Life Sucks: Supreme Court Upholds ObamaCare and … It’s Moving Day

Posted on | June 28, 2012 | 50 Comments

Also, Rick Locke has Stage 3 lung cancer, as if we didn’t have enough wretched bummers to go around today, huh? Headlines from Memeorandum:

Supreme Court upholds health care law
— MSNBC

Health care ruling:
Individual mandate upheld
by Supreme Court
— Politico

Supreme Court Lets Health Law Largely Stand
— New York Times

No joy in Mudville. The Chief Justice hath spoken. And my wife is frantic with stress, because we’re going today to sign the papers on a rental house that’s smaller than the house we’re moving out of, in order to put ourselves somewhere that vicious perjuring bastard Brett Kimberlin can’t find us. Blogging About Hyper-Litigious Convicted Lying Terrorists™ was never part of my career plan, of course, but stuff happens, eh? We’ve got to pay to get the electric and cable turned on in the new (too small) place, and will probably have to rent storage for vast amounts of our stuff, so once more I am compelled to invoke the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIPS JAR!

Life sucks. Thanks, Brett Kimberlin. Thanks, Chief Justice Roberts.

Category: Health Care, Shoe Leather Fund, Supreme Court

Comments

50 Responses to “Life Sucks: Supreme Court Upholds ObamaCare and … It’s Moving Day”

Old Rebel
June 28th, 2012 @ 12:24 pm

Roberts was nominated by that great conservative hero, George W. Bush – yet he voted for Obama’s “No-Enforcement” policy on immigration, and now he’s sided with Obama yet again.

Why, it’s enough to make you think there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two big-government parties …
Chillingworth
June 28th, 2012 @ 12:32 pm

I’m surprised other conservatives are so down about this. I offer two reasons for everyone else to feel as good as I do:

1. John Roberts says explicitly in the opinion that the individual mandate would not be constitutional within the commerce clause. Some liberals fear that this will really put a damper on any further additions to their leviathan state:

The rejection of the Commerce Clause and Nec. and Proper Clause should
be understood as a major blow to Congress’s authority to pass social
welfare laws. Using the tax code — especially in the current political
environment — to promote social welfare is going to be a very chancy
proposition.

2. This means Obamacare has not been taken away from Romney as a campaign issue to use against Obama. It would have been a great tragedy if Obamacare had been stricken down but the trade-off were that we were stuck with four more years of the rest of Obama’s agenda.
Zilla of the Resistance
June 28th, 2012 @ 12:32 pm

DOOM!
Good luck with the move, Stacy, I hope other people can hit your tip jar cause I’m broke – and sicker than ever. 🙁
I hate everything and everyone except for a handful of people right now. Obamacare puts my ability to get treatment to fight the stuff that has me so sick in real jeopardy, as I explained in a very detailed post which hardly anybody read back in April:
http://marezilla.com/2012/04/medical-freedom-lyme-disease-and-obamacare/
And the things which make it so difficult for people like me to get proper diagnosis and treatment will be coming for the rest of you as well (see section on medical freedom at the link) while people like me will get to look forward to being ruled “obsolete” and instead of medical care that can make us better and more productive, we will get death panels.
Now I really need to shake my own tip jar so I can hurry up and get my diseases under control before the gov’t makes it illegal for me to see my specialist!
Sorry, off topic. Just freaking out a little here.
DOOM!
CptNerd
June 28th, 2012 @ 12:50 pm

I have an idea for revenge:
http://wp.me/p2lCzF-9b
PAcon12
June 28th, 2012 @ 12:50 pm

Reasons I’m down about your silver linings:

1.) Sure, the State can’t throw me in jail for refusing to buy what they tell me to. They can only fine/tax me until I’m broke. Ho hum.

