How are the self employed good to go now? They have the same exact options as they did before. Or did Obama create more insurance companies? Actually they will have LESS options because they will have to buy a federally approved insurance plan. Before they could have paid for something less than what the feds say need to be covered.

The hospitals will still be going to the state to get money because not everyone will be insured. Those refusing health insurance will be paying the tax than when they get hurt go to the hospital not pay and the tax payer is stuck with the bill anyway.

You mean the $600 tax? Again, that is nothing. I don't know anyone that pays $50 a month for insurance.

As I understand it, if you're poor enough you won't have to buy insurance. Which is to say that you'll still be in the exact same boat you were in before Obamacare.

People like that will still be using emergency rooms for basic medical care, albeit in smaller numbers.

I am unaware of Palin being a Senator or ever having been a Senator.

Your tax does not get you healthcare. You still have to pay for your healthcare. Or not pay for it and let the tax payer pick up the bill.

I honestly don't understand you some times.

My wife hit a boulder last month, and my insurance company shelled out $6k to fix it. There was no "other guy", and my insurance company didn't protect anyone else other than my interests and my investment in my SUV.

See the difference?

Was your SUV paid off?

Yeah but if those sick people can actually go to a doctor to get help then there's less incentive for them to seek help at churches. Organized religion is organized business, and it's all tax-free, everyone else pays for it...yet you don't hear a peep outta the right wingers. I'll bet you $1000 if the right-wingers put up a bill to tax only Islam, their base would whole-heartedly support it. Any right wingers whining about freedom are total hypocrites, they only want you to have freedoms that are in line with their religion - any other freedoms they will fight tooth and nail to take away from you.

You seem to think this is a new concept.

If you buy a car that uses too much gas you get hit with a Gas Guzzler Tax. Your being "penalized" for buying a car that is crappy on gas.

But I don't have to buy that car.

This is a tax on inaction. I am doing nothing and getting taxed.

No, go back and read a) b) and c). In no state do you have to insure your car. You have to have either LIABILITY coverage to protect the person you run over, or sufficient assets to pay his medical bills, and that only if you choose to risk hitting him by driving. (as opposed to say, taking the bus.) Nowhere does the law require you to insure your car.

Women's rights haven't exactly been advancing in the U.S over the past few years. But Roe v. Wade ruled that the decision to have an abortion was protected under privacy rights in the constitution.

I would hope privacy rights are more protected than taxes.

Women in the U.S have other problems right now. Ignorant pharmacists refuse to sell Plan B in small towns because they think it is abortion. It is also hard to find doctors who will perform abortions in many states.

Politicians should be going after clinicians and state laws that limit privacy rights.

What about the womans right to choose not to buy health insurance?

Then you haven't been paying attention and have a hard time seeing anything beyond the present instant. In November, several hundred morons will be elected. Most of them dumber than Palin, and most of them would like to force you to do things you don't want to do. Today you're celebrating a ruling giving them the power to force you to do all kinds of stuff previously understood to be unconstitutional.

Palin, or someone just as bad, will be president. Our last two presidents prove that stupid gets elected.

Sadly very few people understand what you just said. One day someone dumber than Bush will get elected and con congress into forcing us all to do something dumber than forcing us to buy health insurance from a corrupt health insurance company.

Aren't there also new tax incentives for having insurance? If so I wonder at what point it becomes a wash and you should just have it.

For all the things they considered pre-existing trust me there are lots of self-employed unable to get coverage until now. I am one of them. My ObamaCare kicked in on April 1st. Right now my premium is paid to the government but come 2014 it will be a private insurer.

You are right about people still going to the ER. Since everyone will now be eligible for coverage we should amend the law saying uninsured can be turned away. As a conservative you likely agree.

You pay taxes for lots of things you wouldn't want to buy or pay for. That's the argument that the religious right made about pulling funding for Planned Parenthood because one of their services is performing abortions.

I'm not an American citizen. But I've lived in South Africa where private health insurance was expensive. And I live in Canada now where health care is managed by the government.

I prefer the Canadian option. Governments around the world have access to large amounts of money. Humanity would be better off if more of that money was put towards health care and education.

I'm not saying Canada is perfect. There are corrupt idiotic politicians here also. The health minister in Ontario should be fired and never be allowed to hold a position of power ever again.

You are justifying a new policy, of force, by calling it a "tax." That's pretty much the whole marketing shtick behind this.

We can create taxes for just about anything. The same marketing shtick could be used then, too.

The working poor are still too "rich" for medicaid and still too poor to afford private health insurance.

ObamaCare hasn't changed anything for them.

To now deny them any medical access whatsoever seems a tad draconian, don't you think?

