Obamacare, Healthcare, etc.

[Demosthenes11]

Deducting 1 ipad from a 500 ipad salary isn't really a huge deal. It's much harder on the people who only make 100 ipads or less per year, especially if their insurance lacks coverage or has 4-5 ipad deductibles.

but what if its a 4G 64 GB ipad3!?

the government is going too far when they are taking one of those away from those making over 400 4G 64GB ipads per year

[BaneTheBrawler]

i only make three ipads a year i am le poor.

but it's okay. knowing that people are using ipads as the unit of measurement on the internet amuses me and makes me feel better.

[Sera]

At least half of those things I consider to be good.

lol i was thinking the same thing, i figured maybe i was missing the point

[Siatdiat]

I can't say for the second part, but as for this -- no, you're not.

Are you remarking on the fact that people often consider Economics a soft science, like Psychology? Soft sciences are usally things that are hard to apply the scientific method to in general. That said, I'm sure anyone can find any kind of economics or psychology reports, books, whatever, that show almost anything imaginable. Try this: Come up with the most insane idea you can think of for economics or psychology, and google it. Search through the list uAddntil you find something real (not an angelfire site that hasn't been updated in 12 years.)

Add: Oh, and regarding that list.... some of it isn't bad, and the ones that do appear bad are for the most part misrepresented. One persons "penalizes marriage" is another persons "treats everyone equally." Penalizing marriage would be causing married people to have to pay more than others I would think?

[Pirian]

Are you remarking on the fact that people often consider Economics a soft science, like Psychology? S

No, I'm not. Way too much math is used for it to be a "soft science". People who try and claim that Economics is a soft science most often have no idea what that even entails, and are just parroting something that they heard some high profile person (who is also more than likely to have never taken an econ class pass 101) say.

That said, I'm sure anyone can find any kind of economics or psychology reports, books, whatever, that show almost anything imaginable.

I'm well aware of this, but finding a single study that has probably been refuted in a study somewhere else does not mean that they've found proof for their position. It's just as you said, there is so much out there that you're bound to find something related to what you're trying to defend, despite the standing or counter-evidence to that particular study.

[Siatdiat]

No, I'm not. Way too much math is used for it to be a "soft science". People who try and claim that Economics is a soft science most often have no idea what that even entails, and are just parroting something that they heard some high profile person (who is also more than likely to have never taken an econ class pass 101) say.



I'm well aware of this, but finding a single study that has probably been refuted in a study somewhere else does not mean that they've found proof for their position. It's just as you said, there is so much out there that you're bound to find something related to what you're trying to defend, despite the standing or counter-evidence to that particular study.

Was just checking to see where you stand. It's not uncommon for people to discount economics, psychology, anthropology, etc.

[Gwynplaine]

Arguments for day 1 are over. Day 1 centers around deciding if the law is a tax or a penalty. You can listen to the recorded audio here:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/03/au...days-argument/

Or read a summary here that gives a better idea of how it proceeded to us non-lawyer types:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/03/ar...o-the-mandate/

Don't expect sexy dramatics and Phoenix Wright interludes. It's quite dry and tedious based upon tax issues and law precedent. But it's worth checking out if you're curious.


Hopefully mods won't mind if I post multiple items in multiple posts. Usually that's looked at as "spam" but it's just that there are tons of good news articles and references on this topic. But it's not "spam" it's relevant to the topic and makes an actual contribution. Unlike just saying "lol" or "umad" etc.


At Forbes they seem fairly confident the justices are more likely to consider it a penalty.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/201...pid-reactions/

David Hogberg: “They all pretty much came down on the penalty side. There was some aggressive questioning as to why this is not a tax, but you never really got the sense that any of them wanted to use the AIA to avoid the case for the time being.

“Even some of the more liberal justices, Robert Long, who was the outside attorney who argued the tax portion, they hit him pretty hard. You could tell by the questions that they were asking, they just didn’t buy that this was necessarily a tax.
“The best that Long could come up with is, that it’s collected like revenue [by the IRS], but they weren’t buying it.”

This isn't surprising to anyone, as most commentators so far have expected it to be viewed as a penalty. Even Obama's own administration expects as much. Day 2 tomorrow is the main issue of the mandate.