2.) Sure, Romney can run on this issue and it will probably help him. But what is he gonna do as President? I don’t trust him to enact truly conservative reforms to health care and insurance, given what he did in Mass. And I don’t trust a Republican majority Senate to ram through a repeal with 51 votes, even if they have a majority of the public on their side. This was our best chance to rid ourselves of this monstrosity, and we lost at the Supreme Court, despite convincing Kennedy to throw out the whole thing.

The short, medium, and long term outlook for this country are dim. A win in this case could have given us a ray of hope. We did not win.
steve benton
June 28th, 2012 @ 1:12 pm

I think we’re looking at it all wrong. This will more than a campaign issue- it will be a call to arms for voters all over the country. We were given our best issue back to pound the crap out of democraps. It works tremendously in our favor.
steve benton
June 28th, 2012 @ 1:19 pm

In other words, we never got a chance to vote whether we wanted Obamacare or not. Now we get to vote whether we want slavery or not.
Bob Belvedere
June 28th, 2012 @ 1:20 pm

Anyone who counts on Romney or McConnell or Boehner to get the repeal done will be very, very disappointed.

Willard is a wimp – always has been – and is a believer in government as a positive force for good.

Even if Granny Mitch could summon the strength and will from within to do the right thing, RINO Senators like Scott Brown will demand that certain provisions of Obamacare stay or be included in any new bill.

Cryin’ John is, like Mitt, a wimp and his heart is not in any Constitutional fight – which this is – as he showed yesterday when his main comment was the economic argument against OCare and he ignored the central one that the ACA is blatantly unConstitutional.
Chillingworth
June 28th, 2012 @ 1:21 pm

(1) No, I definitely agree that the government’s use of the tax code to manipulate our behavior (including long before Obamacare) is tyrannical and insidiously erodes our liberty. The silver lining here would be political: On John Fund’s liberal’s theory, it will be much more difficult for liberals in Congress and the White House to enact their utopian statist schemes in the future if the public sees it as directly raising taxes. President Obama and all the king’s men were at pains to convince the country that this wasn’t a tax. Next time, perhaps, thanks in part to the Supreme Court, the country will know better. Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on you. If there’s hope for America and liberty, I think it lies in our learning and adapting—in other words, coming to grasp a threat and developing an antibody response to it. I think the Tea Party is already a (successful, so far, in part) example of this phenomenon.

(2) I can’t speak to the likelihood of getting repeal through the Senate (certainly procedural propriety didn’t stop the Democrats when they passed it in the first place), but as to what Romney will do, you aren’t seriously suggesting that once elected, he would not try to repeal Obamacare? I agree, Romneycare was terrible (and very similar to Obamacare), and I’m not suggesting that we judge Romney to be of admirable character or anything, but on the narrow question of what he will find it politically necessary to do if elected: He has repeatedly committed, in strong terms, to working to repeal Obamacare immediately if elected. Today he has already responded to the Supreme Court decision by explicitly renewing that commitment.

Like you, in a way, I don’t trust Romney any farther than I can throw him, but fortunately, we don’t have to. As others have said in other contexts, the trick is not to elect the right people, but to create a political climate in which even the wrong people find it necessary to do the right thing.

(More generally) I agree with you that there is a serious danger that America and liberty will die, sooner than people would think. I’m a fan of Mark Steyn, whose most recent book is even more pessimistic than his last. But I also agree with Steyn that America still gives reason to hope. He remarks that when the recession started a few years ago, the people in Europe took to the streets to demand why the government had not done more to help them; the people in America took to the streets to tell the government to get out of our business and stop ruining our lives. Then the people got disciplined and determined and formed the Tea Party, and produced historic gains for conservative Republicans in 2010, not only in Congress but also in states across the country. I think there’s still a ray of hope, and I’m happy to get it from the actions of free-born citizens, not from nine permanent members of the governing class in black robes.
Chillingworth
June 28th, 2012 @ 1:24 pm

Oops, I totally got the “shame on me” thing backward. (At least I’m in good company!)
Evi L. Bloggerlady
June 28th, 2012 @ 1:35 pm

Separated at Birth: John Roberts and…? It is not personal guys, it is just the law…
McGehee
June 28th, 2012 @ 2:09 pm

To me Roberts looks more like Earl Warren — before Warren’s hair turned white, and if he didn’t need glasses.