The scarier and more hysterical analogy is that Congress can now pass a law that requires you to pay a tax for NOT having an abortion to help spread the cost of those who do have abortions.

That also is not going to happen

Actually that wasn't the marketing shtick. Obama was all over the place giving interviews and speeches trying to tell people that it wasn't a tax. He knew that the American public doesn't respond well to the idea of more taxes or 'big Government'.

Now all those interviews have come back to bite him in the ass because the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare precisely because it is a tax.

"The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax," Roberts wrote in the court's majority ruling. "Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness."

Maybe you should be angry at the people who challenged Obamacare and forced a Supreme Court ruling?

I'm not angry at anyone. I just thought it was cute how you latched on to the word tax and used that as justification, just like others have done and will continue to do for this issue and a plethora of other "taxes", past present and future.. :-)

That's a valid point really.

It's not valid. You don't have to buy a car. You can walk forever. You are going to need medical attention at some point in your life, that's a certainty.

Yes, so using state sponsored theft via coercion is the right way to encourage people to buy health insurance?

Rule with an iron fist! Obama 2012! Don't obey? Pay mother fucker!

I'm not angry either, but it's the Supreme Court that called it a tax based on the constitution.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone will forget about it in a few years and not much will change. I'm not sure if it was Colbert or Stewart (probably both) who said that the ruling wasn't a win or loss for either political party.

Romney is on the news saying Obamacare is legal but still wrong, so he will run against it.

Obama will make a statement praising the Supreme Court. But he will still have to clarify why he was giving interviews all over the place saying it wasn't a tax when it actually was.

How many days left until the election?

Canadian politics isn't much better. But at least our elections are short and sweet. The media turns the U.S elections into a year long sports season.

Do you guys need the definition of TAX? geesus murphy.

"A sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services."

If you don't have health care you are costing everyone else money. So pay up sucka!

What the hell are you talking about, it is mandatory. You have to have insurance/liabilty before you can get a tag on your car, you have to have insurance/liabilty before you can leave car dealership. You can also go to jail for not having car insurance/liabilty. And in FL if you stop paying your insurance/liabilty, you have to turn in your tag.

How is that a certainty? What if you choose to for example be treated by alternative medicine practitioners? or choose to be treated by a family member who happens to be a doctor? Or you are perhaps in good health and you die in a tragic sky diving accident? Or perhaps you believe that Japan has superior level of medical care and choose to be treated there? Or you choose not to get treated for whatever reason, some religious reason perhaps lets say?

In all these cases you will have no use at all for insurance that you are forced to buy...

Correction...I am not celebrating anything...in fact I am surprised by the ruling and even more surprised by Chief Justice Roberts voting the way he did and also surprised by his explanation for voting the way he did. I think it makes him appear to be not to bright by opening doors for all kinds of bullshit.

I see now that you were speaking about the "euphemistic Palin".

Because in order for the mandate to work, everyone has to buy into the insurance. You will soon see that despite all the rhetoric, the insurance companies will be the first ones completely behind this healthcare program. And that's because it spreads out the risks, the market will compete and rates will drop. A few more posts to this thread and I think we will have it sorted out and can submit our findings to our local congressmen.

That IS better analogy. That won't happen (I hope), but this ruling says it would be constitutional. The health care bill may be "a big fucking deal", but I think it's almost inconsequential compared to the precedent that the federal government may now create unconstitutional requirements by merely labeling them as "taxes".

American's eating habits affect health care costs far more than healthy young people choosing to forgo insurance does, so under this ruling the feds may now force you to buy broccoli and yogurt every week - or pay the penalty, ahem "tax".

You're paying for the uninsured already
 

Besides the uninsured going to the ER, they also go to hospital clinics and in life threatening cases have surgery. The hospitals have to charge the insurance companies higher rates to make up losses from the uninsured. Some hospitals are government run and have to get tax money to cover the uninsured.

You're also paying for people with health insurance that can't pay their share of the bill. The majority of bankruptcy filings in the US is from people who couldn't pay their medical bills. Most health insurances have caps on what they pay. You might need a heart transplant that costs $500,000 and your insurance might only cover $250,000. So again the hospital has to raise its rates to cover the loss.

Hospital charges might actually come down since the hospitals should be getting fully paid. But that only if deductibles are eliminated or the government just puts everyone on Medicare.

There are some doctors who charge less than doctors (most) who accept insurance. These doctors don't accept insurance so they have fewer people working. One doctor needs 3 or 4 people doing nothing but filing insurance claims and hassling with the insurance companies to actually pay them.

People without insurance now also cost the the insured and all taxpayers by not taking care of minor problems as the can't pay for them so they end up getting much sicker and the bill gets a lot bigger.