[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 12:01:47PM -0700, spike wrote:
> >... On Behalf Of Damien Sullivan
> ...
> 
> >...Why should this be more of an issue here than it is with income tax and
> means-tested programs in general?...
> 
> It is a critical issue here because the fed has no way of determining how
> much you own.  They don't have means tests for this purpose.  The fed only

Uhhh... you only qualify for Medicaid if your assets, minus one home and
car, are under $2000.  (Some states are more generous.)  That's a
property-based means test done by the Fed.  Well, maybe done by the
states under federal requirement, but I don't see a huge difference.

> fed cannot.  This is a critical and intentional distinction, because if the
> fed decides it wants to tax based on what you own, it would require an

But apart from the above, the fed seems happy doing means testing on
income.  Why should this be any different?  You're concocting a worst
case scenario (capital flight) based on something no one is talking
about.

> Right now, I predict that the SCOTUS will find the individual mandate
> illegal, and the result is the whole thing goes out the window.

And then the next round of universal health care will probably go back
to Medicare For All.  That'd make me happy but doesn't seem like a win
for the private markets crowd.

> >... and marijuana for personal consumption, I figure "specifically not
> interstate" is a dead letter or else a completely arbitrary judicial
> standard...
> 
> On the contrary.  Having marijuana declared a controlled substance was a
> legal maneuver specifically derived ad hoc to avoid having the fed
> restricted in its ability to restrict that particular substance.  I still
> don't know what to do with the wheat case however.  That still seems to me

Uh, the wheat case and Commerce Clause were specifically cited by both
the government and the Supreme Court in the pot decision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich#The_decision
The right to declare controlled substances, despite the precedent of
amendment-enabled Prohibition, rests on the Commerce Clause and wheat
ruling.

> insurance, but the fed can't require that.  My argument is that the fed
> doesn't have the authority to mandate it, for it is not among the enumerated

Yet the fed is accepted as having the authority to do Medicare, which
would have pretty much the same net effect.  Or to expand the VA into an
NHS-equivalent, which would be far more radical.

-xx- Damien X-)