6.29.2012

The Affordable Healthcare Law-Some Plain Talk

I don't know what made Chief Justice Roberts vote the way he did on the Affordable Healthcare case.

Maybe it was like Sophia said in The Color Purple; “Day iz a gawd!”

Maybe his check from Karl Rove and the Heritage Foundation got lost in the mail, while Thomas, Scalia and Alito laughed all the way to the bank.

Or maybe it was as simple as Justice Roberts remembering that he is the Chief Justice of the United States of ALL of America and not just some cantankerous group of ultra conservatives bent on destroying the Republic.

Nobody will ever know unless he opens up about it somewhere in the distant future.

The fact remains, that despite all the newly formed conservative conspiracy theories, Chief Justice Roberts got it right and for that I can only say thank you.

Thank you as a woman, and thank you as someone with a chronic, eventually terminal and pre existing condition. Roberts gave me back my human-ness instead of relegating me to the forgettable statistic column.

Justice Roberts vote finally brought some equality to women. Pregnancy is no longer considered a pre existing condition. Birth control becomes free, just like viagra. Preventative healthcare is moved to the forefront.

Soon, maybe even dental work will become routine for all Americans.

The media and its talking head conservative driven news programs is making much of the idea that now everyone has a new tax to deal with because of the Affordable Healthcare Law....That the penalty is a tax hike that all taxpayers must anti up.....This is simply not true.

The correct analogy is that the healthcare penalty is like the tax on cigarettes or the tax on liquor or the tax on gasoline. This is what Justice Roberts pointed out to the court.

These taxes are only paid by users. In other words...if you smoke cigarettes or drink whiskey or drive a car, then you must pay the taxes to do so.

The same is now true for healthcare.

In other words, you can no longer treat the emergency room as your own personal doctor's office without penalty. You won't pay it when you get treated, but you will pay it on your taxes.

Because everyone needs healthcare...because everyone gets sick...or has an accident..simply gets older...the law states you have to pay for your healthcare, whether it be through buying a plan, privately purchased, through your employer, or through any number of insurance exchanges that are being set up.

If you choose not to buy insurance before you get sick, you have to pay a penalty on your income tax. It's as simple as that. Buy insurance...no penalty...Don't buy insurance..pay the tax..

This tax eliminates the free ride....If you play...you now will have to pay. And since everyone will eventually need a doctor or medical care...everyone pays for his or her own healthcare.

That is all that the Affordable Healthcare Law does. It does not expand government power. Government, as Justice Roberts said, already has and exercises this power.

The other thing that is being overlooked is that most of the Affordable Healthcare Law won't take affect until 2014.

Right now, parents can keep their college age kids insured until they are 26.

Right now, co-pays for preventive care have been wiped out.

Children with pre existing condition must be granted insurance with no expiration date.

Right now, the insurance companies cannot drop you when you get sick.

Seniors get help with their drugs purchases.

And insurance companies are being forced to use the money they collect from us on medical care for us. If they don't...they are required by law to give us back our money in cash.

Those checks are now in the mail.

And despite what the GOP says the plan is working. Ask a doctor or a nurse or someone other than a politician whose only goal is to deny Barack Obama a second term in the Presidency.

Mittons Romney doubled down on his “repeal and replace” position yesterday. He lied to you about what happened with Romneycare in Massachusetts when he was governor.

His program is very successful. Folks in Massachusetts love Romneycare. It was and remains the plan upon which The Affordable Healthcare Law is based.

But he chooses to side with the nut bags...just to get elected President...as if it is his Mormon-given right to lead us. (there is Mormon prophecy that speaks to this divine right to lead)

He.....Mitt Romney is a liar...he lies about healthcare,...he lies about his role in creating healthcare...he lies about his positions on jobs and the economy without telling you what his real positions are...

The whole truth of the healthcare law is that “Obamacare” as the right insists on calling it was modeled after "Romneycare" which was modeled after the 1993 version of the healthcare act that was put forth solely and completely the Republican party.

The individual mandate...the penalty that everyone is bitching about, was a creation of the Heritage Foundation conservative think tank that now fights tooth and nail and buys supreme court justices with the names of Scalia, Alito and Thomas.

The Affordable Healthcare Law is, was and remains a Republican idea, adopted by Mitt Romney when he was a governor, which was then adopted by Barack Obama in his unceasing and suicidal efforts to work with Congress in a bipartisan manner.
Their law...his name... and they don't like it...
It's that simple, really...

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