. As long as it originated in and passed the House of Representatives I don’t see where they have a case here. The bulk of the language was introduced in the Senate but it didn’t start there.

    CrustyB (69f730)

  87. CrustyB, but the bill that originated in the House wasn’t a revenue bill. And it was not the “bulk” of the language, it was all of it.

    SPQR (768505)

  88. The Supreme Court has occasionally ruled on origination clause matters, adopting a definition of revenue bills that is based on two central principles…

    DRJ, I think you misread that. I read it as “The Court only invokes the Origination Clause wrt bills that are primarily taxes, and which raise revenue for purposes outside the bill’s scope.”

    If that is true, then the ACA does not qualify as a tax bill since the tax is only incidental and is in any event limited to furthering the purposes of the bill.

    I don’t see this as a viable attack. The waivers issue is more interesting, as it has risen to the “arbitrary and capricious” level and has all the hallmarks of patronage.

    I’d also say that a federalism argument might work as the feds intrude into the state insurance market in states that have not complied, especially if laws preventing interstate medical insurance remain on the books.

    But this attack here isn’t even going to get to the Supreme COurt.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  89. “Thus there are a very significant number of working poor in America. These are the uninsured Americans.”

    Perry – Citation for the linkage between your two sentences please!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  90. First, addressing the thread steal, I find it difficult to believe this Perry, who is not as entertaining as the platypus, is interested in anything other than being annoying and taking up our time.
    I could be wrong now, but I don’t think so.
    For one little example, he/she does the straw man that if one is against Obamacare then one thinks it is a good idea that millions of people can’t go to the doctor, or some such, and that is just a non-justified claim.

    Also, it should be clear that whatever we are doing in the war on poverty since the 1960’s, it is not working real well, and maybe more of the same is not the way to go.

    BUT, getting back to the original. It sounds like an example where the spirit of the law is perfectly clear and the whole thing should be nullified, if the reason it was judged OK to begin with was “It is a tax”…
    but I imagine this is one of the myriad of cases where the nit-picking and “how many angels dancing on the head of a pin” letter of the law rulings over 200+ years will be used to justify what the judges want to decide.

    It would be interesting to know if CJ Roberts ever considered this in his previous ruling, and for this non-lawyer also whether he should have, or whether he should have stuck to the narrow issue and leave this challenge for another day.
    This is a lawyer thing and I have no idea.

    Parting thought, one does not need to be cynical to expect the lack of wisdom to show these days.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  91. Gee, I brought this issue up when the bill first passed, but as I ‘mm just a poor ignorant boiler operator and not abrilliant legal analyst, was told numerous times how stupid I was. Guess the brilliant legal minds finally got around to reading the plain words of the Constitution. It’s really not that hard to understand the Constitution, unless you have legal training. Then, the document suddenly has pnumbras and emanations and invisible words between the lines that us ordinary mortals cannot see. While plain words like “Congress shall not” become invisible.

    Harold (3bf2fd)

  92. Harold, as another non-lawyer I think the problem is that long ago “Constitutional Law” became more linked to legal rulings since the Constitution rather than fresh examination of the Constitution itself with new questions. but, yeah.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  93. Senātus Populusque Rōmānus wrote:

    Obama is probably secretly begging the Supreme Court to overturn it now.

    Otherwise, he’ll be known at the Herbert Hoover of the 21st Century.

    Hardly. To me, Barack Hussein Obama is the worst President of my lifetime, and my lifetime includes Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.

    But to our friends on the left, he is a great President, and he has been, very unfortunately, a transformative President. If ObaminableCare fails, it will still be replaced by something akin to single-payer, not just abandoned; President Obama has pushed through the great transformation which makes the federal government ultimately responsible for the individual’s health care.

    More, he has expanded dependency on the federal government, to where the use of food stamps SNAP has doubled, and welfare rolls are growing.

    Mr Ollivander, who ran the magic wand shop in Diagon Alley, said to Harry Potter, when it turned out that the wand which selected Harry was the “brother” of the wand used by Lord Voldemort:

    I think we must expect great things from you, Mr Potter…. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great.

    That, unfortunately, is my current assessment of President Obama: he has done great, transformative things in our politics and our culture and our society. His policies are remaking us into a European democracy, and we can see those European democracies failing and falling. They are terrible things, but spectacular nevertheless.

    We will be forever poorer due to the miserable eight years under President Obama, but there will be a large segment of American society which will see him as the greatest President since Franklin Roosevelt.

    Of course, there are Russians who still see Josef Stalin as their greatest leader ever.

    The Dana who knows history (3e4784)

  94. ==“Thus there are a very significant number of working poor in America. These are the uninsured Americans.”==

    Perry – Citation

    Oh, give Perry break, daley. I’m sure he is just pointing out all those previously full time workers in America’s restaurants and small retail establishments who did have a modest but decent income and health insurance provided by their employers– but who are now being scheduled part time and are income challenged and insuranceless due to onerous Obamacare rules and costs. Yep. The workers’re lovin’ that little ACA related surprise. Thanks Barry, Harry, and Nancy!!!

    elissa (9c074b)

  95. MD in Philly, on Youtube, the channels vanellopesugarrush and CartoonJeStudios have the new episodes of P&F not yet available on Netflix. But I’m afraid that Parry’s bromance with Doofenshmirz is now in full bloom and I cannot see where it will end. Will Perry be seduced to evil like Darth Vader or will Doof reform? Or will there be an interminable period of moral ambiguity?

    nk (c5b7ef)

  96. Kevin M,

    As I read my link, the author says the primary issue in Origination Clause cases is how to interpret the phrase “bills for raising revenue.” The Origination Clause requires that such bills originate in the House. The author says the House has traditionally interpreted the phrase broadly, so that any legislation that even tangentially raises revenue for the government is a “bill for raising revenue.” But I don’t see how to get around the fact that H.R. 3590, the original bill in the House, did not raise revenue.

    Furthermore, the author points out that Supreme Court cases on the Origination Clause have imposed a more narrow standard than the broad standard the House has traditionally used. According to the paper at my link, the Court has limited the interpretation of “bills for raising revenue” to the following:

    (1) raising money must be the primary purpose of the measure, rather than an incidental effect; and (2) the resulting funds must be for the expenses or obligations of the government generally, rather than a single, specific purpose.

    If that’s true, then it seems even more doubtful that the Court would find this complies with the Origination Clause. On the other hand, the Court can still find the ACA complies with this statement of the rule or adopt a completely different rule. I think that’s especially true for this particular Court under Chief Justice Roberts’ leadership.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  97. “I’m sure he is just pointing out all those previously full time workers in America’s restaurants and small retail establishments who did have a modest but decent income and health insurance provided by their employers– but who are now being scheduled part time and are income challenged and insuranceless due to onerous Obamacare rules and costs.”

    elissa – Or he could have forgotten about a program like Medicaid because he is so incredibly stupid.

    You should check out the link he provided in comment #69 which unintentionally illustrates what a piss poor job Obama is doing. Perry steps on his schlong once again!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  98. #21 And our health care outcomes are inferior to many other nations.

    … Among the big lies invented along with “ER Crisis” and “50mm Uninsured”

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  99. #99 “Perry steps on his schlong once again!”

    You give him too much credit.
    .
    .
    .
    .
    Unless of course he is missing his legs.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  100. Otherwise, he’ll be known at the Herbert Hoover of the 21st Century.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 4/2/2013 @ 10:02 am

    Didn’t need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight.
    Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days.
    And you know who you were then, girls were girls and men were men.
    Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

    carlitos (49ef9f)

  101. As for Perry’s false claims about healthcare outcomes, it was specifically pointed out to him the last time he made those false claims.

    Perry’s lies are intentional.

    SPQR (d465a3)

  102. Comment by nk (c5b7ef) — 4/2/2013 @ 10:38 am

    Thank you, nk.
    But I must say, my 12 yo daughter thinks she has outgrown P+F for Doctor Who, Psych, Monk, etc.
    It’s just not the same without her. :'(

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  103. Except Hoover was not laid back, he supported Smoot Hawley, which was a suicidal move, supported the RFC. and a whole host of counterproductive things.

    narciso (3fec35)

  104. And our health care outcomes are inferior to many other nations.

    Comment by Perry (9bd80a) — 4/2/2013 @ 8:22 am

    Health care – outside of basic things like antibiotics – is not the primary determinant of life expectancy. The premise is BS. So garbage in garbage out.

    Elissa, I said nothing here about the ACA. However, I believe it is a step in the right direction, since more Americans will be insured, and health care costs should decrease over time.

    Comment by Perry (9bd80a) — 4/2/2013 @ 8:29 am

    Where are you getting that ACA should decrease health costs over time?

    Gerald A (fd4d6e)

  105. Why do those who claim to support Obamacare usually refer to it as the ACA if it is so good? If it was really great I would think Obama and his followers would love to have it called such.
    I think it is because they hope calling it the “Affordable Care Act” reminds people of what it was advertised to do, whether it does so or not, and perception is reality is what the libs have depended on for years.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  106. I wonder where Perry thinks the poor people are going to get healthcare when all the doctors are forced to close their doors due to their inability to hire enough help to fill out paperwork, especially after the ACA and other regulations reduce their payments for treating all those who get kicked to Medicaid?

    If the argument is that having uninsured people use emergency rooms is raising the cost of health care for all, how can it be that providing health insurance rather than care for those people would not raise the costs of health insurance for all?

    It just makes no sense to me.

    BornRed (826800)

  107. BornRed wrote:

    It just makes no sense to me.

    It never made any sense, which is why the liberals supported it.

    The mathmetician Dana (3e4784)

  108. DRJ @98

    I think that there is a pronoun problem here. Is the “bill for raising revenue” the original house bill, or the subsequent post-gutting Senate bill.

    Your link does not make that clear, but it seems to read clearer with my slant rather than yours — the resulting bill is what matters, not the House original. Clearly if the Senate took a House tax bill, gutted it and replaced it with a declaration of National Fig Week, it would not remain a “tax bill”, so what the Senate ends up doing matters. Since Reid did not choose to use a House tax bill — and he probably could have found one had he looked — maybe it doesn’t matter what the original House bill was.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  109. Since Reid did not choose to use a House tax bill — and he probably could have found one had he looked — maybe it doesn’t matter what the original House bill was.

    Or, maybe like with all their other escapades, they just figured they would do whatever the hell they wanted.

    JD (3cbfc7)

  110. Kevin M,

    I think the originating bill is the one that was first — in the case of ObamaCare, the House bill — but the Supreme Court may hold otherwise.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  111. By the way, to address the troll, yes, there was and is a need to deal with the pre-existing-condition issue for some people. Mostly people who have had health-care insurance for ages but find that they get lost in the cracks when they are forced to change policies after a change in their health. A portability option of some kind.

    I know one person who, while on COBRA, was diagnosed with prostate cancer, being of that age and male. He is finding it difficult to get an affordable private health policy for when the COBRA lapses even though he has never had a lapse in coverage before now. He should be able to port his coverage as he sees fit, without dragging in all the deadbeats who have never paid a dime and now want their $1 million diseases fixed.

    Yes, the Republicans failed to fix this kind of thing when they could. But Obamacare’s “fix” is a litany of nightmares along with a few good things. And as usual, they poor schmuck who plays by the rules and pays for everything is going to have to pay for this, too. With people like our troll demonizing him for objecting to the rape.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  112. DRJ, well yes, but it does not say anywhere that the originating bill had to be a tax bill. Just that some bill had to originate in the House. Semantics, perhaps, but I betcha this doesn’t make it past the Circuit court, if that far.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  113. Or, maybe like with all their other escapades, they just figured they would do whatever the hell they wanted

    Just because they ignore the Constitution, that doesn’t mean they don’t know what it says. I’m sure they try to abide by its terms when it doesn’t interfere too much.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  114. Oh, and surprise!!, Mary Landrieu (and Perry). Small Firms’ Offer of Plan Choices Under Health Law Delayed.

    The choice option…..was supposed to become available to small employers in January. But administration officials said they would delay it until 2015 in the 33 states where the federal government will be running insurance markets known as exchanges. And they will delay the requirement for other states as well.

    The promise of affordable health insurance for small businesses was portrayed as a major advantage of the new health care law, mentioned often by White House officials and Democratic leaders in Congress as they fought opponents of the legislation.

    Supporters of the law said they were disappointed by the turn of events.

    The delay will “prolong and exacerbate health care costs that are crippling 29 million small businesses,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana and the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

    In the weeks leading up to the passage of the health care legislation in 2010, Ms. Landrieu provided crucial support for the measure, after securing changes to help small businesses.

    The administration cited “operational challenges” as a reason for the delay.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/us/politics/option-for-small-business-health-plan-delayed.html?hp&_r=0

    elissa (9c074b)

  115. Man, I bet ol’ Mary is embarrassed and blushing over this “oopsie” that she so helpfully facilitated when she chose to believe her lying Dem congressional leadership.

    elissa (9c074b)

  116. Speaking as some one who believes that Obamacare is bad public policy which will result in reduced quality of care and higher costs, getting obamacare wiped out due to the origination clause will be major hurdle.
    1) The revenue raising provisions are relatively minor parts of the bill.
    2) I dont recall a case where miscellaneous fees, user fees etc comprising small parts of a much large bill have been considered a revenue raising bill.
    3) did the house bill not have some tax raising provisions such as tax on medical devices, tanning beds etc ( feel free to correct me on this point),
    4) Overturning on the origination clause will require at least one of the five to admit that they overlooked the origination clause issue. Its going to be very difficult for a justice to admit such a mistake.

    Joe (debac0)

  117. Kevin M,

    I think it has to be a revenue raising bill, and apparently the original bill wasn’t. Here is the description of HR 3590, now known as the Affordable Care Act, as it was originally introduced and passed in the House:

    Official: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes. as introduced.

    Short: Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 as passed house.

    Short: Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 as introduced.

    The title suggests it involved a tax-related matter but apparently it wasn’t a revenue raising bill. (In fact, it probably would have cost revenue if — as the title suggests — it provided a tax credit to taxpayers who were service members and federal employees.)

    The point is how do courts interpret the Origination Clause. I think it requires any revenue raising bill to originate in the House and to actually raise revenue in the original bill. The government says it’s enough that the original bill came from the House, even if it wasn’t a bill to raise revenue.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  118. The promise of affordable health insurance for small businesses was portrayed as a major advantage of the new health care law, mentioned often by White House officials and Democratic leaders in Congress as they fought opponents of the legislation.

