Breaking news...the 26 state class action
 

...suite against the health care law has been ruled upon. The Judge found the mandate forcing the purchase of insurance to be unconstitutional and since it is the primary basis of the law the entire health care law must be struck down.

The admin will probably appeal to the Supreme Court but this is the second Federal Judge that has ruled that the health care law is unconstitutional.

Health care is a huge mess here in America :\

Well what are the insurance companies going to do now that this bailout is is starting to look unconstitutional?

the administration would not have a chance with the Supreme Court, it is heavily right leaning

I do not think it would make a difference if they were not...as I believe the law to be unconstitutional and have expressed that view point from the beginning...and left or right it is the duty of the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of every law. The Congress basically did a "hail mary" pass.

Increase rates and drop more coverage. Yay.

Again???

Now MAYBE they will do what they should have done in the first place:
1. Tort reform (those same fucking insurance companies get rich with malpractice insurance)

Which leads to:
2. LOWERING medical costs. We pay more for EVERYTHING medical than any other country in the world.

Do those two things and guess what? You won't NEED insurance to go to the damn doctor. You'll only need catastrophic insurance...you know, the way it's meant to be.
This whole thing has never focused on "health care", in my eyes it's always been about pumping up the big insurance companies. God only knows how many of our politicians in Washington are on the kickback payroll from them.

The insurance companies were against the bill...as it forced mandates upon them that they did not want.

Coming from a country that has free healthcare for everyone, I can say that it's a good thing all round. +1 for productivity for the country.

Even when fucking fat people even get their fucking stomach size reduced for free!

invading Iraq for oil and torturing prisoners at Guantanamo bay was unconstitutional too but they still did it.

The primary driving cost behind the high cost of health care is people not paying for their health care...so the cost is passed on to those that do pay or have insurance that pays.

REALLY?

So, in other words.... I no longer have to have car insurance, being as forcing me to have car insurance is a law? Homeowners insurance? Is it fucking unconstitutional to require me to pay taxes?

Where exactly does it say "unconstitutional to require health insurance" in the Constitution?

Fucking stupid. Like impeaching someone for lieing about a blow job.

Are people really this fucking stupid? Do you know where our oil comes from? You know that we get more oil from fucking Cananda than all of the Middle East, RIGHT?

You choose to own both a car and a home. They are not comparable.

owning a home and driving a car aren't comparable...

owning a home is not a privilege... it is necessity.

funny its only a tiny also-ran news link on cnn. which news network is the biased one again?

And they have health care that requires no insurance.

Why aren't you invading us? :1orglaugh

thats bad news for everyone that rents. boy have they been duped.

That is only part of the equation.

One of the huge costs is the cost of medicine in general because we have laws that allow a company to be the sole provider of a medicine for number of years when it is first released, yet no cap on the profit margin for the cost.

Here is an example from my life. I have asthma. I used two different medicines: a regular dose medicine I take twice per day every day, then an inhaler I used when needed.

The inhalers cost between $45-$55 each. The daily dose medicine costs $275 for a 30 day supply. Those are the best prices I can find. I can order the exact same medicine online for a fraction of the cost. Where I buy my inhaler online I buy then for $11 each. The daily dose medicine I get for $70 for a 30 day supply. It is the same medicine form the same manufacturer and you know they are still making a profit on it, only it is more like 100% markup instead of the 400%+ markup they get in the US. Most people don't realize how much medicine really costs until their insurance refuses to pay for it, but it is a huge cost for many people.

I would like to think that you are smart enough to know the difference. No one has to own a car. No one has to own a house. No one has to have homeowners or auto insurance.

Maybe in Canada, I have never visited there. EVERY other country I have visited has places you can rent.

You might want to try it out up there. You can buy a bunch of homes and rent them out to people. Unless the law forces you to own that is.

We rent up here, only a fool would buy an igloo, they melt by March.

Don't you guys just make your own igloos?

No dumbass, the US spends more PER capita on healthcare than any other country. Figure that out Einstein.

