Thread: Why the massacre?

My understanding is that you would be breaking the law, but the only penalty they implemented so far was the fine for failing to have healthcare coverage.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr...al_mandat.html

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

My understanding is that you would be breaking the law, but the only penalty they implemented so far was the tax penalty for failing to have healthcare coverage.

Are you okay with that? How can government force you to buy something in the United States of America?

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

My understanding is that you would be breaking the law, but the only penalty they implemented so far was the tax penalty for failing to have healthcare coverage.

No, that's not correct. When you say someone is "breaking the law," you mean they are committing at least a civil infraction and more commonly a misdemeanor or felony. If refusing to get health insurance were a crime (misdemeanor -- surely it wouldn't be a felony), then the government would have to try the case in court with due process rights enforced, and on conviction the culprit would have a criminal record and potentially be faced with jail time, although that isn't automatic -- many misdemeanor convictions result only in fines, suspended sentences, etc.

There's no law being broken by refusing to get health insurance, no criminal record, no jail time possible (unless you refuse to pay the tax, which IS a crime), and, on the downside, no day in court and no due-process protections. It's just a tax, not a fine. No difference as far as paying money is concerned, but the terminology, the implications, and some of the ramifications differ.

Originally Posted by alias

Are you okay with that? How can government force you to buy something in the United States of America?

No, I've been opposed to the mandate all along.

Originally Posted by Dragontalk

No, that's not correct. When you say someone is "breaking the law," you mean they are committing at least a civil infraction and more commonly a misdemeanor or felony. If refusing to get health insurance were a crime (misdemeanor -- surely it wouldn't be a felony), then the government would have to try the case in court with due process rights enforced, and on conviction the culprit would have a criminal record and potentially be faced with jail time, although that isn't automatic -- many misdemeanor convictions result only in fines, suspended sentences, etc.

There's no law being broken by refusing to get health insurance, no criminal record, no jail time possible (unless you refuse to pay the tax, which IS a crime), and, on the downside, no day in court and no due-process protections. It's just a tax, not a fine. No difference as far as paying money is concerned, but the terminology, the implications, and some of the ramifications differ.

Not exactly, according to this:
Ezra Klein - How does the individual mandate work?

Its all about having very lax penalties at the moment, which could be seriously ramped up in the future.

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

Not exactly, according to this:
Ezra Klein - How does the individual mandate work?

Its all about having very lax penalties at the moment, which could be seriously ramped up in the future.

Damn, you're right. It's not a tax, it's a "fine" that nobody actually has to pay. That's just weird, but I guess it's one way the government can get around Constitutional limits: "We're saying you have to do this, but we're not going to do anything to make you do it, so really you don't have to, we're just pretending."

It was controversial enough that they weren't going to add jail penalties or anything. However, in 5 or 6 years when the insurance lobby comes knocking on congress's doors, do you really think the "no penalty for not paying the fine" will still apply?

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

It was controversial enough that they weren't going to add jail penalties or anything. However, in 5 or 6 years when the insurance lobby comes knocking on congress's doors, do you really think the "no penalty for not paying the fine" will still apply?

In five or six years I'm sure there will be further reforms that make the question moot. It's not like the ACA is a finished product.

I doubt it. The individual mandate is here to stay. The insurance companies would lobby ridiculously hard if congress tried to take that provision out. Since the mandate is here to stay, the only thing left is to implement stiffer penalties to enforce it.

Well, the thing is, we're on the edge of a wave of reform the likes of which we haven't seen since the late 1930s. Don't misunderstand the results of the last election or assume the current political reality will endure. That's just not so.

If I had to compare the 2010 election to any other in our history, it wouldn't be anything recent, it would be 1862. At that time, we were in the early stages of the Civil War and the Confederacy was winning. As a result, Lincoln's popularity dropped like a stone and the Republicans lost a LOT of seats in Congress (more, proportionately, than the Democrats lost this year). But within a few years after that, the government was making sweeping changes in national institutions -- outlawing slavery, defining citizenship as applying to anyone born in the U.S., guaranteeing basic rights against State governments as well as the federal government, strengthening the central government so as to prevent secession ever recurring.

Although things aren't quite as dire now as they were then, the problems we face are very serious and require comprehensive reform. People haven't entirely awakened to that reality, but it remains real nonetheless, and they will. The paralysis we are going to see for the next two years won't last because it can't.

Originally Posted by Dragontalk

Since you acknowledge the necessity of government, the only real question is where you draw the line.

Nah.. it's more than just a question of degree. There is a significant difference in approach between the two views. The perspective I'm advocating seeks to identify those behaviors that are intolerable to civilized society and prohibit them. The idea is to make it possible for us to get along - yet remain free to think for ourselves and pursue our own personal conceptions of "the good life". The kind of government I'm arguing against seeks to define the particulars of "the good life" for all of us and then push us to follow a unified vision.