    Supporters of the law said they were disappointed by the turn of events.

    Many opponents of the law are also disappointed as, one by one, the few silver linings disappear.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  119. DRJ,

    I guess they had to gut the bill to find out what was in it.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  120. But, given the mental hoops that Roberts had to jump through on his way to screwing us all, this won’t be a problem at all.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  121. 1) The revenue raising provisions are relatively minor parts of the bill.

    They are not minor. There are dozens of taxes, and the major tax/penalty/tax is central to the individual mandate.

    2) I dont recall a case where miscellaneous fees, user fees etc comprising small parts of a much large bill have been considered a revenue raising bill

    I am not sure there has ever been one of this magnitude before them.

    3) did the house bill not have some tax raising provisions such as tax on medical devices, tanning beds etc ( feel free to correct me on this point),

    No. The House bill was a tax credit, the opposite of revenue, for housing, as linked and referenced above.

    JD (b63a52)

  122. Overturning on the origination clause will require at least one of the five to admit that they overlooked the origination clause issue. Its going to be very difficult for a justice to admit such a mistake.

    I don’t think that issue was before the Court, so it wasn’t a mistake to fail to address it. I’m sure the Supreme Court Justices know about the Origination Clause and knew about it then.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  123. Overturning on the origination clause will require at least one of the five to admit that they overlooked the origination clause issue. Its going to be very difficult for a justice to admit such a mistake.

    I don’t get this. Did I miss where this was in front of them previously?

    JD (b63a52)

  124. A quick read of the die-hards’ comments over at the NYT website indicates they’ve sort of soured on B.O’s healthcare implelentation capabilities. But Hillary now, girlie—Hillary’ll get ‘er done after 2016.

    God, they sound just like Cubs fans.

    elissa (9c074b)

  125. SPQR @ 82:

    Thanks for the cites.

    Regarding the first cite, one must look at the whole picture, SPQR, not selecting only those which meet your ideological talking points. Thus, it is some few employers who have responded to the ACA by no longer providing assistance to health insurance premiums for their employees. However, it is projected that 30 million more Americans will be covered by health insurance under the ACA. So if employers take 7 million off of their health insurance rolls, and 30 million gain health insurance, do the math, SPQR, and tell me the net gain. Would it be 22 million Americans getting health insurance?

    And that net gain will translate into lowering costs, because fewer will go to emergency rooms for free treatment – we all benefit from that!

    Regarding your second cite, the first line delineates the problem with federally mandated medicaid expansion under the ACA:

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Monday that expanding Medicaid will worsen health care for the poor, despite the fact that the state has the highest uninsured rate in the country.

    Yes indeed, the state of Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the country. That speaks to self-initiated hardship for the poor folks by the great state of Texas, which is primarily a state problem not a federal problem. The ACA is requiring the state of Texas to step up to its responsibilities for their citizens, for a change.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  126. The article I linked above on the Origination Clause was a summary that links to the full paper. Here is a link to the full paper. There are examples in the paper where the House and the Senate interpreted how the Origination Clause applies in the context of bills that raise miscellaneous fees and receipts. (See pages 6-11.) The Supreme Court analysis starts at page 11.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  127. Perry,

    Yes, indeed, Texas is a great state. I’m glad you agree.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  128. IMO the Supreme Court could uphold ObamaCare against an Origination Clause challenge if it finds the AFA legislation originated in the House (as it did); and further that it doesn’t matter if the subject of the original bill was different than the ultimate bill signed into law (many bills change forms as they go forward).

    I guess the Court could also find that the point of the AFA isn’t to raise revenue within the context of the Origination Clause, but Roberts’ decision that it includes a tax may make that argument more difficult. I assume the government will argue that the purpose of the AFA isn’t to raise revenue, so the tax is an incidental effect.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  129. When even the NYT is sort of throwing in the towel on Obamacare it makes Perry sort of look like those poor pathetic solitary Japanese soldiers who were stuck and still fighting WW2 for imperial Japan on remote islands into the 1970’s.

    elissa (9c074b)

  130. a statute that creates, and raises revenue to support, a particular governmental program, as opposed to a statute that raises revenue to support Government generally, is not a “Bil[l] for raising Revenue.” Full case here https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/495/495.US.385.88-1932.html

    nk (c5b7ef)

  131. daleyrocks@91:

    Perry – Citation for the linkage between your two sentences please!

    From the Kaiser Foundation:

    Who Is the Uninsured Population?……………………………………………………………………5
    Most people without health coverage are in working families and have low incomes.
    Adults make up a disproportionate share of the uninsured population because they are
    less likely than children to be eligible for Medicaid. While a plurality of uninsured people
    are White non-Hispanic, racial/ethnic minorities are at especially high risk of being
    uninsured.

    I suggest you peruse that cite, as it might change your perception of the health care needs of our nation.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  132. Kevin M,

    I’m not a constitutional lawyer (let alone a constitutional scholar) so my thoughts on this aren’t worth any more than anyone else’s — whether they are laymen or lawyers. I’m just trying to think through this topic by talking about it.

    NOTE to nk:

    As noted above, I’m not knowledgeable about this subject but my guess is that case is distinguishable since it involved payments directly into a Crime Victim’s Fund. I assume the AFA tax is paid into the general revenue fund.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  133. Yes, sorry DRJ, I had not clicked your link until after.

    nk (c5b7ef)

  134. No reason to be sorry at all. I may certainly be completely off-base in everything I say. In addition, there are so few cases on this topic that looking at all of them is important.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  135. For instance, if the Supreme Court holds that the AFA is not a “bill for raising revenue” or any revenue raised is an incidental effect, then I guess it doesn’t matter where it originated.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  136. The original bill passed by the House of Representatives was the “Service Members Home Ownership Act of 2009.” Reid literally used that bill as a shell, eliminated every word, and replaced it with the language of ObamaCare. It is as cynical a bypass of the Origination Clause as one can imagine.

    Maybe my legal analysis needs work, but if this were deemed to meet the standards of the Origination Clause, there is no functional meaning to the clause.

    Moreover, as a textual matter, “All bills for raising revenue” means a bill that is designed to raise revenue. If the House bill didn’t do that, then it’s not a bill for raising revenue that originated in the House.

    What am I missing?

    bridget (84c06f)

  137. Perry,

    Do you know anything about Medicaid?

    I can say without a doubt that Medicaid + Ambulance Chasers are 95% of the reason we have a health care spending problem in this country.

    But you would need to know how the system works to understand why ….

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  138. …. Elissa, I said nothing here about the ACA. However, I believe it is a step in the right direction, since more Americans will be insured, and health care costs should decrease over time. Comment by Perry (9bd80a) — 4/2/2013 @ 8:29 am

    LOL!!!!!!!!

    Find me one provision in the law which decrease demand or drastically increases supply.

    Otherwise, you really are an imbecile to write that.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  139. The only thing I can think of, bridget, is that the Court may decide that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House, but that doesn’t mean they originated in the same form as ultimately passed. In other words, there is no requirement that the original House bill raised revenue, only that bills for raising revenue that were signed into law had to originate in the House.

    But I haven’t read the cases so that may be distinction without merit.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  140. And that net gain will translate into lowering costs, because fewer will go to emergency rooms for free treatment – we all benefit from that!

    Perry, that is a factual allegation that can be challenged, or supported, with data, not an axiom.

    The facts show that insured people spend more in health insurance. Massachusetts has both the lowest rates of uninsurance in the nation and the highest health care costs.

    The logic tells us that if the government is paying for emergency room care, or paying for “insurance” for emergency room care, it’s still government money for people’s health care. You’re still paying for the insurance, which, over thirty million people, costs more than just writing off the medical care costs.

    I do NOT understand how anyone can fail to grasp that “the government pays for health insurance” does NOT make health care spending disappear; it just reallocates it from writing off various costs to paying for people’s insurance. It’s an accounting issue, not a saving money issue.

    bridget (84c06f)

  141. Also, is it possible the Court could hold that the AFA is not a “bill for raising revenue” because the tax imposed is incidental to the bill’s purpose?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  142. Thus, it is some few employers who have responded to the ACA by no longer providing assistance to health insurance premiums for their employees. However, it is projected that 30 million more Americans will be covered by health insurance under the ACA

    You are profoundly ignorant and naive, Perry.

    JD (3cbfc7)

  143. Perry wrote:

    Regarding the first cite, one must look at the whole picture, SPQR, not selecting only those which meet your ideological talking points. Thus, it is some few employers who have responded to the ACA by no longer providing assistance to health insurance premiums for their employees. However, it is projected that 30 million more Americans will be covered by health insurance under the ACA. So if employers take 7 million off of their health insurance rolls, and 30 million gain health insurance, do the math, SPQR, and tell me the net gain. Would it be 22 million Americans getting health insurance?

    This assumes that the number of people who lose their health insurance due to ObaminableCare will be limited to 7 million, and the estimates of the gains will be realized.

    But we’ve already seen that the “estimates” of lowered costs not only haven’t been met, but that premiums are increasing, and ObaminableCare hasn’t even come into full effect. Could this be because the estimates were made by the same economic geniuses who told us that the stimulus plan would hold unemployment to a maximum of 8% (CBO said 8.5%) and have it below 6% by mid 2012?

    The problem isn’t that the advocates have missed on a few of their projections; the problem is that they have gotten wrong everything they have told us would happen. Not one of their projections has turned out right, or close to right!

    The basic problem is simple: liberals simply do not understand economics; if they did, they wouldn’t be liberals anymore. They made projections on how they thought that economic actors should respond, and got all of them wrong, because their projections were not based on how people actually behave economically, but on how they thought that people should behave economically.

    The Dana who notes the assumptions (af9ec3)

  144. And that net gain will translate into lowering costs, because fewer will go to emergency rooms for free treatment – we all benefit from that!

    How do you manage to make it through a day without injuring yourself with a marshmallow?

    JD (3cbfc7)

  145. elissa@131:

    When even the NYT is sort of throwing in the towel on Obamacare it makes Perry sort of look like those poor pathetic solitary Japanese soldiers who were stuck and still fighting WW2 for imperial Japan on remote islands into the 1970′s.

    Now you are spinning your own NYT cite, elissa, thus undermining your own credibility. The article reports a delay in implementing a certain aspect of the ACA – that’s not at all throwing in the town.

    Recall also that Medicare, likewise a piece of complex legislation, had difficulty over time thus requiring changes, especially wrt weeding out fraud.

    Perry (9bd80a)

  146. For instance, if the Supreme Court holds that the AFA is not a “bill for raising revenue” or any revenue raised is an incidental effect, then I guess it doesn’t matter where it originated.

    There is nothing incidental about the tax penalty tax provisions in ObamaCare. They are central to the structure of it.

    JD (3cbfc7)

  147. Perry cites the fundamental disagreement:

    Yes indeed, the state of Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the country. That speaks to self-initiated hardship for the poor folks by the great state of Texas, which is primarily a state problem not a federal problem. The ACA is requiring the state of Texas to step up to its responsibilities for their citizens, for a change.

    Why is it the state’s responsibility if someone is uninsured? Why isn’t it the individual’s responsibility to take care of himself?

    Of course, the state is really nothing, except a collection and redistribution organ. Why should those individuals who work harder and more productively have part of the fruits of their labor seized to provide for those who don’t work as hard — or at all — and less productively?

    The Dana who disagrees (af9ec3)

  148. The problem isn’t that the advocates have missed on a few of their projections; the problem is that they have gotten wrong everything they have told us would happen. Not one of their projections has turned out right, or close to right!

    Not only that, but almost every concern we raised, despite being told that our concerns were unfounded and racist, has become reality.

    JD (3cbfc7)

  149. #132 – NK Thanks for the link
    An interesting statement from Stevens from the case which pretty sums up Stevens attitude of the constitution –
    Although Justice STEVENS agrees with the Government that this Court should not entertain Origination Clause challenges, he relies on a novel theory that the Government does not advance. He notes that the Constitution is silent as to the consequences of a violation of the Origination Clause, but that it provides by implication that any bill that passes both Houses and is signed by the President becomes a law. See Art. I, § 7, cl. 2; post, at 401-403, and n. 1. From this Justice STEVENS infers the proposition that “some bills may become law even if they are improperly originated.” Post, at 403.

    Stevens statement above along with his dissent in Heller and CU sums up his believe that the constitution has no bearing on constitutional law.

    Joe (debac0)

  150. Of course, not only have all of the projections of the proponents of ObumbleCare been wrong, but the arguments by the opponents have, to the extent that they could be measured, proved to be right. We said it would raise costs, not lower them, and we have been right. We said that it would result in people losing their insurance, and we’ve been right.

    The conservative Dana (af9ec3)

  151. All this ragging on Herbert Hoover. Did not FDR (yes, the god of dems) not follow HH’s policies for awhile until someone clued him that they were not working?

    Also, it is my understanding that the advent of WWII and the production required got us out of the great depression.

    Ranking of some presidents Worst to best.

    Obama
    Carter
    Buchanan

    Washington
    Lincoln

    Andy (b63f79)

  152. Is your uniform starting to get noticeably ragged, Perry? Honestly, wouldn’t you like to just give up the hopeless battle and start a new life away from that island? Don’t you wonder why your leaders lied to you and have left you so alone and bereft of hope when you know how loyal and trusting you were when you joined their army and were going to change the world?

    elissa (9c074b)

  153. JD:

    There is nothing incidental about the tax penalty tax provisions in ObamaCare. They are central to the structure of it.

    I agree the mandate is central to ObamaCare, but it went away. The tax is its replacement.

    Actually, if the Court holds that the AFA violates the Origination Clause and if the Court is willing to take the further step of finding it void or voidable — and that’s a lot of “if’s” — then I’d give Roberts credit for this. As an authentic Constitutional scholar, I’m sure he thought of this.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  154. PS: The mandate was mandatory but the tax isn’t mandatory. People can get insurance and avoid paying the tax.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  155. Perry, your BS convinces no one. You use old discredited numbers from four years ago to refute what the CBO is happening now. This is exactly why it is clear your BS is intentionally dishonest. It is failing to add predicted covered persons and it is driving people out of coverage. You can’t hide that Obamacare is a failure already and getting worse.

    By the end of this year the clamor to repeal will be deafening. Democrats will lose the Senate in2014. And Democrats will spend a decade in exile from their economic catastrophe.