[Gwynplaine]

Are you remarking on the fact that people often consider Economics a soft science, like Psychology? Soft sciences are usally things that are hard to apply the scientific method to in general.

What I meant by that was that economics can be considered a qualitative science. As opposed to a quantitative science like physics. Which would be the famous "physics envy" mistake where someone tries to cram numbers into a qualitative science to make it hard and concrete like physics. But economics involves human beings, which means the factor of free will. Free will can't be predicted or wedged into any equation of numbers like falling objects.

So economics can't say for example: Jessica Adams will buy 3 packs of printer paper from Office Max at 6pm because it's on sale and our equation predicts it.
What it can do is make a qualified statement like: given suchandsuch context, if x activity continues, you will get y.

[Pirian]

What I meant by that was that economics can be considered a qualitative science. As opposed to a quantitative science like physics. Which would be the famous "physics envy" mistake where someone tries to cram numbers into a qualitative science to make it hard and concrete like physics. But economics involves human beings, which means the factor of free will. Free will can't be predicted or wedged into any equation of numbers like falling objects.

You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? And by that, I mean, you're making definitive claim-inferences based upon limited knowledge about a subject that, based upon your post, you know little about outside of what you may have read this, or that, journalist say in regards to an emotional outlier event.

So economics can't say for example: Jessica Adams will buy 3 packs of printer paper from Office Max at 6pm because it's on sale and our equation predicts it.
What it can do is make a qualified statement like: given suchandsuch context, if x activity continues, you will get y.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

A situation like that would go something more like this:
Jessica Adams has an price elasticity of demand of -.6. If Office Max has a sale on printer paper that reduces the price by 15%, then Jessica will purchase 9% more printer paper when she goes there at 6pm, ceteris paribus.

This is very, very basic economics. If you don't understand this, the simplest of examples, then you certainly are not qualified to make the claims you are making. You can get more complicated than this when predicting Jessica's actions, but all that means is setting up the conditions to derive the ED instead of it being given, or taking away/change the ceteris paribus conditions.

[Sera]

Meanwhile, shitbag RICH AS FUCK 71 year old war criminals with McDonalds Cheeseburger arteries and a history of FIVE HEART ATTACKS get to yank heart transplants out from under younger, healthier patients under our FABULOUS SYSTEM. Oh man, what money can get you!

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM WORKS, DOWN WITH UHS' FAIRNESS

[Ragnus]

But if we swapped to UHS, his government provided healthcare might be reduced by all of the commoners who are covered by it now.

[Gwynplaine]

There's also a full transcript up on the SCOTUS site. In case you prefer that, it's easier to search and re-read etc. I think "parade of horribles" could be a cool hipster band name.

PDF link:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arg...398-Monday.pdf

One bit that I thought was interesting:

what's going to happen is you are going to have an intelligent federal court deciding whether you are going to make an exception. And there will be no parade of horribles because all federal courts are intelligent.

So it seems to me it's a question you can't answer. It's a question which asks "why should there be any jurisdictional rules?" And you think there should be.

MR. LONG: Well, and, Justice Scalia, I mean, honestly, I can't predict what would happen, but I would say that not all people who litigate about federal taxes are necessarily rational. And I think there would be a great -

Well that's awfully cynically statist.


And here's a short Youtube video that describes how Supreme Court arguments typically go down in formal detail. Very strict requirements for time your given to speak apparently.

[Ragnus]

JUSTICE
ALITO: General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow youare going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax.

CHIEF
JUSTICE ROBERTS: Why would you have a requirement that is completely toothless? You know, buy insurance or else. Or else what? Or else nothing.

Probably my favorite lines in the transcript. The people arguing against this are trying to sail an ice cube over boiling water. I'll be surprised if this law is found unconstitutional based on the penalty.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Probably my favorite lines in the transcript. The people arguing against this are trying to sail an ice cube over boiling water. I'll be surprised if this law is found unconstitutional based on the penalty.

You'll be surprised if they find this is a tax and therefore cannot decide the constitutional issues? Or you'll be surprised they will find this to be a mandate?

