[ExI] health care again, was: RE: Why Cities Keep Growing, Corporations and People Always Die, and Life Gets Faster

[Damien Sullivan]

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 03:48:17PM -0700, spike wrote:

> The huge difference is the states have means testing.  The federal tax
> return has no blank on there for how much you own.  The federal government
> has no legitimate means of knowing how much money you own.  That is why
> Medicaid must go through states.  It is equivalent to a welfare program

OTOH, multiple states only do income testing, not asset testing.  So the
fact that ACA is only income-means tested doesn't strike me as any great
problem.

> Huge critically important difference.  If ObamaCare stands the SCOTUS test,
> we have gained health care for the poor at the expense of losing the second
> American Revolution without firing a shot.  We have set aside the
> constitutional restraints on the federal government.  Then we have no more
> freedom, but rather we live or die at the whim of the government.

We have an unconstitutional war on drugs, civil forfeiture applied to
suspects, "enemy combatant" status applied to citizens, torture,
military adventures without Congress declaring war, Kelo... but being made to
buy health insurance (if it's within your income) is the line at which
you give up and say the Second Revolution has been lost?  I thought
libertarians thought the constitutional restraints had been set aside
long ago.

> Looks to me like that would at least be legal.  It would require the fed to
> fight about 30 states over 11th amendment rights.  It might cause sick

10th amendment.

> people to flood into the richest states.  It would set up a fifty-way

Or longer residency requirements to qualify for benefits.  Yay, chop up
the American labor market!

-xx- Damien X-)