    SPQR (1e15b3)

  156. And that net gain will translate into lowering costs, because fewer will go to emergency rooms for free treatment – we all benefit from that!

    Comment by Perry (9bd80a) — 4/2/2013 @ 3:21 pm

    You have every simple minded discredited liberal talking point down.

    Gerald A (c7c56a)

  157. “I suggest you peruse that cite, as it might change your perception of the health care needs of our nation.”

    Perry – I suggest you peruse page 5 of your link and let me know if says anything about people being uninsured by choice.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  158. # 155 Actually, if the Court holds that the AFA violates the Origination Clause and if the Court is willing to take the further step of finding it void or voidable — and that’s a lot of “if’s” — then I’d give Roberts credit for this. As an authentic Constitutional scholar, I’m sure he thought of this.

    Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) —

    I have mentioned that it would very wishful thinking that Roberts would have to admit he is wrong – however, the issue before the court was not the origination clause, so that may be his out. We can only hope.

    Joe (debac0)

  159. #157

    Democrats will lose the Senate in2014. And Democrats will spend a decade in exile from their economic catastrophe.

    Comment by SPQR (1e15b3) — 4/2/2013

    I call BS – Dems got to many new voters looking forward to their free health care.

    Joe (debac0)

  160. Joe,

    I don’t have much confidence in Roberts either.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  161. Every single thing about Obamacare is unconstitutional. The feds have no enumerated power to do any of the things that act calls for.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  162. And as important, because of the economic distortions in recent decades regarding income and wealth, we now have about 44 million Americans living in poverty.

    And it will become worse and worse, as the US becomes more and more like a northern version of our neighbor to the south, Mexico. I feel all warm and fuzzy about the following:

    news.discovery.com, May 2012: About half the population [of Mexico] was uninsured as of 2009, although a free program was set up in 2003 to help low-income families get coverage. Employed citizens can buy private insurance or obtain treatment through the country’s public health system, known as the Mexican Social Security Institute. The different insurance systems all use different facilities and providers.

    examiner.com: June 2007: Judicial Watch’s president Tom Fitton reported that Mexico directs their citizens who live in the U.S. illegally to use taxpayer funded clinics in a dozen cities. The program is called Ventanillas de Salud (Health Windows), and is implemented in American cities where Mexican consulates are located.

    Fitton wrote the following: “Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego and Indiana are among the cities where Mexican consulates operate the health referral system which annually costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars. In Los Angeles County alone, illegal immigrants cost taxpayers nearly $440 million in health services annually and a whopping $1.1 billion statewide.

    The Mexican consul in Los Angeles proudly announced that nearly 300,000 Mexicans in the area have benefited from his government’s health referral program, which he says actually saves the county money by encouraging immigrants to seek preventive care rather than waiting for more expensive emergency treatment.

    Mark (e5fd6c)

  163. All this ragging on Herbert Hoover. Did not FDR (yes, the god of dems) not follow HH’s policies for awhile until someone clued him that they were not working?

    I admit that until not too many years ago I was quite ignorant about the history of Herbert Hoover. I vaguely remember buying into a dumb stereotype that his notoriety (eg, tent towns known as “Hooverville”) was due to his being a cavalier, big-money-bags, survival-of-the-fittest Republican. I assumed his unpopularity was because of that, because he wasn’t a big-mommy liberal. That’s why I was surprised to learn that he actually triggered many of the exact same idiotic policies that Franklin Roosevelt took to the next level, including ratcheting up income taxes on wealthier Americans, from around the mid-20s to the high 70s.

    Obama would have loved Herbert Hoover. And if the stereotype of his being a let-them-eat-cake, joy-riding elitist were applicable too, so would Michelle.

    Mark (e5fd6c)

  164. I really couldn’t care less that Perry breathes and types. I’m done.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  165. Perry,

    Because I never talk to you, and many are calling you a troll, allow me to try discussing something with you. Let’s start with your first assertion, that there are 50 million uninsured in this country. I will take that claim seriously and address it.

    I previously wrote about this and summarized the argument of a guest on EconTalk regarding this claim in this way:

    For example, we were told that there were as many as 50 million uninsured people in this country. But as Atlas explained, that number was greatly exaggerated.

    First, as we discussed on this blog previously, somewhere between 10 and 15 million of that group are not U.S. citizens. That may be a problem, but it’s more of an immigration problem. That does not seem like a reason to turn our health care system upside down.

    What about the remaining 35-40 million? Atlas explained that those numbers came from a survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. And there were about 10 million people who said they didn’t have insurance, but did — as was discovered by cross-referencing the claims with medical records that contradicted the claims. For the most part, these people were using Medicaid, which they may not have considered insurance. Apparently people thought the question was asking about private insurance. But someone who is getting health care through Medicaid is hardly “uninsured.”

    Then, it turns out that there was another group of about 13 million people who were eligible for public insurance (Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP/CHIP) who are eligible for state health insurance but did not access it yet.

    Ultimately, Atlas says “you are left with a population of less than 5% of people in the United States who don’t have insurance or who are not already eligible for current government insurance programs. I would not call that a crisis in the uninsured.” Indeed.

    Now, since you made the assertion, I think it’s only fair to ask you to discuss these counterarguments with me. Fair warning: I consider this a test of whether you are a troll. Sometimes people who simply bring up counterarguments are labeled trolls, but are not. Then again, sometimes people are really just out to waste our time.

    I want to find out for myself which category you fall into.

    I’m not looking to get distracted by irrelevancies, and if you simply ignore me I will deem you a troll. I want to know if you are going to admit error in the face of these counterarguments, or, conversely, if you would like to take on these arguments in some meaningful way.

    The ball is most assuredly in your court.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  166. Well Hoover was undoubtedly a progressive, however he was a figure of great accomplishment, during the First World War, and subsequently,

    narciso (3fec35)

  167. Patterico, while I understand your attempt to engage Perry, I don’t fling around the label haphazardly.

    Perry has repeatedly echoed the arguments of four years ago – without dealing with the fact that many of them (like the 50 million number you touch upon above) were long ago refuted. And when his claims are specifically addressed, he wanders off … and then wanders back and repeats that same discredited argument. It is as if Perry thinks that no one is paying attention.

    And the most hilarious events have been when his own “citation” links refute his claims. A cynic might even begin to suspect that Perry does not even bother to read the talking points he’s been supplied with … and failed to notice that they were stale four years ago.

    Certainly what Perry refuses to do is notice that over the last four years we’ve had concrete failures of Obamacare. Specific things that were supposed to happen, specific “uninsured” people who were supposed to be covered by now, this date, that haven’t.

    And we have concrete evidence of the incentives to cut hours, cut employees and cut health insurance altogether already happening.

    And we have premiums going up faster than even Obamacare opponents predicted. Regulations more oppressive than opponents predicted. Implementation more delayed due to Obama administration incompetence.

    We already know that Obamacare is a failure. Perry tries to ignore what we know, and repeat bogus predictions and debunked arguments.

    SPQR (768505)

  168. I believe that it is eminently fair of our esteemed host to give Perry a chance. Perry lives in the Eastern Time Zone, so it’s probable that he won’t see Pat’s comment and respond until tomorrow.

    The extremely fair Dana (af9ec3)

  169. I think Scalia’s opinion in the case linked by nk kills this attack on ObamaCare. It’s dead on point. You could have Roberts but you’d lose Scalia, and the 4 liberals are result-oriented hacks. This will not work. Oh well.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  170. Is there a special fund for taxes from ObamaCare? I thought the ObamaCare taxes are general fund revenues.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  171. Wait, which link by nk are you talking about?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  172. This one, I don’t see the relevance;

    https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/495/495.US.385.88-1932.html

    narciso (3fec35)

  173. narciso,

    Correct. That link. DRJ: that’s the link.

    “The signing by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and by the President of the Senate, in open session, of an enrolled bill, is an official attestation by the two houses of such bill as one that has passed Congress. It is a declaration by the two houses, through their presiding officers, to the President, that a bill, thus attested, has received, in due form, the sanction of the legislative branch of the government, and that it is delivered to him in obedience to the constitutional requirement that all bills which pass Congress shall be presented to him. And when a bill, thus attested, receives his approval, and is deposited in the public archives, its authentication as a bill that has passed Congress should be deemed complete and unimpeachable. . . . The respect due to coequal and independent departments requires the judicial department to act upon that assurance, and to accept, as having passed Congress, all bills authenticated in the manner stated: leaving the courts to determine, when the question properly arises, whether the act, so authenticated, is in conformity with the Constitution.” Id., at 672, 12 S.Ct., at 497.

    44
    This salutary principle is also supported by the uncertainty and instability that would result if every person were ” ‘required to hunt through the journals of a legislature to determine whether a statute, properly certified by the speaker of the house and the president of the senate, and approved by the governor, is a statute or not.’ ” Id., at 677, 12 S.Ct., at 499 (quoting Weeks v. Smith, 81 Me. 538, 547, 18 A. 325, 327 (1889)).

    45
    The same principle, if not the very same holding, leads me to conclude that federal courts should not undertake an independent investigation into the origination of the statute at issue here. The enrolled bill which, when signed by the President, became the Victims of Crime Act of 1984, 98 Stat. 2170, bore the indication “H.J. Res. 648.” The designation “H.J. Res.” (a standard abbreviation for “House Joint Resolution”) attests that the legislation originated in the House. Such an attestation is not explicitly required by the Constitution, but is reasonably necessary to the operation of Art. I, § 7, cl. 2, which requires the President, if he desires to veto a bill, to “return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated.” The President can hardly be expected to search the legislative journals (if they have even been printed by the time his veto must be cast) in order to determine where to direct his veto message. Indeed, it can be said that the attestation is reasonably necessary to the operation of Art. I, § 7, cl. 1 (the Revenue-Origination Clause), itself. The President, after all, is bound not to sign an improperly originated revenue bill by the same oath that binds us not to apply it, so he must have a ready means of knowing whence it came.

    46
    The enrolled bill’s indication of its House of origin establishes that fact as officially and authoritatively as it establishes the fact that its recited text was adopted by both Houses. With respect to either fact a court’s holding, based on its own investigation, that the representation made to the President is incorrect would, as Marshall Field said, manifest a lack of respect due a coordinate branch and produce uncertainty as to the state of the law. I cannot imagine this Court’s entertaining a claim that purportedly vetoed legislation took effect because, although the President returned it to the House of origination indicated on the enrolled bill, that was not the real house of origination. It should similarly accept the congressional representation in the present case. We should no more gainsay Congress’ official assertion of the origin of a bill than we would gainsay its official assertion that the bill was passed by the requisite quorum, see Art. I, § 5, cl. 1; or any more than Congress or the President would gainsay the official assertion of this Court that a judgment was duly considered and approved by our majority vote. Mutual regard between the coordinate branches, and the interest of certainty, both demand that official representations regarding such matters of internal process be accepted at face value.

    47
    This disposition does not place forever beyond our reach the only issue in this area that seems to me appropriate for judicial rather than congressional resolution: what sort of bills constitute “Bills for raising Revenue,” Art. I, § 7, cl. 1. Whenever Congress wishes to preserve the possibility of a judicial determination on this point, all it need do is originate the bill that contains the arguably revenue-raising measure in the Senate, indicating such origination on the enrolled bill, as by the caption “S.J. Res.” This Court may thereby have the last word on what constitutes a bill for raising revenue, and Congress the last word on where a particular bill has originated—which seems to me as it should be.

    48
    For these reasons, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  174. That seems like the death knell for this theory, no?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  175. Here’s a way to tell if Perry is a troll:
    Look back through all of his posts on this thread. Do ANY of them address the topic of the thread? Seems to me that from his very first post he was jacking the thread away from the question of constitutionality and instead argued for ACA’s implementation on a moral basis.
    Perry didn’t add anything to the discussion of whether or not the Origination Clause applies, but his comments were highly illustrative of liberal indifference to legalities in the pursuit of ‘doing the right thing.’

    Icy (377ad8)

  176. Patterico,

    I note that Kennedy also concurred on the basis of “it is not a general revenue tax”, so that would be 6 votes.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  177. Kevin M.,

    I’d have to think more about the application of that argument to ObamaCare.

    But Scalia’s is pretty cut and dried and that kills any chance of getting 5 votes, so boom were done.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  178. BTW, I am waiting for the absolute whining come early 2014 by 20-somethings forced to buy expensive health insurance. Elections have consequences, even when your guy wins.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  179. Icy,

    That could be a guy just talking about what he wants to talk about.

    To me, a troll is narrowly defined as someone actively out to waste your time.

    Perry may well be one but I’ll give him one chance.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  180. Yeah I see that. I’d be hard pressed to argue it was a general tax, though. Even if it raised the Medicare tax (oh, wait..), I’d still say no.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  181. I agree the courts try to defer to Congress on whether legislation is properly passed, but I think nk’s case (in Marshall’s majority opinion) also says that doesn’t mean there can’t be judicial review. Even though he disagrees, I assume Scalia would recognize it as precedent.

    In addition, where the bill originated isn’t the only issue in this case. There is also the issue of whether the originating bill was a “bill for raising revenue.”

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  182. Perry, are you a retired government employee ?

    You always sound terrified that any cutback in the growth of government will result in you having to live under a bridge, while eating catfood, and doing the daily crossword puzzle in discarded issues of the NY Times newspapers that you find on a park bench.

    By the way, in today’s crossword puzzle you need a four letter synonym for a liberal for “6 across.”
    It’s “jerk.”

    Elephant Stone (442678)

  183. But the function of the bill, in that case, was punishing the crime, not raising revenue,

    narciso (3fec35)

  184. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m only half following your discussion, but isn’t it also true that Congress is wrongly delegating their job to a bunch of unelected bureaucrats? This leads to folly, and worse. Like today, HHS said, oops, we’re delaying the small business portion for a year. What??

    The Founders wanted electoral accountability, no? We are about to find out why.

    Patricia (be0117)

  185. DRJ,

    OK, that’s a good point. I suppose it’s just like the issue of ObamaCare was a tax. Scalia can say: “seemed like a penalty to me, but I lost that issue, so it’s a tax.” He can also say: “I thought the courts shouldn’t second guess this sort of thing at all, but there were six votes in Munoz-Flores that said the Field case I relied on doesn’t apply, so I guess we can.”

    Philosophically, though, it appears it would not be an easy decision for him.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  186. No, Patterico, we’ve seen before that Scalia will apply precedent that he disagreed with at the time.