Look closely.
McGehee
June 28th, 2012 @ 2:10 pm

Terrific. Instead of absolute and unlimited power under the Commerce Clause, the feds have absolute and unlimited power to make us do whatever they please, or pay a tax.

It’s different, but it isn’t better.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
June 28th, 2012 @ 2:13 pm

I am not counting on anything Bob. I am under no delusions. I suppose we could make a water hemlock punch and get this over with quickly. I am not sure that is a good idea. It is not exactly Wolverine.

While it is now a much more difficult job, we have to go with the “heroes”* we got and unfortunately that is Romney, Boehner and the GOP. RINO Scott Brown? You think you will do better with Elizabeth “Pow Wow Chow” Warren?

And I agree we have to plan for the worse.

* And you cannot prosecute me under stolen valor for saying so.
Quartermaster
June 28th, 2012 @ 2:25 pm

All three are Progressives. They are just more moderate than then Demoncrats.

Both Boehner and McConnel are wimps and not worth the powder it would take to blow them to hell.
Quartermaster
June 28th, 2012 @ 2:26 pm

Once more SCOTUS shows how comtemptible it is. Scoff laws are all they are.
Red
June 28th, 2012 @ 2:36 pm

I’m out of spicy mustard too. Man, life does suck.
Tennwriter
June 28th, 2012 @ 2:44 pm

Some days you just want to ignore the news. Get better, Ric.
CPAguy
June 28th, 2012 @ 2:52 pm

Well…@ least RSM has other things to contemplate rather than servitude for all…
robertstacymccain
June 28th, 2012 @ 3:23 pm

we never got a chance to vote whether we wanted Obamacare or not.

We did get a chance to vote for ObamaCare. When Democrats won the 2006 mid-term elections, making Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the House and Harry Reid the Senator Majority Leader, then in 2008, when Barack Obama won the White House. That was how it happened.
Thanks Chief, We'll Take It From Here - The POH Diaries
June 28th, 2012 @ 3:35 pm

[…] Yes, life sucks. Individuals let you down. People aren’t who you thought they were. And most disturbingly, there are millions upon millions of idiots who are perfectly happy with the court ruling that Obamacare is Constitutional when the only thing that will happen with it’s implementation is destruction. Destruction of the private healthcare industry, destruction of small businesses, further destruction of an already vulnerable economy. But hey, we have socialized medicine. Aren’t we advanced? Aren’t we compassionate? […]
Evi L. Bloggerlady
June 28th, 2012 @ 3:40 pm

Glenn Reynolds is more sanguine about this decision, thinking that Roberts may have intentionally lost the battle to win the war (and take on the commerce clause). I am less optimistic on that. Still, if this is a tax can it be filibuster proof? If that is the case 50 votes and Mitt Romney as president (and a GOP Veep) is enough to make this go away.

Still, why do I feel like the Gimp in Pulp Fiction today?
Wombat_socho
June 28th, 2012 @ 3:40 pm

As you may have noticed, it’s easier to get people riled up over taxes than Wickard v. Filburn.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
June 28th, 2012 @ 3:45 pm

I updated it per your suggestion McGehee! I see it now!
McGehee
June 28th, 2012 @ 4:30 pm

Roberts has merely moved the Overton window, and if not in the worst possible direction, also not in the direction it needed to be moved.
McGehee
June 28th, 2012 @ 4:46 pm

And then there’s this.
Bob Belvedere
June 28th, 2012 @ 5:25 pm

You’re not the only one, Evi.
Bob Belvedere
June 28th, 2012 @ 5:36 pm

Evi: This decision has moved us one step closer to settle using ‘politics by other means’, as Clausewitz defined a certain word.
Bob Belvedere
June 28th, 2012 @ 5:40 pm

No…we get to vote for people who say they are anti-slavery, but act like Henry Clay when the rubber meets the road.
Adjoran
June 28th, 2012 @ 5:42 pm

I think you are correct. The long-term implications of limiting the scope of the Commerce Clause will far outweigh the approval of the taxing scheme in the mandate.

