The Democrat party line on Missouri’s anti-Obamacare referendum is that it presents no serious legal obstacle for the implementation of Obamacare because federal law supersedes state law. This BS is, of course, being repeated throughout the establishment “news” media. CBS provides a typical example:
Federal law generally supersedes state law, making the [Proposition C] vote essentially symbolic.
This is specious nonsense. As Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli explains here, federal law does not supersede state law if the federal statute is unconstitutional. And U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson made clear on Monday that the constitutionality of Obamacare is very much open to question.
Meanwhile, the Missouri referendum has no doubt terrified the Democrats, who were hoping that the public’s memory would be too short for Obamacare to do them real damage in the November midterms. But the voters are obviously holding a grudge, and not just Republicans:
Bear in mind that over 315,000 Democrats turned out to cast ballots in the primary that nominated Robin Carnahan, while over 577,000 Republicans hit the polls. That is about a 65/35 split — which means that a significant amount of Democrats either supported the ballot measure repudiating ObamaCare, or didn’t bother to cast a vote to defend the program.
In other words, in the swing state of Missouri, many Democrat voters are either unhappy with Obamacare and its unconstitutional mandate (or indifferent to its ultimate fate). Would you consider yesterday’s vote ”symbolic” if you were defending a Democrat seat in a swing district?
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A serious question for you. There are 700,000 people in Missouri who are uninsured. They cost the hospitals there about $850 million a year. So instead of arguing for a responsible option of everyone contributing over their lifetime and not going to a hospital without insurance, you seriously want your hospitals continuing to deal with so much uncompensated care, much of which is not comprehensive and which results not only in many not getting vital procedures, but a huge chronic disease burden? Your position - unless it’s completely that of a far right ideologue - makes no sense to me.
Posted 04 Aug 2010 at 2:14 pm ¶There are 700,000 people in Missouri who are uninsured. They cost the hospitals there about $850 million a year.
This will not be a “serious question” until you provide the source of your figures. When you provide that information, I’ll provide a serious answer.
Posted 04 Aug 2010 at 5:12 pm ¶â€œProposition C would only reinforce a broken system,â€? Herb B. Kuhn, president and chief executive of the Missouri Hospital Association, wrote in an opinion piece. “More than 700,000 Missourians don’t have health insurance and the state’s hospitals spent more than $830 million in 2008 providing care for these individuals. Under Proposition C, this system of cost shifts will continue.â€?
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/29/2116812/proposition-c-will-only-encourage.html#ixzz0vgDolqXQ
Posted 04 Aug 2010 at 5:45 pm ¶LOL … Kuhn is Beltway bandit from way back, a roundheel lobbyist and a card-carrying apparatchik from MedPAC and CMS. He has zero credibility and his numbers are fiction.
But, even if his numbers were real (the actual COST of serving the uninsured in MO is probably about 10% of his figure), it doesn’t follow that Obamacare will reduce the cost of treating these patients. In Massachusetts, a similar mandate has produced the opposite effect.
And, even if such mandates were effective, they still wouldn’t justify such a brazen violation of the Constitution. To say that this unconstitutional mandate is justified because it covers the uninsured is like saying fascism is OK because Mussolini made trains run on time.
Posted 04 Aug 2010 at 6:55 pm ¶If you look at this report - The Cost of Care for Missouri’s Uninsured (http://www.mffh.org/mm/files/CoverMoDataBook2.pdf) which looks at 2005 you’ll see estimates of uncompensated care ranged from $666 million to $753 million, and that’s when there were only 600,000 uninsured. Things have got a lot worse of course.
Posted 05 Aug 2010 at 1:38 pm ¶Sorry. No sale. Your source is biased (“Cover Missouriâ€? … give me a break!) and its methodology doesn’t pass the laugh test. This is how they came up with the “estimated cost of hospital care to the uninsuredâ€?:
“First, the charges attributed to free care and bad debt were added together for each hospital … The sum of charges for free care and bad debt was multiplied by each hospital’s cost-to-charge ratio … The 2004 data were adjusted by estimated growth in uninsured …�
The inclusion of bad debt, which isn’t the same as uninsured care, would cause any honest analyst to throw this in the shredder. That they compounded that sleight of hand by jacking the figure up another 23% to account for “estimated growth in the uninsured� qualifies it as a deliberate fraud.
Posted 05 Aug 2010 at 5:01 pm ¶I can’t see why bad debt isn’t part of uncompensated care. Are you saying that some insurance companies default on payment? I’m sure some do but most bad debt must surely be from people without insurance.
Posted 06 Aug 2010 at 3:20 am ¶I can’t see why bad debt isn’t part of uncompensated care.
Now you’re attempting a bait-and-switch. Your “serious question” was about the cost of treating the uninsured, not “uncompensated care.” The former is but one (relatively small) component of the latter.
The people who produced your phony report know the difference, and that bad debt cannot be conflated with the cost of treating the uninsured, yet they still included it in their calculation.
That makes them dishonest. And, as your comments make clear, their willingness to produce deliberately deceptive stats has allowed them to gull many people.
Posted 06 Aug 2010 at 9:18 am ¶“…And, even if such mandates were effective, they still wouldn’t justify such a brazen violation of the Constitution. To say that this unconstitutional mandate is justified because it covers the uninsured is like saying fascism is OK because Mussolini made trains run on time.”
Thanks for making the point that the health care mandates are in fact unconstitutional. That is the real issue. The health care mandates actually make it illegal for me to actually pay cash for medical care rather than use the required insurance (I get ‘taxed’ (translation: FINED)if I do.) The healthcare overhaul is merely a vehicle for reduction of personal freedoms and increases in government intrusion into and control over the daily lives of the Citizens.
I have no problem with healthcare for all, but I have a huge problem with mandates from the federal government requiring everyone to purchase something they may not want to have, and stating that it has the power to do so under the “commerce clause”.
That’s BS
Posted 06 Aug 2010 at 10:19 am ¶Post a Comment