    SPQR (768505)

  187. As for the argument over whether ObamaCare is a bill raising revenue, I suppose that’s not a slam dunk, but the pen-, er, tax, has clearly been held a tax, not a penalty. So the Court would have to conclude that an exercise of the taxing power is not a bill to raise revenue (has it ever so held?), and then draw a line between those bills and exercises of the taxing power that ARE bills to raise revenue. That sounds like a difficult line-drawing exercise. If we accept that bills to raise revenue must originate in the House, and (contra Scalia’s concurrence) we’re not going to just take Congress’s word for it, how does a court draw the line on when an exercise of the taxing power is not a “bill to raise revenue”?

    Interesting questions all. I am sure keen to see the court’s ruling on this.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  188. No, Patterico, we’ve seen before that Scalia will apply precedent that he disagreed with at the time.

    I’m agreeing. DRJ has won me over with her argument, which I was dim not to recognize to begin with.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  189. It still sounds like a case the Supreme Court will take only if the lower courts find it unconstitutional. I.e., if the district court and/or the court of appeals uphold ACA, the Supreme Court will not touch it.

    nk (d4662f)

  190. Doesn’t the opinion you are referencing assume good faith on the actors involved?

    JD (b63a52)

  191. Can Congress pass a gas tax originating in the Senate and argue that it’s trying to discourage energy consumption?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  192. Can Congress attach a motivation other than raising revenue to any exercise of the taxing power and claim that raising revenue is only incidental?

    Heck, maybe even the income tax is primarily about spreading the wealth around, and the revenue raised is only incidental! Who dares to second guess us?!

    Patterico (9c670f)

  193. Yeah, gotta say, I’m trying, but it’s feeling like a long shot, huh?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  194. I don’t really think its a strong attack. I think the real question is whether or not the court will see the Constitutional provision as having some sort of importance over and above the House having a perogative regarding revenue bills that it would have to enforce itself.

    SPQR (768505)

  195. Patricia – that ship has sailed. Congress has been delegating to unelected bureaucrats the power to make law, in the form of ‘regulations’, for decades.

    The subbranch of law which looks at the rules governing such delegations is called ‘administrative law’, and the delegation includes in some instances both the power to make rules and the power to judge whether rules have been violated.

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  196. Aphrael – wasn’t that done to a considerably greater degree with this?

    JD (b63a52)

  197. > If we accept that bills to raise revenue must originate in the House, and (contra Scalia’s concurrence) we’re not going to just take Congress’s word for it, how does a court draw the line on when an exercise of the taxing power is not a “bill to raise revenue”?

    Wouldn’t they have to look to how ‘the taxing power’ was commonly understood to be defined either in the pre-revolutionary common law or (for the income tax) at the time of the adoption of the sixteenth amendment?

    I agree that this would lead to a fascinating opinion – or at the very least, some fascinating briefs. It also makes me wonder if there are any law review articles on this subject.

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  198. JD – sure, but Patricia’s comment looked to me like a categorical objection to Congress delegating its authority, not a “some delegations were ok but this one isn’t” relative objection. 🙂

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  199. We should just do away with the Constitution on account of the fact that the Constitution provides too many obstacles to liberal utopia.

    I think it would be better for everyone if we just consent to being governed by an oligarchy comprised of lawyers, judges, law students, public school teachers, journalists, union spokemen, and community organizers.

    Elephant Stone (442678)

  200. DRJ at 141 – that would seem to hollow out the requirement to the point of meaninglessness, though.

    All of this does seem to center on the bizarre and yet interesting philosophical question of when a bill is so altered that it’s no longer the same bill. I think this is one of those things where, while it’s possible to point at things which are clearly not-the-same and it’s possible to point at things which are clearly the same, finding a clear rule to differentiate them is going to be very difficult.

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  201. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m only half following your discussion, but isn’t it also true that Congress is wrongly delegating their job to a bunch of unelected bureaucrats? This leads to folly, and worse.

    Patricia–

    The Medicare cost review panel does seem to be a rather unique beast in that it can author laws that require a supermajority veto by Congress. Further, it can only be disbanded during a very short window in Obama’s second term. Lots of room to challenge this thing on separation-of-powers grounds, not to mention binding future congresses.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  202. > The Medicare cost review panel does seem to be a rather unique beast in that it can author laws that require a supermajority veto by Congress

    Granted that I haven’t been following health care closely, but how do they argue that this is consistent with _Chadha_?

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  203. Patterico’s link says no legislation has ever been invalidated because of the Origination Clause. I wonder if CJ Roberts wants his Court to be the first, especially if he is as concerned about the image of the Court as it seems.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  204. As nk notes, this may not even make it to the Supreme Court unless the lower courts find it unconstitutional.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  205. Aphrael, there are several things in the Constitution that seemed like good ideas at the time, but are moribund like this one. The guarantee of a republican form of government in the states is interpreted quite narrowly, for example. The “limited terms” of copyright, for another, although I still have some hope for that.

    This clause seems, well, a bit of a technicality so maybe the violation has to rise to a fairly high level before the Court wakes up.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  206. aphrael,

    I linked a CRS summary on this topic in my comment 49 and the full CRS paper in my comment 128.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  207. Kevin – I was irritated by the outcome in _Eldred_. And the Dorr Rebellion was a perfect example of a time when the Guaranty Clause should have come into play.

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  208. I’m interesting in the district court’s opinion, too. Not only will it be interesting because it involves ObamaCare and is a novel legal question, but it may be one of the few times a court can include and address every reported case on the issue presented.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  209. DRJ, thank you.

    Another important aspect of the Court’s role in enforcing the origination clause is that Supreme Court Justices do not look behind the bill as enrolled to determine its validity. That is, the Court limits its role to determining whether a given provision fits the definition of a bill for raising revenue. When questions of origination are involved, the Court looks only to the measure’s designation as a House or Senate bill, and does not examine the journals of the House or Senate to determine in which house a particular revenue provision may actually have originated. This “enrolled bill rule” is illustrated in two cases. In Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., the Court refused to look beyond the designation of the underlying measure as a House bill. In this case, a House bill that included inheritance tax provisions had been amended by the Senate to contain corporate taxes instead. The Court held that “The bill having properly originated in the House, we perceive no reason in the constitutional provision … why it may not be amended in the Senate in the manner which it was in this case.”5

    I’m really torn on this.

    On the one hand, this is the sort of legal formalism that I tend to dislike, as I think it deprives the rule of its substance and leaves behind a meaningless shell.

    On the other hand, once you allow amendments, I don’t see what reasonable non-arbitrary basis there is for drawing a line at any particular point. What are the standards one could use to tell if a bill originated in the house, that allows amendments but doesn’t allow strip-and-replace, and what’s the *basis* for such standards other than the personal preference of the Justices choosing them?

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  210. On the one hand, this is the sort of legal formalism that I tend to dislike, as I think it deprives the rule of its substance and leaves behind a meaningless shell.

    You mean like Harry Reid did with the “Service Members Home Ownership Act of 2009″?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  211. I agree 100% with all Perry’s comments in this thread, with this amendment: strike all his words and replace them with the words of my comments in their place.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  212. I’m not familiar with that act, Patterico, so all I can say is “maybe”. 🙂

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  213. aphrael,

    The AFA originated in the House as the “Service Members Home Ownership Act of 2009.”

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  214. aphrael,

    Re-read the post, especially the third to last paragraph.

    It’s actually kind of a funny comment once you understand it. If I do say so my damn self.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  215. Wup, DRJ beat me to it while I was looking up Fletch sound files.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  216. … strike all his words and replace them with the words of my comments in their place.
    Comment by Patterico (9c670f) — 4/2/2013 @ 8:30 pm

    Well-played.

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  217. Ahh, I see. *embarassed look*

    I’m not fond of strip-and-replace as a means of bill modification – this happens a lot in California, where there are deadlines for the introduction of bills which are avoided by the means of strip-and-replace. And I was noting in 212 that I’m uncomfortable with the notion that this is ok, because it strips all of the substantive meaning out of the origination clause.

    But I’m having a hard time seeing a non-arbitrary line. Does acceptable amendment become strip-and-replace at 50% replacement? 75% replacement? etc.

    Now maybe we just need to have an arbitrary rule; I think sometimes courts have to invent arbitrary rules for cases like this. But I’d prefer some non-arbitrary basis for it. 🙂

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  218. But I’m having a hard time seeing a non-arbitrary line. Does acceptable amendment become strip-and-replace at 50% replacement? 75% replacement? etc.

    How about 100%? Bright enough line for you?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  219. aphrael,

    One could argue that strip-and-replace is fine as long as the basic nature of the original bill stays the same until it is finalized. That could mean the topic of the original bill should match the topic of the final bill. Or it could mean a final “bill for raising revenue” must be originated as a “bill for raising revenue.”

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  220. Write your representative and have him move to amend the Assembly’s rules of procedure.

    nk (d4662f)

  221. Patterico – so if every word but one is replaced, you’ve missed 100%, and that’s ok.

    If that’s the rule, it’s trivially easy to game, so I don’t think that works.

    DRJ’s suggestion at 222 is better, although it leads to a massive bog down trying to define ‘basic nature’.

    Requiring that a bill for raising revenue must be originated as such seems a promising way to go.

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  222. the bottom line is obamacare is unconstitutional and the pervert roberts court needs to get right with god

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  223. NK – since i’m no longer a citizen of California, it would be inappropriate of me to complain to the CA Assembly about its rules of procedure, and I don’t feel like I understand the NY rules well enough to even begin to think about complaining to the legislature about them.

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  224. Or Congress’s as the case may be.

    We have an amendatory veto here in Illinois and governors raise taxes, increase penalties, add elements to criminal offenses …. That’s worse.

    nk (d4662f)

  225. I don’t feel like I understand the NY rules well enough

    Bring cash.

    nk (d4662f)

  226. NK – and avoid discussing anything over the telephone, it appears.

    aphrael (c41e1e)

  227. If that’s the rule, it’s trivially easy to game, so I don’t think that works.

    It’s easy to game, and the Supreme Court generally tries to provide big picture guidance. But when the case and controversy in front of you is 100%, you’re not absolutely required to decide what the rule would be for lower percentages. It’s enough to say: wherever you draw the line, 100% replacement falls on the wrong side of it.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  228. With the government tapping into any telecommunication at will, our politicians are going to have to learn Cold War spycraft, I think. Mail drops in trash cans, folded newspapers left on park benches, identical briefcases exchanged in elevators ….

    nk (d4662f)

  229. Good point.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  230. nk always has a good point but my last comment was directed at Patterico’s comment.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  231. And it’s hardly “arbitrary” to say 100% replacement fails.

    The fact that you can mix black and white to achieve shades of gray may create arguments as to how much white makes black into gray. But if there’s no white and it’s all black, you’re allowed to call it black.

    Sorry to be so racist but I think that analogy makes some sense.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  232. Is it strip-and-replace that’s the problem? Or is it that the original bill that was being stripped wasn’t a “bill for raising revenue,” but it was replaced with a “bill for raising revenue”? Or is it both?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  233. it’s like when you start mixing skim milk into cheese sauce

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  234. pee is clear
    clear pee i am sam i am
    clear pee i ..mm poo’
    poo i do for you but pee
    no..

    pdbuttons (2648f1)

  235. Before I read even one comment, I predict kturd will be along to defend it as constitutional.

    peedoffamerican (ee1de0)

  236. WellI was justwondering what the percentage of all our legislators are attorneys and how many of them understood their constitutionallaw classes and does the supreme court ever wonder this when havingto wade through the garbage that gets to their desk

    EPWJ (1cedce)

  237. unauthorized aliens pee clear cause of that’s just good clean livin

    the homeland heifer still says they’re illegal though

    this is why you sleep alone, heifer

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  238. Right, JD, I feel like the delegation is so complete and so extreme that it’s obvious it’s an abdication of duty. The bill is just a shell; no one in Congress even read it. At least in administrative law, the judges have to follow the actual law, not just a set of vague, ever changing regs.

    Patricia (be0117)

  239. I’m going out on a limb and predicting that Perry doesn’t answer. Time zones notwithstanding.

    As to the topic, it may turn out to have been technically legal (at least as far as the court determines,) but it was certainly shady. Anyone who voted for this should be turned out of office.

    If they had done it properly and transparently I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I would say “We lost” and deal with the fallout like we do with every other stupid decision politicians make. This was shady from the beginning and they knew it, hence the cover of darkness and sleight of hand.

    Throw’em all out. No exceptions. I mean really, could it be worse than what we have now?

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  240. “We should just do away with the Constitution on account of the fact that the Constitution provides too many obstacles to liberal utopia.”

    Pretty well sums up our basic theory of operation since the 1930s.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  241. I was irritated by the outcome in _Eldred

    So was I, but Lessig was convinced that the 1st Ame3ndment argument was a winner. I would have thought a Takings case would have been a better bet (extending copyrights just before they expire being a taking from the public and a violation of the implied contract).

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  242. Our humble host wrote:

    To me, a troll is narrowly defined as someone actively out to waste your time.

    Perry may well be one but I’ll give him one chance.

    No, Perry does not fit that narrow definition.

    Perry is an Ivy League grad (Penn), former teacher, former chemist, dedicated Democrat, and is retired; he just loves to argue and debate, and he is a dedicated Obama supporter. He is a pit bull, someone who won’t let go, and someone you can’t outargue just by volume. He really does believe what he writes.

    The Dana who knows Perry (3e4784)

  243. Dana

    But thats okay, we have a here in the comments where people can make threats, speak violence, harass, intimidate, make suggestions as to peoples mental state, all levels of outright harassment because a small, very loyal group of commentators feel that this is their blog,and if people dont see it their way well – thats too damn bad.

    Ace,Malkin,hotair,redstate, all had to eventually bring down the banhammer on those few long time commentators who were there from the beginning – those long timmers who, well – just couldnt understand the boundaries, or that familiarity with the host doesnt automatically preclude that anything they say is gospel, or approved by the host – that these are discussions, not warfare, especially when alot of these people really bring nothing to the game when they appoint themselves the masters of the comment section.

    When exposed, They are usually underachievers in life as they preceive it and punish those who they also percieve have done more than they wanted to.

    The behavior here is atrocious, and people do it anonymously, cowards hiding behind IP addresses.