I sometimes have the impression that libertarians envision individuals as living within a zone or territory definable as "mine," surrounded by unowned metaphorical space. That's just not reality.

No, that's the cartoon version of libertarianism that people like to argue against.

It is a valid comparison if you consider employers in the aggregate, rather than one at a time individually, and that's the logically correct way to do it.

It doesn't seem logical to me. Employers don't act monolithically. Government does.

Are you sure about that? Seems to me that if that were so, then they would be open to court challenge, the precedent having been set.

Of course I'm not "sure". I can't predict the future any better than anyone else. But I suspect if you converted all the current federal tax incentives into legal mandates with accompanying fines, you'd see a boatload of court challenges. It's possible that all such mandates would withstand those challenges. But that would certainly tell us something about the real limitations on government power (or the lack thereof). In any case it would be more honest.

But my sense, which may or may not be accurate, is that for you the logic that applies is "anything not explicitly allowed is forbidden," whereas for me it's "anything not explicitly forbidden is allowed." If we want to forbid something currently allowed, we need to do so explicitly.

Yes, that's where we disagree. I want the onus to be on government to justify why a certain power is justified and necessary, not the other way around. I don't want to be constantly looking over my shoulder, worried that government is going to institute policy that will radically impact my life.

Out of curiosity, what limits do you see as appropriate? Is the Bill of Rights pretty much it?

In fact, our political traditions operate in the second way, except as applied to the federal government ...

I'm referring primarily to the federal government here. The ability of people and businesses to avoid states that implement draconian laws tends to mitigate abuses that would offer us no such recourse at the federal level.

So while for the federal government, anything not explicitly allowed is forbidden, for government in general anything not explicitly forbidden is allowed.

States have constitutions generally modeled after the federal constitution. They may establish more and broader powers than those assigned to the federal government (though, with the current interpretations of the welfare clause and the commerce clause that seems moot distinction), but I see no indication that they're meant to be used in the inverse way you describe.

Our protections against tyranny, in my view, consist of three things: public accountability, separation of powers, and explicit restrictions and protections of rights. So long as those remain intact (which they don't, really, but that's another subject), our liberties are safe from the government, and we need not artificially restrain it from taking action that may be needed.

All that's pretty weak tea, in my opinion - and it's not just due to an unfortunate turn off events that they don't "remain intact". A government with otherwise unlimited power will find plenty of ways to work around such nominal restrictions.

Originally Posted by Dragontalk

There's some question in my mind whether the government is authorized to require people to buy health insurance -- my feeling is that go beyond the authorization of the commerce clause. If that's the case, then the tax imposed for failure to do so would also be unconstitutional.

But, per our previous discussion, I suspect you'd have no problem if the HCR mandate were repackaged as an across the board tax increase, with tax "incentives" (in exactly the same amounts as the propose penalties), for people who bought health insurance?

I assume you recognize that functionally, apart from the psychological effects, this would be exactly the same thing.

Originally Posted by MattInFla

Yup.

It's like hitting oneself in the groin with a hammer. "Damn, that hurt!"
Then hitting oneself in the groin with a bat. "Damn, that hurt! Lemme try the hammer again."
Then hitting oneself in the groin with a hammer. "Damn, that hurt! Where'd I put that bat?"

and so on....

Exactly true. Which is a great indication that a two-party system really sucks. The system itself is schizophrenic.

Originally Posted by dblack

But, per our previous discussion, I suspect you'd have no problem if the HCR mandate were repackaged as an across the board tax increase, with tax "incentives" (in exactly the same amounts as the propose penalties), for people who bought health insurance?

It's not a question of whether I personally would have a problem with it. The Court has already decided that any exercise of the tax power to impose de facto regulations that Congress is not otherwise authorized to impose is unconstitutional. The method you describe would be equally so, assuming that the individual mandate itself is not authorized by the commerce clause.

I had my doubts about what you said regarding the State constitutions being modeled after the U.S. Constitution (although obviously they are in some ways), so I looked up the California Constitution on line. As I suspected, the section on the legislature contains rules for electing legislators and legislative procedures, but no enumerated powers. So basically the government of California can enact any law it wants to, subject to restrictions in either the California Constitution or the U.S. Constitution. I don't have time to do the same for the other 49 states, but I suspect it's much the same.

As I said, the normal rule applied to government world-wide, including in this country, is that any action not explicitly forbidden is permitted. That is reversed for the federal government in order to protect the limited sovereignty of the States, not to protect the rights of the people. If we did not have a federal system, the U.S. government would not be limited to enumerated powers, as the State governments are not.

Regarding employers: while it's true that employers don't act as a "monolith," for practical purposes regarding the individual's freedom, the similarity of interests among employers makes them behave as if they did.