Despite all the hand-wringing, most Constitutional scholars have thought all along the “mandate” would be constitutional if presented as a tax; Obama and the Democrats argued it wasn’t a tax in an attempt to blunt opposition (which didn’t exactly work). SCOTUS recognized it for what it is: a $1+ trillion new tax on the American citizen.

So now we are in essentially the same position we would have been had the mandate alone been stricken: needing to repeal the rest of it, but now we can campaign against the most unpopular part of ObamaCare AND the huge tax increase coming in 2014 instead of allowing Democrats to hide behind a few of the popular benefits.

The opposition will be re-energized, the Tea Partiers recharged, while the potential swelling of righteous indignation of the left against “partisan 5-4 decisions” is deflated (yeah, I know it was still 5-4, but they don’t get mad when it goes their way).

This is already being discussed as Roberts’ “Marbury moment” – after when Marshall, in the simple act of affirming Executive appointment power, asserted the SCOTUS’ ultimate authority over the Constitution.

That some don’t see it that way is fine by me – as long as they channel their energies toward electing those who will vote to repeal the whole darned thing and not to attacking Roberts.
Adjoran
June 28th, 2012 @ 5:55 pm

How stupid do you have to be to believe the Republican candidates from Romney to the Senate to the House will not run strongly on repeal when the mandate and law are so unpopular? Or that repeal would not be a first order of business for the new Congress and Administration?

How many will continue to bray about “RINO Scott Brown” when it was his election and promise to oppose that forced Reid and Pelosi to pass it under the “reconciliation” route to avoid a filibuster? Even though that set the precedent to repeal it the same way?

How about our “true conservative” Republican candidates? I’ve been hearing Newt and Paul and Cain and Bachmann and Pawlenty and Perry out there speaking against the Obama excesses, they’ve been true. But Huntsman has joined a liberal “think tank” and Santorum has disappeared like the whiny little turd he always was.

Maybe the crybabies and whiners can seek out Rick and build a compound somewhere – preferably far out of sight and hearing. The rest of us have serious work to do.
Rich Graff
June 28th, 2012 @ 5:56 pm

Your right. November better get here real damned quick. We The American People got screwed again by our Government. Talk about butt hurt.
McGehee
June 28th, 2012 @ 6:40 pm

Why, you’re right! I see it now! What the Democrats thought Obama was for them, Romney will be for us!

How could I have missed it!?
O My! A Case for Practicing Self-Governance | Nathan Martin
June 28th, 2012 @ 8:15 pm

[…] As I stated about Federalism earlier, waiting for a Justice to rule isn’t a good self-governance philosophy. A sentiment echoed by Stacy McCain. […]
richard mcenroe
June 28th, 2012 @ 8:34 pm

Ask Senator Blunt… http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/senate-republicans-mirror-house-gop-shift-on-obamacare.php
Quilly Mammoth
June 28th, 2012 @ 9:42 pm

There’s a lot of wretched crap out there. We can affect some of it in our own small way. OTOH, you affect Ric’s life in a major way.

That’s kinda what us conservatives are all about. Voluntary help to those in need. The fact that clearly Stacy needs help b/c of Kimberlin yet mentions Ric Locke’s situation is the exemplar of why our side is better and the true compassionate people.
Oddly normal rural person
June 28th, 2012 @ 10:45 pm

no…say it isn’t so!
Pathfinder's wife
June 28th, 2012 @ 11:00 pm

I think I’ll just go with my default position that this will amount to much asinine political posturing and game playing, with a healthy dose of legal/practical application goat orgy, followed with the wee folk bearing the brunt of it in the real world and the lovely people not being affected much if at all (some may even get to line their pockets), and that tomorrow the sun will rise in the east and set in the west with no major renovations in the overall condition of man , which by and large hasn’t been one of ease for the common lot and rather debauched for a select few.