    EPWJ (016f5f)

  244. And the responsibility of the comments in the comment section belong to the idiots who actually type them and not the host and never ever were.

    Peoplewho constantly try to hold the host responsible for things commentators said need to understand that those comments are not his doing nor his responsibility

    Think of him as the phone company he’s not responsible for what people say over his phone lines

    EPWJ (016f5f)

  245. The Dana who knows Perry,

    Perry may be a decent person but he can also be a troll when he acts like one. For instance, he consistently fails to respond to comments that address him politely and make points that undercut his arguments.

    He did that to me in this very thread when I pointed out his erroneous statement that ill people and basketball player Kevin Ware would not receive medical care. (See comments 11, 29, 38, 46, and 52, above.) And if Perry doesn’t respond to Patterico, he’s doing it to him, too.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  246. There’s even another option: just because something is defined as a tax does not mean it was designed to raise revenue.

    The idea was that the penalty tax was something that everyone would want to avoid — paying something for nothing — when they could pay something for something else, insurance, means that the Congress intended to raise zero revenue with it, and use it as an incentive rather than a revenue-raising plan. After all, the fact that compliance will not be 100% does not mean that 100% compliance wasn’t the Congress’ goal.

    The meaning-twisting Dana (3e4784)

  247. And that net gain will translate into lowering costs, because fewer will go to emergency rooms for free treatment – we all benefit from that!

    Comment by Perry (9bd80a) — 4/2/2013 @ 3:21 pm

    As supporters of Obamacare like to point out, RomneyCare has some of the same provisions as Obamacare. It has caused health costs to increase in MA, and has not reduced emergency room use – in fact it increased. Widely discussed points about which Perry is seemingly completely ignorant.

    Health care costs per capita were 27 percent higher in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country in 2004, two years before the state plan was signed, Holtz-Eakin says. By 2009, it was 30 percent higher than the national average.

    The law’s failure to rein in health care costs is widely acknowledged by nonpartisan analysts, as well as conservative critics. But there’s more material for critics to work with if either party wanted to use it. For example, emergency room use has gone up, not down — undermining the law’s effort to get that problem under control by expanding coverage.

    State health policy officials issued a report last month showing a 6 percent increase in emergency room use from 2006 to 2010, the first four years when the law was in effect. That figure has confounded proponents of the law, who hoped emergency room care would plummet when residents had access to insurance and primary-care doctors.

    It’s been pointed out that the people who go to hospital emergency rooms for non-emergency treatment in urban areas generally are insured by Medicaid. A big reason they go there is said to be that the hospital can be the only place in the vicinity with a doctor, or at least one who accepts Medicaid. Obviously expanding Medicaid, as Obamacare does, would not solve that problem.

    Gerald A (c7c56a)

  248. Our distinguished host wrote:

    And it’s hardly “arbitrary” to say 100% replacement fails.

    If both the original and the replacement had words like “and” and “the” in them, could it not be argued that the replacement was less than 100%?

    The deliberately meaning-twisting Dana (3e4784)

  249. DRJ

    No he responded to me but after many and I mean many insults – which literally were in the hundreds, I can see where he wouldnt because the cacophony of insults makes it an environment where anyone would suspect the nature of the polite inquiries

    EPWJ (016f5f)

  250. DRJ

    its still true today that many ill people are refused necessary medical treatment, both of you are wrong on this subject.

    Very wrong, I participate in fund raisers all the time for kids injured in sports and were refused necessary medical treatment that was really required.

    What hospitals are required to providenis quite different than the perception out there.

    ACA is wrong, very wrong, but as we have flood insurance, there needs to be a solution that somehow doesnt take over.

    One easy approach is the Perry approach where you reign in the legal profession and limit damages.

    Another would be to make health insurance companies tax free.

    EPWJ (016f5f)

  251. its still true today that many ill people are refused necessary medical treatment, both of you are wrong on this subject.

    This is against the current law.

    JD (b63a52)

  252. EPWJ,

    JD is right. Non-profit and public hospitals are legally required to provide necessary emergency medical treatment under EMTALA, which also prohibits hospital dumping.

    I’m sure there are instances where hospitals fail to provide necessary emergency care, but it sounds like you are talking about other kinds of treatments — i.e., rehab costs or treatments that are considered not necessary or experimental.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  253. I think the health care equivalent of government-sponsored flood insurance would be catastrophic insurance. I think that’s what Dr. Ben Carson supports.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  254. EPWJ wrote:

    ACA is wrong, very wrong, but as we have flood insurance, there needs to be a solution that somehow doesnt take over.

    Please, be specific: are you saying that everyone must be guaranteed health care?

    This is the point at which I see a difference: if it is a proper government function to insure that everyone is provided with health care coverage, then all we are arguing about is the method for doing so, at which point I would say that single-payer is the simplest to administer, though it would certainly provide a poorer standard of care. If it is not a proper function of government to provide health care coverage for everybody, then the argument is simply that we should repeal ObaminableCare and replace it with nothing.

    It is my position that it should not be a proper function of government, and that the ACA, or any other system with which it would be replaced to provide such is just another welfare system.

    The Dana trying to pin down the meaning (3e4784)

  255. A Michigan story (fox network) has a comment from a local (The invader, Joshua Stevens, is from Michigan):

    Josh had a heart of gold. Went down a bad path but was harmless n wldnt hurt neone. This was over kill being him unarmed. But everyone has their opinions. Prayers for strength for his family. This was a sad loss for them.

    Read more: http://fox17online.com/2013/04/02/montcalm-county-man-shot-dead-in-grand-county-colorado/#ixzz2PPKLzzVC

    It’s not overkill to shoot an intruder, and the heart of gold usually isn’t associated with aggressive efforts to trespass. The pic is an old mugshot. Anyone know what it was for?

    SarahW (b0e533)

  256. Shoot, wrong thread. Sorry, I’m sick today.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  257. DRJ wrote:

    I think the health care equivalent of government-sponsored flood insurance would be catastrophic insurance. I think that’s what Dr. Ben Carson supports.

    Define “catastrophic.” Our friends on the left would say that an unintended and unwanted pregnancy would constitute a catastrophic situation for a woman. A severely ingrown toenail, one which puts a person in so much pain that he cannot walk or function, could be considered catastrophic.

    The Dana trying to pin down the meaning (3e4784)

  258. SarahW wrote:

    Shoot, wrong thread. Sorry, I’m sick today.

    Quick! Get thee to an Obamacare physician!

    The amused Dana (3e4784)

  259. DRJ

    Hospital dumping is not only a fact of life its an everyday event even on the case of trama patients.

    I

    n fact had the media done its job on Obama, Michelle would have been invesitgated for her role in the dumping wide spread dumping cases she was involved in in the 90’s and currently up to the point he started to run for the senate

    we have laws against speeding too.

    Perry was not incorrect in many of his points from the numbers of unisured – because both sides move the goalposts.

    Personally, I’m very hard on healthcare, I dont believe in using the publics money for the poor under any circumstances, I dont believe in public school. I dont think everyone should have the right to vote – I think it should be earned through participation in society. My bar is rather low, proof of some work and some kind of taxes being paid is all that it necessary.

    But this is where we are at – having arguments as to what freebies we needed to give away.

    We paid more in taxes this year than the last home we purchased and next year its going up – yet I’m the problem according to Perry’s side.

    Never a thank you though

    E.PWJ (016f5f)

  260. Dana,

    Instead of defining catastrophic health care, I think most catastrophic insurance policies have high annual deductibles so they kick in only after the insured has incurred significant health care costs.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  261. 247. Second.

    To drag out the same ole dead possum thats been buried for weeks as tho its fresh kill is baldly dishonest.

    “An attempt at a solution” isn’t alchemy, its not serious.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  262. I think hen the artificial price supports of the government noose is lifted on healthcare and people with runny noses are sent home from 1,000 emergency room visits and people have to go to the doctor with money in their wallet then we will see where not only do we have a thriving
    brilliant healthcare system but a compassionate one as well, we sell ourselves short when the left assumes we would not want to help our fellow man

    Thats the huge difference between America and its blessing and the rest of the world, our compassion and forgiveness.

    E.PWJ (016f5f)

  263. DRJ

    Sure that the easiest policy where you can get at least 60/40 of amounts not paid by other insurance. AARP offers some protection for pennies, why not allow other insurers to do it with government tax support – ie tax breaks and incentives.

    An

    E.PWJ (016f5f)

  264. DRJ

    Sure that the easiest policy where you can get at least 60/40 of amounts not paid by other insurance. AARP offers some protection for pennies, why not allow other insurers to do it with government tax support – ie tax breaks and incentives.

    got ot go have a good day

    E.PWJ (016f5f)

  265. Patterico@167:

    The ball is most assuredly in your court.

    First let me say that until now I have been unaware of the writings of Scott Atlas, who has made some interesting points which contradict the beliefs about the status of American healthcare at the outset of the Obama presidency.

    That said, I note that Atlas’s book was published in early 2012, well after the debate and passage of the PPACA. In that debate, I did not see any of Atlas’s critical points, as highlighted by you here, discussed by the opposition. It appears that his critique was written in response to the PPACA. However, there is more to this issue, see below.

    One aspect of our healthcare system inadequately by you, Patterico, is the relatively very high costs. It has been well documented that our per capita costs are well in excess of those in all other developed countries, at least half again more, and that we currently spend about 18% of our GDP on healthcare, which is a half again higher than Canada, France, and Germany, as examples. Part of our high costs are explained by the cost of our medications, which, according to the same reference, are almost double those of Canada and the same European nations including Switzerland.

    An additional cost driver is the profits made by our private insurers, in contrast to the government being the insurer. It is well known, for example, that government run Medicare is more efficiently run at lower cost than private insurers.

    According to even Scott Atlas, 5% of Americans remain uninsured, about 15 million, which is too high and drives up our costs because they are treated in such as hospital emergency rooms for free and at considerable costs to the government.

    No conscientious American aware of the facts can be satisfied with our healthcare system, because it is too expensive compared to the outcomes. Consider this:

    The Institute of Medicine report — its research led by 18 best-of-class clinicians, policy experts and business leaders — details how the American medical system wastes an estimated $750 billion a year while failing to deliver reliable, top-notch care. That is roughly equivalent to the annual cost of health coverage for 150 million workers, or the budget of the Defense Department, or the 2008 bank bailout.

    Finally, a recommendation: In order to gain more insight into the deficiencies of our American healthcare system, taking this quick ten question quiz, put together by the reputable Kaiser Family Foundation, will provide said insight.

    Perry (e7d9e3)

  266. DRJ@247:

    Perry may be a decent person but he can also be a troll when he acts like one. For instance, he consistently fails to respond to comments that address him politely and make points that undercut his arguments.

    Sorry for missing your point in 38, which was:

    Where I live, state law requires that public and non-profit hospitals and community clinics provide medical care to people who don’t have insurance or can’t pay. Further, under EMTALA, all hospitals — public, non-profit, and private — must provide emergency care. Isn’t that how it works where you live?

    Yes, in DE, where I live, as far as I know state law requires that all be treated irrespective of their ability to pay. I am unaware of anyone being turned away in my 13 years living here.

    Perry (e7d9e3)

  267. RE: Gerald A. at 249

    Another reason Medicaid recipients are such high users of ER in Mass. is because they have ZERO copays — so hey, why not go to the ER when your stomach’s upset, it’s free!

    Basta (2648f1)

  268. Note how Perry ignored Patterico.

    JD (3cbfc7)

  269. Only in your pretend world, JD!

    Perry (e7d9e3)

  270. Perry = ineffective shill for the Platitudinous Talking Point industry.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  271. Perry, you are the one with a “pretend” world. A world where your talking points were not all debunked four years ago. A world where Obamacare is not already a failure – as costs rise, premiums skyrocket and workers are pushed into parttime jobs.

    SPQR (768505)

  272. The ACA has prompted employers to lessen their responsibilities to employees further.

    And this attitude has been going on since the 70’s, well before the ACA, motivated by greed, during a time when pay has stagnated except for corporate executives and Wall Street manipulators whose income has skyrocketed, thus permitted representatives of these people to increase their political power by buying them off.

    It is up to the rest of us to stem this political tsunami, which is why the Conservative powers that be are doing everything they can to disenfranchise voters.

    Perry (e7d9e3)

  273. permitted ==> permitting

    Perry (e7d9e3)

  274. Perry – Democrats blame all the consequences of their ill-advised policy choices on “greed”.

    That’s because Democrats don’t understand basic economics.

    As for Wall Street manipulators, that’s why Obama is called “President Goldman Sachs”.

    And claiming that Conservatives are “disenfranchising” voters is a lie. Its Democrats voter fraud that disenfranchises voters.

    SPQR (768505)

  275. #274

    Suddenly Perry doesn’t want to discuss how Obamacare actually works, but instead wants to talk about Wall Street. Strange.

    Gerald A (c7c56a)

  276. #277 And I’m sure his take on the topic will be as substantive as it is on the ACA since, he like, cares about the poor and whatnot.

    Jack Klompus (2b072c)

  277. No surprise at all, GeraldA. The whole “Wall Street” refrain has been the Democrats’ “SQUIRREL!” call as they try to distract from the fact that they are the ones actually in the pocket of Wall Street.

    Look at the fact that the DOJ has prosecuted no one regarding the financial system collapse. Look at how even Jon Corzine, Democrat, escapes prosecution for the missing client funds.

    SPQR (768505)

  278. The ACA has prompted employers to lessen their responsibilities to employees further.

    And this attitude has been going on since the 70′s, well before the ACA, motivated by greed, during a time when pay has stagnated except for corporate executives and Wall Street manipulators whose income has skyrocketed, thus permitted representatives of these people to increase their political power by buying them off.

    It is up to the rest of us to stem this political tsunami, which is why the Conservative powers that be are doing everything they can to disenfranchise voters.

    Comment by Perry (e7d9e3)

    Perry – it is these greedy capitalists and greedy corporations trying to screw the little guy that has brought you the highest standard living in the world.

    Perry – Did you ever wonder why the US has the highest standard of living in the world with all those evil corporations and evil capitalists

    Joe (debac0)

  279. Note how Perry ignored Patterico.
    Comment by JD (3cbfc7) — 4/3/2013 @ 8:59 am
    Only in your pretend world, JD!
    Comment by Perry (e7d9e3) — 4/3/2013 @ 9:06 am

    Could someone point to Perry’s substantive response?