I guess those new IRS agents will have to put on hold, Barry was counting on that to lower the unemployment rate

Well the plus is that now the new congress can focus on jobs instead of wasting time on the repealing of healthcare

We should just kill off homeless people.

http://www.austinhomeless.org/facts/cost.php

* People struggling with homelessness are often frequent users of emergency departments. On average, they visit the emergency room five times per year. The highest users of emergency departments visit weekly. Each visit costs $3,700; that's $18,500 spent per year for the average person and $44,400 spent per year for the highest users of emergency departments.

* People struggling with homelessness spend, on average, 3 nights per visit in the hospital which can cost over $9,000.

* Not only does homelessness cause health problems, "homeless people have higher rates of chronic health problems than the general population. This takes the form of higher rates of illnesses such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, lung disease, and HIV disease" (Dr. Margot Kushel, Associate Professor of Medicine in Residence, UCSK/ SF General Hospital).

* 80% of emergency room visits made by people struggling with homelessness is for an illness that could have been treated with preventative care.

Interesting. Millions upon millions of people get by without that necessity just fine.

Rental insurance is not required.

That's why the govt. made a damn deal with the pharmaceutical companies before they even STARTED working on the "health care (insurance bonanza) reform"

Too much money at stake for the big pharmaceutical and insurance companies. People here in the USA pay more than anybody else. It's total bullshit.

And remember a few years ago before the internet? There was a big uproar in Washington DC because people were driving into Canada and buying their prescription drugs. I believe they tried to pass LAWS saying you couldn't do that!!!

It's just unreal. Seems like the govt. completely controls EVERYTHING we do!

I was listening to another tax cut debate on CNN the other day. And they kept saying over and over that the "tax cuts for millionaires" were the reason for our deficit.

And I couldn't help but think....Isn't it SPENDING that causes the fucking deficit? Not that the U.S. govt didn't tax people more so Nancy Pelosi could ride around in a private military jet the last 2 years. :1orglaugh

I once saw on TV where investigators took 3 different prescriptions to 20 or so different pharmacies within the same city. The difference in price varied as much as several hundred dollars from pharmacy to pharmacy.

The moral of the story is...it definitely pays to shop around...and that applies to virtually any product.

Do you think homeless people would be in hospitals getting preventive care just because it's free? They would crowd the hospitals and clinics running up the cost even higher looking for a place to stay.
Not to mention how many of those homeless are actually illegal aliens.

Not many here in Vegas. All the illegal aliens are working there asses off at the buffets, car washes, and landscape companies.

And all the homeless people are apparently "vets" if you believe their signs. And they are almost exclusively middle-aged white men who look like they just climbed out of the dumpster right before they walk up to your car at the redlight with the sign proclaiming they are war heroes of the U.S. military who have fallen on bad times and need help.

This would stand in the way of the microchips that Americans are due to get, so it won't be stopped. The powers that be want us all microchipped one way or another

They'll get rid of the constitution if it's getting in the way

#1 is right but wrong. Right in that this is a huge expense and wrong that the same insurance companies make the money off the malpractice. Most health insurance companies want nothing to do with that specialty market. You are onto a huge cost factor though. Like the slimebag Ohio politician that wanted $150k for a broken tooth. Lawyers drive this shit and most politicians are lawyers.

Weren't we all told a couple of years ago all over the news that the company AIG was THE real owner of ALL insurance? And they had to have a huge govt. bailout.

I remember it well because on CNN they were explaining that AIG was the company that really did all the underwriting for everyone. And that if they failed it would bring down all medical. home, auto, and every other insurance and that's why we had to bail them out.

I don't know if that's true (and who really does?), but I know that's the way it was presented to the American people to justify the bailout.

So if that is true...then "yes" my number "1" reasoning is technically correct.

I always cheered for tort reform until I saw the numbers and realized it's only about 0.5% of medical expenses. I still agree that it definitely should happen, but that isn't the culprit and fixing it isn't going to change all that much.

For sure. Those prices are from Costco pharmacy. Over the years I have checked everywhere. Costco seems to be a lot cheaper. One of the big chains, I think it was Rite Aide, the daily medicine I take was like $350 for 30 days. So they were about $75 more than Costco.