[Ragnus]

I'm finding it odd that they're trying to dodge the law by arguing that it isn't a tax at the same time they're trying to throw it out based on them thinking it's a tax. It's been law in MA for a few years now and nobody is screaming unconstitutionality here. UHC can work here as long as politicians keep it properly funded and don't start pulling funds for the sole purpose of being able to say how it isn't working and needs to be struck down.

The lawyers are trying to get the mandate thrown out now because the part that kicks in in 2014, which has private health insurance companies shitting their pants, will make it impossible to continue private health insurance in it's current form since it will require the companies to make sure the vast majority of all customer payments each month go towards healthcare. At the same time, since we live in a country that fears government power more than corporate, we have people who would rather pay $250-300 a month to a private company rather than pay less than that in taxes each month for the same coverage.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

I'm finding it odd that they're trying to dodge the law by arguing that it isn't a tax at the same time they're trying to throw it out based on them thinking it's a tax. It's been law in MA for a few years now and nobody is screaming unconstitutionality here. UHC can work here as long as politicians keep it properly funded and don't start pulling funds for the sole purpose of being able to say how it isn't working and needs to be struck down.

The lawyers are trying to get the mandate thrown out now because the part that kicks in in 2014, which has private health insurance companies shitting their pants, will make it impossible to continue private health insurance in it's current form since it will require the companies to make sure the vast majority of all customer payments each month go towards healthcare. At the same time, since we live in a country that fears government power more than corporate, we have people who would rather pay $250-300 a month to a private company rather than pay less than that in taxes each month for the same coverage.

It's the Obama admin who is doing the back and forth on the tax. No one is trying to dodge it by calling it a tax. Here's what's happening:

The Anti-Injunction Act prohibits suits to restrain collection of taxes prior to them being assessed. If this is a tax, then the SCOTUS can't entertain the rest of the suit until 2014 when the IRS begins assessing the "tax"-it wouldn't have jurisdiction. The inconsistency is that the Obama admin doesn't want to wait until 2014 for this suit to be decided, nor do the plaintiffs. So yesterday they argued this wasn't a tax so that the SCOTUS would have jurisdiction. Today they are arguing that the mandate is justified under Congress' tax and spending power.

Edit: Just to add a little more clarity, one of the Judges below found the anti-injunction applied. Neither side argued this so the SCOTUS appointed someone to argue that point. The government (maybe the plaintiffs to?) therefore had to argue that it did not apply. This created the inconsistency.

And why are the insurance companies shitting their pants? In 2014 a law becomes active that forces 300+ million people to buy their product.

[Ragnus]

The Anti-Injunction Act prohibits suits to restrain collection of taxes prior to them being assessed. If this is a tax, then the SCOTUS can't entertain the rest of the suit until 2014 when the IRS begins assessing the "tax"-it wouldn't have jurisdiction. The inconsistency is that the Obama admin doesn't want to wait until 2014 for this suit to be decided, nor do the plaintiffs. So yesterday they argued this wasn't a tax so that the SCOTUS would have jurisdiction. Today they are arguing that the mandate is justified under Congress' tax and spending power.

I get that much. It's still stupid that they're comparing it to a tax even if it falls under that power. Who else other than the IRS would collect such a thing?

And why are the insurance companies shitting their pants? In 2014 a law becomes active that forces 300+ million people to buy their product.

http://www.healthaffairs.org/healthp...hp?brief_id=30

It's called "Medical Loss Ratios" and the new mandate makes the current system potentially unsustainable unless the insurance companies slash costs since over 80 cents of every dollar they bring in must be spent on providing care instead of being spent on running the business. The influx of new customers will probably end up increasing their costs of business since they're going to be inundated with new claims coming in. This is a problem they can no longer fix by increasing the amount customers pay since any increase will still have that 80 cents on the dollar healthcare requirement. CEOs or even regular employees will have to take pay cuts or their whole business model would have to be very streamline in order to continue business.

[Headspace]

Just the regular employees Ragnus.

[Ragnus]

It's true. =/

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

I get that much. It's still stupid that they're comparing it to a tax even if it falls under that power. Who else other than the IRS would collect such a thing?

Soooooo, your saying it's bad that it could be called a tax? If it were a tax, there couldn't be a challenge to Obamacare. Is that not what you want?