    JD (3cbfc7)

  280. Gerald A wrote:

    Suddenly Perry doesn’t want to discuss how Obamacare actually works, but instead wants to talk about Wall Street. Strange.

    How can anybody talk about how Obaminablecare works when it doesn’t work? The Democrats would say, “Well, it hasn’t taken full effect yet,” which is technically true, but we’ve seen the effects leading up to it, and none of them have turned out to be even remotely what the advocates told us would happen. The problem is easy to understand: liberals don’t understand economics. (If they did, they wouldn’t be liberals anymore.)

    Our friends on the left based all of their economic projections on how they thought businesses should operate, and on how they believed businessmen should take their decisions. Not being businessmen — if they were, they’d have been Republicans — they never really understood what motivates businessmen, and what their concerns are.

    But that never really mattered. The only thing which mattered was establishing the principle that the federal government is ultimately responsible for the individual’s health care coverage. They believed — and I’m afraid, correctly — that once that line was crossed, they’d eventually get single-payer.

    The businessman Dana (3e4784)

  281. “Note how Perry ignored Patterico.”

    JD – Even the link which Perry provided to the Kaiser study back in comment #133 supports Patterico’s argument. If you look at Table 1 of the Kaiser study on page 26, it shows that 73.6% of the estimated 47.9 million non-elderly uninsured in 2011 are non-citizens.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  282. Correction to #283 – 19.8% are non-citizens.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  283. ==They believed — and I’m afraid, correctly — that once that line was crossed, they’d eventually get single-payer.==

    Maybe it’s just me but logically speaking it’s kind of hard to figure how that elusive “Single Payer” entity of theirs is going to, uh, pay since there is such limited money that will be available as the shtf. I mean how many qualified medical practitioners will be willing to work for nothing? How many drugstores and clinics are going to provide free or below cost prescription drugs to all comers when they are not being reimbursed by the single payer? How many innocents will die or be misdiagnosed because Perry and his ilk are clueless idiots who think medicine is all about “insurance”.

    elissa (31744b)

  284. Some thoughts on the current president from noted conservative hack Joe Klein published in that noted conservative rag “Time magazine”. Oh wait!

    Let me try to understand this: The key incentive for small businesses to support Obamacare was that they would be able to shop for the best deals in health care super-stores—called exchanges. The Administration has had 3 years to set up these exchanges. It has failed to do so.

    This is a really bad sign. No doubt, small business owners will be skeptical of the Obama Administration’s belief in the efficacy of the market system to produce lower prices through competition. That was supposed to be the point of this plan.

    But we are now seeing weekly examples of this Administration’s inability to govern. Just a few weeks ago, I reported on the failure of the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration to come up with a unified electronic health care records system. There has also been the studied inattention to the myriad of ineffective job training programs scattered through the bureaucracy. There have been the oblique and belated efforts to reform Head Start, a $7 billion program that a study conducted by its own bureaucracy—the Department of Health and Human Services—has found nearly worthless. The list is endless.

    Yes, the President has faced a terrible economic crisis…. But, as a Democrat—as someone who believes in activist government—he has a vested interest in seeing that federal programs actually work efficiently. I don’t see much evidence that this is anywhere near the top of his priorities.

    One thing is clear: Obamacare will fail if he doesn’t start paying more attention to the details of implementation, if he doesn’t start demanding action. And, in a larger sense, the notion of activist government will be in peril—despite the demographics flowing the Democrats’ way—if institutions like the VA and Obamacare don’t deliver the goods.

    Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/02/obamacare-incompetence/#ixzz2PQLNk3eq

    elissa (31744b)

  285. Single payer is simply unamerican. And it requires a nation to tolerate lines and bureaucracy and incompetence that Americans would in truth never ever tolerate.

    Democrats ignore this at their peril.

    SPQR (810a2e)

  286. elissa wrote:

    Maybe it’s just me but logically speaking it’s kind of hard to figure how that elusive “Single Payer” entity of theirs is going to, uh, pay since there is such limited money that will be available as the shtf.

    In theory, with single payer, we can pay more in taxes to support it because we won’t be paying for private health insurance, but somehow, theories like that don’t really work out in real life. In the real single=payer countries, people who can afford supplementary, private health insurance purchase it because the care under single-payer is so bad.

    I mean how many qualified medical practitioners will be willing to work for nothing? How many drugstores and clinics are going to provide free or below cost prescription drugs to all comers when they are not being reimbursed by the single payer?

    I do know that Perry, personally, believes that physicians are way overpaid, so that isn’t much of a concern to him. If they all become, in effect, salaried employees of the government, they’ll have a choice of making ¾ or ½ what they do now, and liking it, or being unemployed. The same would be true of pharmaceutical companies.

    What the rest of our friends on the left believe, I cannot say.

    The left seem to believe that since insurance companies exist to make a profit — horrors! — the elimination of that part of medical care costs will lower the total cost of medical care. In theory, that would be right, but in practice, well have you ever heard of the government taking over something and making it less costly?

    Me neither.

    You’d be taking private sector employees, working at private sector wages, and replace them with SEIU or AFSCME unionized employees, supervised by government bureaucrats with no incentive to keep costs down. Yeah, that’s going to reduce administrative overhead.

    There is one, and realistically only one, hope that single payer could reduce costs, and that being the authority of the government to prohibit lawsuits against itself. If the government could say, sorry, no malpractice lawsuits, that could very significantly reduce duplication. But as long as the Democrats have anything to say about it, it’ll never happen.

    The Dana who understands the left (3e4784)

  287. Substantive? Is this a trick question?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  288. thread hijack:County Sheriff shot & killed in West Virginia.
    link to story in the “Update” thread up above.

    redc1c4 (403dff)

  289. 289. “Perry, personally, believes that physicians are way overpaid”

    Oh, grow up P. Every profession, career, craft, whatever, has people who are overpaid. Some, twentysomethings(prior to our era of funemployment), are simply in the wrong career, temporarily.

    Others are pieces of work, corralling resources, playing politics and generally grinding their peers to dust.

    The very idea that government can address such issues productively is insane. Look at the teachers caught in impropriety, unsuitable to practice their ‘profession’, their service to society who are on the dole, paid to do absolutely nothing. Thats the governments best effort.

    When the church puts a priest on ice in the abbey at least they’re not making a fortune.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  290. Perry is unwilling or incapable of addressing Parterico’s questions. SHOCKA

    JD (c62ea4)

  291. Comment by elissa (31744b) — 4/3/2013 @ 11:00 am

    Sooo, let me get this straight….
    He thinks Obama getting involved in the nitty-gritty details of implementing ObamaCare is the key to making it work?

    First, no president should be involved in that kind of detail with one program; and second, Obama has no experience or qualifications to even approach such a job, unless one counts threatening the administrators with protests and law suits if they don’t do what he wants.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  292. “No doubt, small business owners will be skeptical of the Obama Administration’s belief in the efficacy of the market system to produce lower prices through competition. That was supposed to be the point of this plan.”

    elissa – That’s a nice attempt at blame shifting by Joe since competition can’t start occurring until the rules are written and everybody knows how diligent HHS has been about pushing out final rules for Obamacare. HHS has had three years to finalize rules for Obamacare and still hasn’t finished the job. Dodd-Frank, another partisan monstrosity, has only finished a fraction of the rules required under its authority.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  293. http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=ee2613d9-cf20-402c-8a65-e1b670b21fa0

    I noticed that the dems in their 2014 senate budget sumary mention the number 30 million

    Protects the expansion of health insurance to nearly 30 million Americans and ensures the federal-state partnership on Medicaid is preserved

    E.PWJ (f44e22)

  294. “second, Obama has no experience or qualifications to even approach such a job, unless one counts threatening the administrators with protests and law suits if they don’t do what he wants.”

    MD in Philly – That community organizing background does come in handy for something after all, doesn’t it?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  295. I’m kind of enjoying just leaning back and watching all the sudden blue on blue angst that seems to be bubbling up.

    Like today when Bill Ayers called Rahm Emanuel “an an absolute right-wing troglodyte.”

    Yummy.

    elissa (31744b)

  296. Okay, I admit I considered and immediately discarded the possibility that Perry would come back and completely ignore Patterico. Chutzpah. And by Patterico’s definition, a troll.

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  297. Now, Patterico, you can parse out the trolls on your blog.

    My reward for the trolliest of them all is…..wait for the compilation…..is……. JD!

    And btw, the state with the largest number of uninsured is the reddest state of all: Rick Perry’s TX ====> 24%. Horrible!!!

    Perry (e7d9e3)

  298. The Supreme Court has occasionally ruled on origination clause matters, adopting a definition of revenue bills that is based on two central principles that tend to narrow its application to fewer classes of legislation than the House: (1) raising money must be the primary purpose of the measure, rather than an incidental effect; and (2) the resulting funds must be for the expenses or obligations of the government generally, rather than a single, specific purpose.

    I have my doubts that the Supremes will even hear this case, but I have high hopes.

    Tom (3eccef)

  299. Perry wrote:

    And btw, the state with the largest number of uninsured is the reddest state of all: Rick Perry’s TX ====> 24%. Horrible!!!

    If they don’t pay for it, they shouldn’t have it. Of course, one does wonder just how many of that 24% are made up of illegal aliens.

    The Dana who doesn't live in the Lone Star State, but would be proud if he did (3e4784)

  300. Perry wrote:

    My reward for the trolliest of them all is…..wait for the compilation…..is……. JD!

    [guffaws!] You managed to select one of the site authors as a blog troll! I don’t think the word means what you think it means.

    The highly amused Dana (3e4784)

  301. “And btw, the state with the largest number of uninsured is the reddest state of all: Rick Perry’s TX ====> 24%. Horrible!!!”

    Perry – Oh Noes!!!! Why don’t you take that horror the next step and tell us if those uninsured people in Texas have any access to health care? We’ll wait.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  302. Site author or not, JD is a troll. Patterico ought to fire him and ban him! 🙂

    Perry (e7d9e3)

  303. Calling JD a troll ties for the dumbest comment I’ve seen Perry make. Tied with every other comment I’ve seen him make that is.

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  304. Perry shows what a clown show Democrats are.

    SPQR (235e7e)

  305. Economic beliefs like Perry’s are what caused famines costing tens of millions of lives in Soviet Union and China.

    SPQR (235e7e)

  306. Perry #268,

    Thank you for your response.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  307. (1) raising money must be the primary purpose of the measure, rather than an incidental effect; and (2) the resulting funds must be for the expenses or obligations of the government generally, rather than a single, specific purpose.

    What that means is, that in order to covered by the origination clause those conditions must apply.

    Since the ACA was not primarily a tax bill, even if the “teeth” it is supposed to have amounts to a tax, that would mean the origination clause does not apply, and the fact it was a Senate bill is not enough to invalidate the law.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  308. Perry tries to cashier JD. Wow. For someone who thinks he’s smart enough to confront in the comments on this site, he’s painfully unaware.

    Birdbath (716828)

  309. Did I miss where Perry answered Patterico’s questions?

    JD (9cb50b)

  310. steve perry got locks!
    when the lights..go out..

    pdbuttons (2648f1)

  311. I’m afraid Perry had a bit of a meltdown, JD.

    elissa (338f20)

  312. I am apparently now trolling Patterico’s site. We are now approaching a wormhole, a disruption in the space-time continuum.

    And, there will be a formal revision to the artful turn of a phrase “dummerer than a sack of Andrews”. We will no and forever more refer to that as “Mas estupido than a roving band of Perrys”

    JD (9cb50b)

  313. perry perry
    he’s so merry
    very merry
    mas merry
    going to the chapel
    and
    Im gonna get merry

    pdbuttons (2648f1)

  314. sarah palin is merry like…
    what!
    is she merry?
    Idaho
    Al;aska

    pdbuttons (2648f1)

  315. JD, ah, “Dumber than a sack of Andrews”. That’s good classic Patterico. Ah, the good ol’ days eh?

    SPQR (768505)

  316. That was one of mine, SPQR 😉 Patterico is much nicer than me, I have rough edges.

    JD (9cb50b)

  317. tim blair had a picture of john malcovich drinking scotch
    sitting on his sofa all relaxed like
    normal
    with a thumbs up smile
    so
    tim blair
    dailt oop dailt oops daily telegragh aussie rag

    pdbuttons (2648f1)

  318. 317 is fun, pdbuttons.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  319. There is a belief on our side that in order to succeed we must agree on everything. I disagree — in fact, I’d say our inability to do so is our strength. Our contentious interparty back and forth about what’s best for our country results in better policies from which to choose. We support competition in every other aspect of life, why not ideas?

    DanaLoesch

    E.PWJ (f44e22)

  320. [UPDATE: This comment is inoperative. Read a couple comments down. — P]

    The Dana who knows Perry,

    I was polite to Perry in my comment challenging him on his “50 million uninsured” figure. I did make it clear that, as the site owner, I expected him to give me some kind of substantive response — not to ignore me or blow off the question.

    Perry returned to the thread and ignored me. I know he saw my comment because he made a comment about trolls. I know he has had time to respond to me because he left several other comments.

    You claim to know him personally, I do not. I can judge him only by his actions here. His actions — actively ignoring a polite comment from the site owner challenging a factual assertion of his — paint a picture of someone who is actively out to waste people’s time as opposed to engage in substantive debate.

    In one sense, this is no big deal, because I long ago abandoned the notion that there is any value in debating political topics on the Internet. Something about the medium seems to cause people to argue in bad faith, ignoring substantive points that undercut their comments, and throwing out silly, trivial, or irrelevant arguments.

    In another sense, there is a commenting community here that has not abandoned that notion. So here I have a dissenting voice, which I cultivate, but which acts like a person trying to waste everyone’s time, which I discourage.

    What do you suggest I do?

    For now, what I am doing is moderating Perry’s comments, until such time as he can respond to the polite challenge I issued above. Other people may have to put up with such rudeness. As the site owner, I am not required to.

    Then again, I sense that some people enjoy having a dissenting voice, even an annoying one that does not try to debate in good faith. I can be talked out of my position.

    I ask your opinion.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  321. FWIW, Patterico, there was a non-responsive wall of gibberish from Perry the Platypus that I just released, #269. It cites such medical experts as firedoglake and manbearpig.

    Also, some gibberish from EPWJ, going down the same path he has gone down many times before.