Another interesting deal is that a lot of smaller pharmacies can't even give out 90 day supplies of medicine because the insurance companies won't reimburse them for it. There is a local independent pharmacy near me I use for my mom's prescriptions. She was thinking about going to 90 day fills so I didn't have to make as many trips to the pharmacy for her and the pharmacy told me that they can't do that because the insurance company won't pay for it, they only do that with the big chains because the chains give them more business. pretty crazy

It's a spin on the real numbers, they don't factor in the extra tests they do to keep medical malpractice from happening, if they sue, they can say we ran every test, ask any doctor, I did.
Those extra test cost a lot

yep, from what I understand ordering online and bringing the medicine in for yourself is still a grey area, but the customs people have said they are going to stop holding those kinds of things unless they are very suspicious (unknown how they know what is suspicious and what isn't).

Still, they should open the market and make it a real free market. Once a ton of shops open up that help people buy medicine from overseas outlets and small pharmacies start buying it from overseas distributors it would cause the big chains to put pressure on the manufactures to just lower the price.

But so long as the pharmaceutical and insurance companies have our elected leaders on the payroll that is never going to happen.

Being a vet, it pisses me off knowing that they are playing on sympathy. We don't have many here, but it's a small city here

I hope the rates fucking SKYROCKET!

I hope NO ONE short of MILLIONAIRES can EVER afford healthcare!

And I hope EVERYONE in the US is armed to the fucking teeth!

Then we'll see how it all goes....

I dont think tort reform would change anything when a healthcare insurance company chairman took a 500 million dollar bonus. While they were laying people off en mass.

im sick of the government.

I don't know how anyone can defend this obviously corporatist bill. Please explain it to me.

it's all a scam ...

Here's a brilliant fucking idea.... If we want to blame the healthcare issues on Illegals, why not make it a law for the local police to check to see if everyone is a citizen. If they aren't a citizen, they should be arrested on the spot.

Once again, only half of the story.

Federal lower court rulings are now tied at 2 for it being Constitutional, and 2 for it being unconstitutional.

So, those against it were losing and just have a level playing field again with some hope of getting it ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Not a huge accomplishment when you view ALL of the facts.

A very big and diversified fish (AIG) that has been cut up, but in general no. They went wacko in acquisitions when everyone was fat with cash and that was the fad. I imagine they had risk exposure at some point in every line of insurance. Generally, most health insurance companies specialize and stay pretty much in forms of health insurance and group benefits. Property and Casualty insurance companies are the one's that typically get into malpractice coverage. Sometimes re-insurers are involved that may indeed cover catastrophic losses in both life/health companies and property/casualty companies. Your premise, that lawsuits and professional liability insurance are big driving factors in health care and thus insurance costs is, true. I just don't see a real financial link with health insurance companies. As Vendzilla stated, it causes the docs to order lots of unneeded tests to cover their backs.

I'd much rather see a whole lot LESS police doing anything other than solving actual crimes like stealing, murder, etc.

And it's not the "illegals" anyway. It is what it is...the American people getting ripped off by our govt. holding hands with the medical industry.

It's pretty simple.

I found out in 2002 when I had my neck broken and had a huge medical bill. When they found out I didn't have insurance at the time, the company that "manages" a dozen or so hospitals (including the one that I was treated at) got with me and charged me the ACTUAL price (what they really charge the insurance companies) My bill was less than 10% of what they had originally claimed.

Last week I saw my doctor for some severe headaches I've been having. He thinks it's just stress related, but wants me to have an MRI on my brain to make sure it isn't a tumor.

Well, I went to the front desk to schedule it. They said it would take a week or so for my insurance to "okay" it. I asked them: "Hey, I have good money...I don't really need to put this on my insurance. I'd like to pay in cash"
You would have thought I was from another planet! They explained to me that "no" I couldn't do that. I asked "why". And they told me that the insurance pays it and it "costs" $500. But the insurance company only really pays $150 for that! And they didn't want to rock the boat with their "billing".

But they told me I should be happy because that will go towards my deductible.

In other words I am going to have to pay that $500 (it's a new year and my deductible isn't met of course) for a $150 test but it's all good because it will start whittling away at my deductible for the year.

THAT is the kind of twisted bullshit that is going on. It's ALL an insurance scam from top to bottom