It hasn’t failed me yet.
Pathfinder's wife
June 28th, 2012 @ 11:04 pm

And I’m the oddly normal rural person — which can be interpreted in a few different ways.
Jason Rainier
June 28th, 2012 @ 11:33 pm

Romney has said several times that he would nominate judges to the supreme court similar to John Roberts… if you want more days like today then Romney seems like your candidate. After all, he did implement similar legislation in Massachusetts.
Gary Johnson has said that he would nominate judges similar to Judge Andrew Napolitano to the supreme court. I just do not understand why conservatives do not back Gary Johnson.
2SoonOld2LateSmart
June 28th, 2012 @ 11:51 pm

Doncha know?

You can’t get free stuff unless you pay the free stuff tax.
Dave C
June 29th, 2012 @ 12:51 am

Good luck on the move..
karen marie
June 29th, 2012 @ 8:07 pm

I fail to see how your issues with Lyme Disease are affected one way or another by Obamacare.

You say yourself doctors disagree about treatment. How is that political? And what does it have to do with Obamacare?

It’s not the government that refuses to cover treatment, it’s insurance bureaucrats — you know, the moving parts in your beloved “free market.”
karen marie
June 29th, 2012 @ 8:08 pm

What, are you three years old?
karen marie
June 29th, 2012 @ 8:20 pm

1) If you had the first clue about PPACA you would understand that the goverment will not “fine/tax [you] until [you’re] broke. The penalty for not having health insurance is deducted from any refund you may otherwise be entitled to; no lien is made against you or your property.

2) What specifically do you object to? That there will be lower premiums available? That many people will have better coverage? That insurance companies must spend 80% of premiums on actual coverage? That you cannot be denied coverage based on a preexisting condition? That your children can remain on your policy until they are 26? That lifetime limits are prohibited so that in the event you have a catastrophic illness after having had, say, a heart attack, you won’t be denied coverage?

I am baffled by people who insist that health care should only be available to those who can afford it, because at a certain point many people would be surprised to discover that despite the fact that they are solidly middle class and have insurance, they just don’t have enough to care for themselves and/or their loved ones.

I’m not sure that being an American means what you think it does.
karen marie
June 29th, 2012 @ 8:21 pm

I think your water hemlock punch is a splendid idea. You might even get it organized for next week if you hurry.
Zilla of the Resistance
June 29th, 2012 @ 8:50 pm

You clearly have not read anything from the link and have no awareness of the decades long controversy stemming from the raging conflicts of interest of the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) whose outdated and faulty guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of late stage advanced Lyme and other Tick Borne Diseases are used as the “standard of care” but gov’t agencies like the CDC and NIH which already effect the medical community at large and the insurance industry which gets their guidelines for what to cover (or deny) from the federal government. Right now it is possible for sick people to seek treatment independently from doctors who recognize that the IDSA’s guidelines are negligently faulty and outdated, but when the government exerts complete control over the entire field of American medicine, there will be a panel of bureaucrats who decide what the one-size-fits-all standard of care will be for various afflictions, and the government already relies on bad information regarding advanced Lyme and other TBDs. Ask a Canadian afflicted with Late Stage Lyme what they have to go through to get care. It is ILLEGAL for them to seek independent medical care outside of the system even if they want to pay with their own moeny, so they come HERE, well at least the do until we become like them and then they won’t have anywhere left to go.
Your ignorance is not my problem though and neither is your assumption about what is “beloved” or not to me, so maybe you should try educating yourself instead of arrogantly spewing ignorance just like your beloved prog masters. You have no clue what you are talking about.
CptNerd
June 30th, 2012 @ 1:09 am

What? Just leveling the playing field, following the new rules of the game. Just because the Leftists don’t want us to play by them doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. They just have no comprehension of cause and effect, that if they allow certain behavior and give certain authority to the Government while they’re in charge, that the same authority applies when they’re no longer in charge.

