The Supreme Court and I disagree...

And in other news, water is wet...


So we have the decision on Obamacare.  The federal government has been given permission to require me to purchase health insurance.  So now we get to see how long it is before government officals start abusing this ruling.  I give it 3 to 5 years.


Remember the last wonderful decision regarding the SC and people's money?  When people said that Eminent Domain wouldn't be used to take private property for commecial interests?  Well, the SC didn't agree.  The results of that decision were both positive (42 states passed laws to prevent that type of shenanegan) and negative (New London is out 78 mil, Pfizer took all of the tax credits before closing shop and the land is still vacant and undeveloped). 


So we have today's decision.  This decision was not made by reading the Constitution as much as it was made by person beliefs.  Ginsburg is the worst when it comes to this, and the recent additions did not disappoint on putting more emphasis on the social agenda than actually doing their job. 


I spent part of the morning reading the decision, as well as my lunch hour.  Generally, the majority decided that since the law of averages will support the theory that you will likely need to purchase health care at some point in your life, opting out of purchasing health care insurance shouldn't be allowed and that the government should be able to penalize you if you do.  They made assumptions about the penalty and decided that, even though it is not stated as a tax in the document, it is a tax and that allows congress to do this.  The assumptions made by them to support this decision are unbelieveable to me, but unfortunately they are the final word.  The fact that Mr Obama has the opportunity, if re-elected, to put one or two more like minded individuals on the bench scares the living hell out of me. 


I give credit to the minority for succinctly pointing out the failure of this decision on page 140 of the decision: 
"It threatens that order because it gives such an expansive meaning to the Commerce Clause that
all private conduct (including failure to act) becomes subject to federal control, effectively destroying the Constitution’s division of governmental powers."

Now that we are stuck with this bloated ball of suck and fail, I look forward to the immense savings on health care costs that will magically appear.  I'm sure that they will, because the president promised that this will save the taxpayer money.  Another fine example of Hope and Change...  I hope when he's finally out of office I still have some change left in my bank account...

Having spent much time researching this piece of... legislation... I still fail to see where cost savings will come from.  You have taken the pot of money being paid for health care, which (unquestionably) fall short of actual costs and you have now forced everyone to pay into the pot, making it much, much larger.  Where, exactly, will the health care industry be inspired (or required) to lower health care costs?  They won't, they will now just get paid (in theory) for more of the people who come into their establishments.  But nowhere in the 900 page law is there a single line that actually requires anything to be reduced, except for the general public's bank accounts or paychecks. 

Mark Mardell of the BBC made a great observation.  This ruling will be good for democracy, because the law originally pissed off so may people that the Tea Party was born and many people who normally would have stayed at home got out and voted.  I am hoping that happens again.  Last time the Democrats took a beating.  I am not thrilled with the prospect of Romney, but once again we have the choice of the lesser of two evils, not the best candidate for the country.