More On Scotus

Flash back to the 2008 presidential race. Candidates Obama and McCain both ran on solving the healthcare crisis in this country. Every President beginning with Harry Truman realized that the United States was the only modern country without a healthcare system that ensured every citizen treatment. At the end of the campaign, we were a nation with over 50 million uninsured and serious health problems often brought bankruptcy. In fact healthcare is the number one reason Americans declare bankruptcy.


So what happens if the Radical Roberts Court over-rules the Congress of the United States and declares the Affordable Care Act null and void? It means the millions of children who now find themselves ensured will be off the rolls. The 50 million number will vastly increase as millions will be priced out of the market. With the caps on total insurance reimbursements lifted, millions more Americans will become bankrupt. The costs of premiums for those with insurance will sky-rocket. The industry says it will raise the rates next year 25%. People like myself will not be able to carry my son on my own insurance until the age of 25. Lucky for him, his parents are committed he graduate from college debt free. But for the students carrying $1 trillion in debt now, how many can afford or make the choice to get insurance? 


When the Affordable Healthcare Act passed, it was a momentous occasion--the Big Fucking Deal in the words of Joe Biden. The United States by the vote of Congress recognized that healthcare was a right, not a privilege. If the bill is reversed, it will go back but become a very special privilege. 


Let me make this personal. When my 501-C-3 had insurance in a small pool, my premium soared to $25,000 a year. I dropped it and took insurance with my wife's employer. But like millions of Americans that insurance is paid by us, not the employer. Today,my health premiums rival my mortgage and taxes. With my peak earning days behind me and Medicare five years ahead of me, we have entered no-man's land. If for some reason, we should change insurance, we would run up against the so-called pre-existing condition issue, although to average people we have none. It is just that insurance companies run logarithms to determine your eligibility and throw you off if a pattern emerges that you can not possibly know. During the healthcare debates,the health insurance companies would not share their formulas with Congress. Horror stories were told of people literally on the operating table and being denied coverage. That's the nightmare average people will have, especially now that they know whereas before they only suspected. 


Today,my health insurance premiums rival my mortgage and my taxes in terms of cost. If Obamacare is repealed, they would become the number one expense. And this expense would continue if Medicare became Paul Ryan's Vouchercare. And there would be nothing you could do about it. Almost all Americans would be reduced to servitude. And let's not even talk about the Donut Hole being opened up again and drug costs soaring as the population ages.


That's why the SCOTUS arguments are irritating. The New York Times this morning has an excellent editorial cautioning the Court to remember their limits. The Congress already evaluated the policy and economic implications of our health crisis and democratically came to a peculiar American solution that passed both chambers. The justices obviously have shown their ignorance of the health care market and have been disappointing in not evoking the common good. Congress was regulating a market for the common good and the benefit to millions of Americans. To overturn this bill would be a body blow to our democracy and raise grave doubts about the integrity of the Supreme Court.


Yesterday Anthony Scalia, who had been pegged as a possible supporter of the individual mandate because of very specific cases in his past made it clear he knew those arguments and tried to distinguish this case from those which were identical. It was clear he will vote against the individual mandate anyway. 


But most disturbing was the fact that Scalia was not being ideological, he was just oblivious from his questioning about how healthcare worked in this country. Remember the Supreme Court Judges have the best healthcare and have their own suites at Walter Reed Hospital with chandeliers and catered food. They don't remember paying a dime for healthcare. Scalia mused how wonderful it was that so many young people do not have health insurance because they are well. Then he suggested if they got ill,they just buy some. Clueless.


Scalia remembers the days when we were young and doctor's costs were low. In those days--until 1984--Blue Cross-Blue Shield was a non-profit organization and its "profits" were plowed into the company to provide health care for the needy. No longer. 


But there is another point.  The more younger people are insured, the lower the health insurance costs for the entire population. That's why Medicare for all would be the ideal solution if our society was committed to health and not profit. But none of the judges comprehended the basics of insurance--let alone the social problem. You just don't walk into a hospital on a stretcher and buy health insurance. Although, this could be a great marketing tool--kiosks at hospitals selling health insurance. It is something Bain Capitol might invest in.


This morning they argued about the extension of Medicare, which would bring tens of millions into the insurance pool. But the states are worried that those who are eligible now will start enrolling and put financial stress on the states. So to kill it, the states are invoking the 10th amendment. This would leave tens of millions without health insurance and healthcare itself. So far the Court in the days of law never over-ruled Congress on extending Medicare.


For those who haven't been to an emergency room lately, you have to undergo a credit check if you don't have insurance and sign a paper guaranteeing you will pay the bill. Let's just say you had a scare of a heart attack as I did a few years ago. You go in and they don't know what's wrong. After several tests over two days they send you home. The bill comes--my insurance covered most but the bill also showed the cost of the tests and hospital stay for the uninsured. It was a remarkable $25,000. What uninsured person has that? And if Americans were all insured, these costs would go down as would healthcare costs in the country alone.


The United States spends 18% of its economy on healthcare. Any one who tells you there is no rationing is a liar and that there are no waits for operations doesn't understand the system. You can not have a modern economy and eat up this percentage of the economy on health. No one else does. The Affordable Healthcare Act actually cuts our national debt by $500 billion. That would disappear and the debt from healthcare would climb once again.


What about the average American family who earns $49,000 a year? That is the new average. Employer provided health insurance is going the way of the Do Do. The family will cheat by getting high deductibles praying they don't get sick. This may work for one or two years. But if they got good insurance and paid for it themselves it would run them about $7,000 a year. That's with no one ill. Then add in rent or a mortgage payment as well as the cost of car and gas and you are now below the Middle Class. And then hope no one in the family gets sick.


Or the converse, how much do you need to earn so health insurance premiums and healthcare costs do not represent a major part of your expenses. I would estimate $250,000 or more, the average Romney voter's salary. Any one in between will lose their standard of living.


So let's remember the Left's criticism of Obamacare. The Left complained that it would only insure 30 out of 50 million. I'll take it. The ideal solution would be the single payer option but it was not politically viable then and will not be again within a generation. To be blunt, if the Supreme Court reverses the Affordable Care Act, nothing will be done to reform our healthcare system for at least a generation. The political costs will be perceived too high and the entrenched power elites will act to destroy it as they are now doing.


To have the threat of illness hang over you with the double danger of financial insolvency kills the American dream more than almost anything else. We will become a nation of serfs, genuflecting to the Slaver Class who may or may not provide us with health insurance. 


In short, the Supreme Court hearings are ludicrous. Nothing can be more dispiriting to hear than judges who are simply clueless about the subject at hand and callous about the effects of their actions on millions of Americans. For now,let's hope the Roberts Court snaps to attention and actually thinks about how serious the case really is and how the bill tries--imperfectly--to address one of our most major social and economic problems. I'm concerned that the conservative judges and their cheerleaders want to deal President Obama a political loss since this is his signature achievement in his first term. But then the hangover will last for decades. And President Obama and his family will always have healthcare. Others of us might not.