    JD (fe3864)

  322. OK, never mind on the ignoring part, and I will go read it. Thanks.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  323. Let me go unmoderate him. I obviously should have checked the moderation filter already. I thought I had but I guess not. That’s my bad and I apologize to Perry.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  324. It is not substantive, or a rebuttal. It is SQUIRRELS. And even 15M is too many, brushing aside how woefully wrong he was with the BS 50M figure.

    JD (fe3864)

  325. Perry,

    The points Atlas made about uninsured illegals illegal aliens illegal immigrants undocumented immigrants whatever the AP-approved phrase is — those points most assuredly were raised during the health care debate. If you missed that, you probably were not paying much attention to anything conservatives were saying at the time.

    Here is from a post of mine from August 2009, for example:

    [P]lease note that we constantly hear from Obama that we have 47 million uninsured in this country, and we are told that the goal is for everyone to be covered — yet of that 47 million, anywhere from 15 percent to one-third are illegal, depending on whose estimates you accept. Even using the lower estimates, that brings the number down below 40 million. So there is clearly some intellectual dishonesty in operation here any way you slice it: Obama includes illegals in the number of uninsured “Americans” but claims he will not cover them.

    As for Atlas’s remaining claims, I would wager that these arguments were advanced during the debate, but I will concede I had not heard them myself until I heard Atlas on the EconTalk podcast. That seems like a shame, doesn’t it? The 50 million (or 47 million) number was repeated so often, and according to Atlas’s seemingly sound arguments, it was totally misleading. Doesn’t that bother you?

    Finally, it would be nice if you would acknowledge more directly that you were wrong to cite the 50 million uninsured number, if you agree that it is exaggerated. A genuine admission of error can be very disarming. Useful for those who actually care about building bridges and such!

    Patterico (9c670f)

  326. 326. Perry is pleasant enough, but I have no interest in pursuing anything with him.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  327. Comment by JD (9cb50b) — 4/3/2013 @ 5:33 pm

    No, JD, I meant “Patterico” as in the place, not Patrick himself. I remember who came up with it.

    I was around back then, you know 😉

    SPQR (768505)

  328. And one thing about the 50 million number, bogus as it is, Democrats all claimed that this was a problem, but the CBO estimates during 2009 admitted that they would barely cut it in half, and now with CBO admitting that they estimate seven million will be pushed out of their insurance, what chance is there that the number will actually drop at all?

    Zero.

    Obamacare has already failed to meet any of its goals. And it is going to cause an economic disaster.

    By the end of 2013, there will be a tsunami of calls nationwide to repeal it.

    SPQR (768505)

  329. That claim that Medicare is more efficient than private insurance is laughable, and ignores all of the differences between them. Why you cannot compare Medicare with private insurance – private insurance has to pay taxes on premiums gathered, increasing overhead, which Medicare does not pay, Medicare does not include it’s costs of employees in these computations which private companies do, IS collects premiums for Medicare while private companies do their own, Private companies Have to properly underwrite, Medicare just has Congress spend more money they don’t have. Often times the Govt doesn’t even include costs of buildings in these computations. So, the idea that Medicare is more efficient than Private companies is a joke of Perry proportions.

    JD (fe3864)

  330. I did not check the moderation filter either. Mea culpa and apologies for that. I don’t know how responsive what he wrote is, but it is a response.

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  331. By the end of 2013, there will be a tsunami of calls nationwide to repeal it.
    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 4/3/2013 @ 6:51 pm

    SPQR,

    I think you underestimate the cult of personality and dependency involved. I hope you are right and I am wrong.

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  332. I want to make sure I understand. Was Perry’s comment 269 in moderation, and that is the comment Patterico is responding to in his comment 331?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  333. SPQR,

    I think you underestimate the cult of personality and dependency involved. I hope you are right and I am wrong.

    I echo this. I would like to Think that eventually they would be intellectually honest. But they won’t.

    JD (fe3864)

  334. I believe so, DRJ. Yes.

    JD (fe3864)

  335. It probably got held up because it had so many links.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  336. Of course, there is Joe Klein, trying to discern why Obamacare isn’t a complete success;

    narciso (3fec35)

  337. Links to nonsense.

    JD (fe3864)

  338. JD

    Forget my goibberih for a moment – there is now a hovercraft golf cart….

    A HOVERCRAFT GOLF CART!!!!

    E.PWJ (f44e22)

  339. And, in a larger sense, the notion of activist government will be in peril—despite the demographics flowing the Democrats’ way—if institutions like the VA and Obamacare don’t deliver the goods.

    Liberals like Joe Klein really irk me because when a big mess is caused by their type of politician or policymaking, when the going gets tough, the liberal gets going…to another community or society where mindless left-leaning ideology has yet to cause its ultimate damage. However, when I see all the really screwed-up places like [insert name of typical urban American area here] or nations like Greece, Argentina, Venezuela or France, I do admit that quite a few on the left are such masochists (and sadists), that they’ll remain on a sinking ship (one torpedoed by liberalism run amok) until the bitter end.

    What do you suggest I do?

    If I managed a forum I’d be quite permissive about so-called TOS violations (plus I define “troll” as someone who likes to flame bait, loves to cause fights to break out, to create Jerry-Springer type of moments). In that regard, I guess I’m kind of leftwing—ie, if liberalism supposedly makes one very tolerant for tolerant’s sake, which, of course, in reality is a bunch of BS.

    Mark (e5fd6c)

  340. Bubba Watson is Teh Awesome. And Oakley. And the a golf Boys. Post coming … Thanks EPWJ, even though #246 was wrong, uncalled, for, dishonest, and par for the course for you.

    JD (fe3864)

  341. There are trolls at Breitbart, Leo haunts another blog I frequent, among others,

    narciso (3fec35)

  342. Are the other sites’ trolls more competent and entertaining than those here, narciso?

    elissa (338f20)

  343. Sometimes unintentionally, but often they are flying
    monkey types.

    narciso (3fec35)

  344. JD

    If I were someone who hurled insults, made questions about peoples sexual orientation, made threats of violence, condoned others behaviors, made references as to their honesty, made comments knowingly untrue about people, I would think that one day its going to cause the host problems or the person doing it.

    I would reread Ace’s missive on who and who shouldnt blog again.

    E.PWJ (f44e22)

  345. I don’t think I need our permission. Nor your approval. As to the rest, I don’t do what you claim. We have been down this path before.

    JD (fe3864)

  346. It is well-settled that the Senate cannot add a revenue bill by amendment to a House non-revenue bill. To be constitutional the amended bill must be a “bill for raising revenue”. As discussed in United States v.Munoz-Flores (paragraph 20 in the link at 174 above), “revenue bills are those that levy taxes in the strict sense of the word, and are not bills for other purposes which may incidentally create revenue.”

    On the PLF Liberty Blog last December, author Timothy Sandefur announced their rebuttal to the government’s Motion to Dismiss. His strategy is to show that the original House bill H.R. 3590 (the amended bill) was not a revenue bill, thus violating the Senate’s amendment authority in the Origination Clause. He simply declares it to be so with no argument to that effect. He does make an effective argument to show that the ACA (which was the Senate’s amending bill S.A. 2786) is a revenue bill. But the same cases he cites to support that contention would apply equally to H.R. 3590 as originally passed in the House. I don’t think it will carry the day.

    Rather than trying to disqualify the original House bill, I believe a better approach is to confront the illegitimacy of the Senate’s action head-on, as I recently posted on Liberty Law Blog in a comment to Prof. Rappaport’s article, Obamacare and the Origination Clause II.

    Jack R (ef76db)

  347. Our host asked:

    In another sense, there is a commenting community here that has not abandoned that notion. So here I have a dissenting voice, which I cultivate, but which acts like a person trying to waste everyone’s time, which I discourage.

    What do you suggest I do?

    For now, what I am doing is moderating Perry’s comments, until such time as he can respond to the polite challenge I issued above. Other people may have to put up with such rudeness. As the site owner, I am not required to.

    Then again, I sense that some people enjoy having a dissenting voice, even an annoying one that does not try to debate in good faith. I can be talked out of my position.

    I ask your opinion.

    That’s a tough one. I’m very thick skinned, so insults don’t bother me. As for Perry’s persistence, I think that’s a good thing. T’were it my decision, I’d allow him to comment as long as he isn’t somehow threatening other commenters.

    One difficulty: your site gets so many comments that it can get difficult to monitor them all. That’s going to be a consideration for you, and no one else.

    I’m one of those who does like a good debate, even if I don’t seem to be doing any persuading.

    The Dana in Pennsylvania (3e4784)

  348. people who have been following awhile know that at times I have called for voluntary ignoring of a few people, while recognizing that some people enjoy countering even the most bothersome

    The main problem with engaging someone like Perry is that threads become burdensome with pointed discussion of a topic diluted. Busy people tend to bypass things then.

    I’ve recommended before that maybe filtering can be done that color codes the print depending on the author,
    One thing I have seen on other sites is where the treads divide into seperate discussions. In general i much prefer one thread as here, but perhaps there could be “Branch dialogues” for those who want to engage with perry or others as a “side track” that others can skip.

    I don’t know how technically feasible such things are.
    The site is like a large virtual living room, and people who barge in and are rude are subject to being asked to leave. OTOH, if someone wants to ask the person to step outside and talk on the patio and let others inside go back to their own conversations then “everyone can be happy”.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  349. Painted Jaguar: Our dear and kind host is almost as patient as my own mummy, which you all know is very high praise indeed.
    But my mummy also has fangs, sharp claws, and rippling muscles, so other creatures know not to mess with her.
    Mr. P may have rippling muscles (have never seen him), but I doubt if he has fangs and sharp claws, and anyway, technology for 3D physical holograms eminating from the computer screen is not yet common, so he can’t do much to someone making rude or inane comments even if he did.

    My 2 cents from the jungle, by the deep, dark, turbid waters of the Amazon.

    Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (3d3f72)

  350. 350. Ace can write as well as anyone. That said his content can be, and often is, vacuous. His opinions are all over the map and he can be irascible and dyspeptic(I know whereof I speak here).

    So tread lightly with expert witnesses.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  351. Continuing my post at 352:

    There are two Congressional Research Service reports on the subject of the Origination Clause: RL31399 where court interpretations of “Bills for raising Revenue” is explored, and RL33207 which discusses the Senate’s amendment authority.

    The illegitimate part of the whole process is where the replacement bill keeps the same H.R. number of the bill it replaced. The only thing remaining of the replaced bill that can be said to have originated in the House is the number itself. But the number itself is a label; not a substantive part of the bill. Ordinarily a numerical label would have significance only in identifying one among many; however, here it is extraordinary because of the “H.R.” in its composition denoting place of origin—which is precisely why the Senate usurps it.

    Because of the Supreme Court’s acceptance, by applying the enrolled bill rule in Flint v. Stone-Tracy Co., of the fraudulent legislative maneuver whereby a deleted bill keeps the same number after it is replaced, the lower courts are saddled with a precedent that does in fact give the Senate unlimited authority to originate tax measures.

    To prevail in this case, it has to be argued that Flint must be overturned; and the enrolled bill doctrine dispensed with, at least with respect to the Senate’s Origination Clause amendment authority

    Jack R (ef76db)

  352. Perry is just tiresome. He is not debating, he is lecturing. Logic and reasoning and facts did not lead him to his conclusions, and no amount of same will change his mind. Facts are simply ignored and he moves on to his next SQUIRREL

    JD (fe3864)

  353. Patterico@329:

    That’s my bad and I apologize to Perry.

    Apology accepted.

    Patterico@341:

    Finally, it would be nice if you would acknowledge more directly that you were wrong to cite the 50 million uninsured number, if you agree that it is exaggerated. A genuine admission of error can be very disarming. Useful for those who actually care about building bridges and such!

    In my #269, I made the following statement on this issue:

    According to even Scott Atlas, 5% of Americans remain uninsured, about 15 million, which is too high and drives up our costs because they are treated in such as hospital emergency rooms for free and at considerable costs to the government.

    My acknowledgement that 47-50 million uninsured may be too high, is my comment which used Scott Atlas’s 15 million number – still too high.

    Finally, I note that neither you, nor any other Conservative on here, picked up on the incredibly high cost of our current health care system: 18% of our GDP; half again more than the nearest developed nation. Shouldn’t this fact be red meat for genuine Conservatives?

    Our new PPACA (ObamaCare) system is patterned after the highly effective Swiss system which was put in place in 1996. Once appropriately refined, my hope is that our system will be a effective, and will bend the health care cost curve down.

    Perry (e7d9e3)

  354. Finally, I note that neither you, nor any other Conservative on here, picked up on the incredibly high cost of our current health care system: 18% of our GDP; half again more than the nearest developed nation. Shouldn’t this fact be red meat for genuine Conservatives?

    Rather than the PPACA, should we not simply institute price ceilings on what doctors and hospitals may charge?

    His article is essentially a 26,000-word answer, the longest story that the magazine has ever run by a single author. It’s worth reading in full, but if you’re looking for a quick summary, the article seemed to me to boil down to one sentence: The American health-care system does not use rate-setting.

    Much of Brill’s piece focuses on the absurdly high prices that hospitals and doctors charge for the most mundane items. A single Tylenol tablet can cost $1.50 when “you can buy 100 of them on Amazon for $1.49 even without a hospital’s purchasing power.” One patient gets charged $6 for a marker used to mark his body before surgery. Another is billed $77 for each of four boxes of gauze used.

    One hospital, according to Brill’s math, bills $1,200 per hour for one nurse’s services.

    “Over the past few decades, we’ve enriched the labs, drug companies, medical device makers, hospital administrators and purveyors of CT scans, MRIs, canes and wheelchairs,” Brill concludes. ”Meanwhile … we’ve squeezed everyone outside the system who gets stuck with the bills.”

    In other countries, that cannot happen: Their federal governments set rates for what both private and public plans can charge for various procedures. Those countries have tended to see much lower growth in health-care costs.

    What sets our really expensive health-care system apart from most others isn’t necessarily the fact it’s not single-payer or universal. It’s that the federal government does not regulate the prices that health-care providers can charge.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  355. My acknowledgement that 47-50 million uninsured may be too high, is my comment which used Scott Atlas’s 15 million number – still too high.

    I saw that already. If that was intended to be an acknowledgement of error, I’ll take it such.

    I am fully aware of the high cost of the system. My solution would be very different from yours. Our solutions reflect different philosophies. You believe in greater government involvement. I believe in less. I think a big part of the problem we have had with our health care system is the excessive government involvement. That said, our health care is among the best in the world.