Of course, Leftists can’t ever imagine a time when they aren’t in charge, which should scare the crap out of thinking people everywhere.
PAcon12
June 30th, 2012 @ 12:48 pm

1.) I thought it was clear that I was talking about the precedent set by the Supreme Court, and not Obamacare in particular. But to answer your point more directly, you seem to misunderstand that an individual’s tax refund is an overcharge of their income tax burden, and was always that person’s property in the first place. And to argue that you do not owe the Mandate Tax if you were not overcharged in your taxes over the course of the year is simply incorrect. There is a penalty of imprisonment for failing to pay the mandate tax (that is the penalty of last resort for failing to pay taxes, of course).

2.) What specifically do I object to? Well, first of all, I find it offensive that the government would mandate that I purchase a private product of their choosing, and I agree with the dissenting opinion of the Court that it is not constitutional for the federal government to do so. In addition, I don’t know about your health insurance, but my premiums have increased more rapidly in the wake of the passage of Obamacare. As someone early in their career, I am going to be forced to buy more insurance than I need in order to subsidize the health insurance of older workers in a more advanced position in their career who are more able to afford their insurance than I am. I find the notion that insurance companies are not trying to keep their overhead costs to a minimum to be ridiculous, and any top-down mandate for a percentage of premiums being devoted to health care payouts will only be effective in driving insurance companies out of business. From the perspective of an insurance company, the preexisting conditions mandate will allow individuals to wait to purchase health insurance until they are sick, and therefore they will be unable to pool their risk among healthy and sick people–this is the reason for the health insurance mandate, but not everyone will comply with the mandate. (A more reasonable approach would have been to legislate that you cannot be removed from your existing insurance coverage if you have insurance while obtaining a preexisting condition. A small part of Obamacare that I do like, and one that would have sailed through Congress with bipartisan support.)

Those are a few of the things that Obamacare does that I object to. How about the problems with health insurance that Obamacare fails to address? Tort reform would be #1 on the list, and doctors are crying out for relief so that they don’t have to practice defensive medicine. If anything, we are farther removed from the actual cost of health care than before the law, which prevents individuals from making economic choices to control health care costs–a principal reason for the disconnect between the changes in health care spending and overall spending. The idea that 26 year olds are children for the purpose of health
insurance is very odd to me, but I see no reason to limit any individual
from joining anyone else’s health insurance plan, whether they are
related or not. I see no reason for limiting health insurance plans by state lines either, but this law failed to address that problem.

I am baffled by people who believe that somehow health care can be made available to people who cannot afford it, because at a certain point you run out of other people’s money, and without any cost controls put into place, our economy would collapse on the weight of health care costs. Instead of allowing individuals to make their own choices about how to spend their money (capitalism), the government will decide for us how much of our money will be spent on health care (socialism). There is simply not enough money to go around for everyone to afford the maximum amount of health care. Over the course of history, it is abundantly clear that allowing individuals to make their own economic choices results in greater prosperity and a better quality of life for all, despite what might appear to be vast inequality and injustice in a particular moment.

I am sure that being an American does not mean what you think it does.
Medical Freedom, Lyme Disease, and Obamacare | Zilla of the Resistance at MareZilla.com
July 6th, 2012 @ 10:32 am

[…] ahead of me and still desperately need help to continue the fight to save my own life. Now that the Supreme Court has upheld Obamacare, the already difficult to obtain medical care that I and others afflicted with these tick diseases […]

The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Life Sucks: Supreme Court Upholds ObamaCare and … It’s Moving Day

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