    I’ll take a look at your link for the Swiss system when I have more time.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  356. Perry,

    I agree the rising costs of health care is a problem but the answer isn’t to do something just for the sake of doing something. Patterico.com has addressed why Obama’s health care plan isn’t the answer, including:

    Preventive care won’t save money.

    The AFA will result in even more crowded ERs.

    The AFA will cost more than it saves.

    On the other hand, Paul Krugman and Peter Orzag have the solution:

    Krugman: The government could curtail health care costs by denying treatment.

    Orzag: Control health care costs with rationing.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  357. Price controls, don’t work in the long term, Brill’s other brilliant move, is to tax hospital profits 75-80%.

    narciso (3fec35)

  358. Patterico, I just sat through a “mock interview” by a student applying to medical school. She soberly told us that our health care system was the most expensive in the world, and wasn’t not particularly good.

    I stay out of politics on campus, but I asked her who was good. She told me Switzerland. Then she told me about large numbers of people in Switzerland—not Swiss, like migrant workers, etc—who could not get health care other than out of pocket, at all.

    She went on to tell me that more government was better, because HMOs have an agenda that isn’t about health. I asked her what the government agenda was. She told me “to provide the best health care possible to everyone.” And that a single entity could do a better job taking care of everyone.

    I shudder. But I am not surprised. Milton Friedman is no longer around to poke holes in this kind of sophistry.

    Simon Jester (22d1b9)

  359. Our new PPACA (ObamaCare) system is patterned after the highly effective Swiss system which was put in place in 1996. Once appropriately refined, my hope is that our system will be a effective, and will bend the health care cost curve down.

    First, it is modeled on MA. Second, hopeandchange is not a real strategy. Third, SQUIRREL

    JD (9bd407)

  360. She went on to tell me that more government was better, because HMOs have an agenda that isn’t about health. I asked her what the government agenda was. She told me “to provide the best health care possible to everyone.” And that a single entity could do a better job taking care of everyone.

    Has she heard of the Tuskegee Experiments?

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  361. Mistake in coding hyperlinks at 357. Do Over:

    RL31399 for revenue bills
    RL33207 for amendment authority

    Jack R (ef76db)

  362. Our new PPACA (ObamaCare) system is patterned after the highly effective Swiss system

    I’ve said previously that liberalism (or any do-gooder system, which is very reliant on the concept of the honor system—ie, where people are less likely to exploit and distort what’s available) is like a permissive, easygoing, pushover “mom” and “dad.” In such a family, it’s therefore even more crucial that the “kids” be naturally resourceful, skilled, self-disciplined, reliable, etc. But if they’re not, if they instead tend to be mediocre or average in capability — which generally is true of most humans — slackards and greedy, and shrug off dishonesty rather lightly, then watch out!

    So how do many of the “kids” of America compare with many of the “kids” in a country like Switzerland?

    Meanwhile, here is a country that has been drunk with socialistic, do-gooder sentiments for decades. Its healthcare system sounds like a paradise.

    dukechronicle.com, December 2011: Private health care in Argentina is much like that of the United States—patients must meet their own individual health care costs, primarily through private insurance schemes. The social security sector, characterized by “mutuals” and social plans, is funded and operated by “Las Obras Sociales,” or the trade unions. Employers and employees each pay a fixed rate from which the mutual covers part of the cost of care and medicines. Patients then pay the difference between the actual treatment cost and fixed rate.

    The public sector, however, is financed through taxes and utilized by thousands each day, and is the most exhausted branch of the health care system. This is firstly because in Argentina, health care is a universal human right granted to everyone regardless of income, nationality or status. Both citizens and non-citizens (legal and illegal) are able to make use of the nation’s public system. Yet, an increase in immigration alongside a sharp rise in unemployment over the last 10 years has led to system overuse and new structural challenges.

    Argentina was a relatively rich nation when its current health care system was first instituted. During these initial years, buses full of patients from neighboring countries and poor outskirts would arrive at public hospitals ready to receive treatment. Today, however, many believe that Argentina can no longer afford to subsidize the treatment of foreigners because care for its own citizens has also begun to suffer.

    Despite these realities, everyone simply shrugs their shoulders. “Well,” they say, “[Él Hopsital Bernardino Rivadavia, in Buenos Aires] is a public hospital,” as if that categorization sufficiently justifies the deep-seated problems of the Argentinean public health system — and there are more.

    One of the first issues to draw my attention was the obvious lack of supplies, from the complete nonexistence of toilet paper and soap in the bathrooms to the sparing use of cotton balls and alcohol. The majority of hospital beds are not covered with any kind of sanitary paper, and if they are, the sheets are rarely replaced. Broken chairs and squeaky doors line the hospital hallways, concealed by the crowds of patients who wait hours each day for treatment.

    Most Argentines will blame the government for the state of its public hospitals. Simply put, growth in public health care capacity has not been met with an analogous increase in funding. Government attention to spending has begun to focus on other areas of health—specifically, drugs and pharmaceuticals. This sort of redirected spending in conjunction with competition from the private sector has largely contributed to the dwindling amount of resources available to the nation’s public health facilities.

    Being an American, the image of public health care in Buenos Aires certainly took me by surprise, forcing me to think deeper for answers to our own ongoing debate. Yet, for the people of Argentina, the gift of universal health care is a cherished and unchallenged right of which they are proud and have no shame in sharing with the rest of the world.

    ^ Proud of that!? Argentinians apparently are stuck on stupid.

    Mark (e5fd6c)

  363. Michael #365: Probably not. But if so, she no doubt heard of it as a Republican thing. Seriously.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  364. “I’ll take a look at your link for the Swiss system when I have more time.”

    Patterico – You won’t have to waste much time on that diversionary claim.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  365. More examples of how Obamacare is failing.

    And PPACA is not copied from the Swiss, there are major differences, including the fact that the Swiss system is more decentralized upon the canton’s than Obamacare as well as having at its core a more modest basic plan. That’s the kind of major differences that Perry is utterly ignorant of.

    SPQR (768505)

  366. Much of Brill’s piece focuses on the absurdly high prices that hospitals and doctors charge for the most mundane items. A single Tylenol tablet can cost $1.50 when “you can buy 100 of them on Amazon for $1.49 even without a hospital’s purchasing power.” One patient gets charged $6 for a marker used to mark his body before surgery. Another is billed $77 for each of four boxes of gauze used.

    One hospital, according to Brill’s math, bills $1,200 per hour for one nurse’s services.

    It’s that the federal government does not regulate the prices that health-care providers can charge.[emphasis mine]
    Comment by Michael Ejercito (2e0217) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:50 am

    Sorry for the extensive quoting, but these points are connected in a way many people do not consider. Working at the tip of the spear in healthcare (the bedside), I rarely get into billing questions and usually refer questions about insurance and costs to the social worker everyone is assigned in behavioral health. I did ask at one time about costs like these and was surprised to hear that the reason for exorbitant rates on specifics items like these was because… wait for it… the federal government regulates the prices that healthcare providers can charge… for other things that cost much more than is reimbursed. That’s right, because the federal government only allows a hospital to charge an artificially low price for say, an MRI, the hospital is forced to overbill for Tylenol or gauze. Get the government out of the way and costs will be reflected more accurately.

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  367. Michael’s answer to almost everything is “price controls” when that is always the wrong answer. Whenever you push something, pressure builds and is eventually expressed elsewhere, usually in an unexpected and negative way. Let the market control and you’ll do okay. With the internet, information travels too fast for any entity that overprices to last long.

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  368. Sorry for the extensive quoting, but these points are connected in a way many people do not consider. Working at the tip of the spear in healthcare (the bedside), I rarely get into billing questions and usually refer questions about insurance and costs to the social worker everyone is assigned in behavioral health. I did ask at one time about costs like these and was surprised to hear that the reason for exorbitant rates on specifics items like these was because… wait for it… the federal government regulates the prices that healthcare providers can charge… for other things that cost much more than is reimbursed. That’s right, because the federal government only allows a hospital to charge an artificially low price for say, an MRI, the hospital is forced to overbill for Tylenol or gauze. Get the government out of the way and costs will be reflected more accurately.

    Why not just regulate all prices?

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  369. Why not just regulate all prices?
    Comment by Michael Ejercito (2e0217) — 4/4/2013 @ 11:58 am

    Can’t be done or the business will fail because their costs will always rise. This will cut into profits until they are forced to run a loss which becomes unsustainable. Every time an employee gets a raise it cuts into profits.

    Are you going to outlaw raises? If so, why should I, a nurse with many years experience, get paid the same as a new graduate?

    Stashiu3 (1680c0)

  370. Here’s the text of the clause: “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.”

    I guess the main argument of PLF is that the original House Bill was not for raising revenue, because the House Bill merely extended a tax credit. That’s an interesting argument that may fly. But it would have been better for PLF if the original House Bill had had nothing to do with revenue.

    Another argument PLF could make is that the Origination Clause gives the Senate two choices regarding amendments. One choice is to “concur with amendments”, which presumably covers amendments authored by either the House or Senate. The other choice is to “propose” amendments without concurring to anything (the implication being that the Senate would concur later on in the process). Since the Senate didn’t concur with anything in the House Bill, the Senate apparently took the “propose” route. And the thing is, the Senate never concurred to anything, and instead it was only the House that concurred.

    This seems like a valid argument to me. I have no idea whether PLF made it or not.

    Andrew (2ae3a6)

  371. Comment by Stashiu3 (1680c0) — 4/4/2013 @ 11:48 am

    Yes, a major problem is that all the regs take only one part of the “elephant” into question and everything is alsways being adjusted to compensate for everything else. I would think somehow just cutting back on some regs would diminish admin costs and allow the true costs of things to become apparent.

    My knowledge of Swiss society is very old, but one thing I learned was the Swiss actually (sit down and hold on) carefully regulate immigration, so that bad economic times are essentially absorbed by denying work visas/permission to non-nationals.

    Such a novel idea. How true this is now I don’t know. Just think what would happen even to CA’s fiscal problems if they kicked out all of the non-US citizens.
    Then everyone in Europe could talk about how good the American health system is.

    Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (3d3f72)

  372. And I do believe that there are well-meaning Republicans out there who care about their kids just as passionately as we do.

    EPWJ or Obama?!

    JD (fe3864)

  373. My knowledge of Swiss society is very old, but one thing I learned was the Swiss actually (sit down and hold on) carefully regulate immigration, so that bad economic times are essentially absorbed by denying work visas/permission to non-nationals.

    They also regulate health insurance premiums and some health care costs. The Swiss health insurance system also regulates the cost of basic health insurance which every Swiss citizen, and every immigrant is mandated to carry:

    Why should Americans listen to the Swiss? Because Switzerland’s healthcare model successfully delivers much of what the U.S is trying to achieve: universal coverage through mandatory private insurance. Unlike most European countries, the Swiss don’t have socialized medicine, though the government regulates the insurance industry and defines what health services must be offered — a generous package that includes doctor’s visits, hospital stays, medications, physical therapy, physician-ordered rehabilitation, and in-home nursing care. Under this law, which went into effect in 1996 to provide equal access to healthcare, everyone has to purchase a plan from one of 92 insurers. Employers don’t provide insurance, so people are free to shop around for coverage that fits their needs and not feel obligated to stay in a job solely for the health benefits it offers.

    Depending on the deductible, the monthly premium for this basic package averages about $300 for adults, plus some co-pays, but it can’t exceed 8% of personal income; if it does, the government subsidizes the cost. (For comparison sake, the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that in 2011, employer-sponsored health insurance in the U.S. was $5,429 for what it designates as “single coverage” and $15,9073 for “family coverage.”) Currently, roughly one-third of Swiss households — mainly single-parent families and immigrants — get some form of subsidy. Patients can choose any physician and there’s no wait to see specialists or have surgery. Insurers can’t turn anyone down or delay coverage due to age, medical history, or health risks. They are also not allowed to profit from the obligatory insurance but can make money on the optional supplemental coverage that includes alternative medicine and private hospital rooms.

    Read more: http://nation.time.com/2012/08/16/health-insurance-switzerland-has-its-own-kind-of-obamacare-and-loves-it/#ixzz2PWioGRZu

    Thus, like our PPACA, the Swiss have a mandate that every Swiss citizen will be covered. There is also a government subsidy for those unable to afford the premium.

    As I understand it, the basic premium is set on a yearly basis in a negotiation involving providers, insurers, and government officials, and is administered by private insurers who must charge the negotiated price. Insurers make their profit by selling added coverage at competitive prices, since there are a very large number of private insurers competing for this business, much like our exchanges under the PPACA will be operating.

    The Swiss are happy with their system. Our PPACA has some of these same features. I think we are on the right track.

    Perry (304b25)

  374. PPACA does not have the features of the Swiss system, you once again link to something you didn’t bother to read.

    PPACA is already a failure – and that’s what Perry really thinks is the “right track”.

    SPQR (768505)

  375. “PPACA is already a failure – and that’s what Perry really thinks is the “right track”.”

    SPQR – It seems the best way to ensure its repeal is to continue with its implementation.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  376. ObamaCare is similar to the Swiss system in the same way that cucumbers are similar to Yeti’s.

    JD (fe3864)

  377. Both the Swiss system and the PPACA have a mandate and state assistance for those who cannot afford the premium.

    Perry (304b25)

  378. A Mercedes and a Yugo each have a steering wheel and a thing they call an engine.

    JD (fe3864)

  379. Perry – Your link from the Nation and your prior link even conflict in how they describe the basics of the Swiss system. Going from the more complete description in the first link, they are very, very different. You should read your links.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  380. Hey, JD? Wasn’t Switzerland the place where women weren’t permitted to vote until, in some cantons, the 1990s?

    Simon Jester (25b622)

  381. Here’s another nice, timely link from Hot Air refuting Perry’s talking points about the uninsured once again.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  382. Daley. Speaking of TALKING POINTS. All of Obama’s ideological HACKS. A.k.a Cabinet, get trotted out to spout the approved and poll tested PROPAGANDA. It’s pathetic. None of Obama’s SENATE APPROVED cabinet secretaries, nor his CZARS are people of substance. They were all chosen for their LACK of independent reason.
    They all LIE for the FUHRER. We shall call it the SUSAN RICE principle.

    Gus (694db4)

  383. Gus – Useful idiots one and all and Perry guzzles their words without question.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.2781 secs.