House to vote on health care reform Sunday.

[MadImmortalMan]

*shrug* "diminished Jefferson's role as regards to the Enlightenment," if you must.  Clearly, Jefferson is not a friend of the Texas Board of Education, and by extension to the far right.

Remember, Jefferson edited the Bible and took all the magic fantasy hocus-pocus shit out of the New Testament. 

I honestly did not know that.

[Martinus]

Sure there is. If you don't pay taxes, you get fined.

You used to get fined or jailed for not showing up for induction too.  But I don't think those activities are covered by the commerce clause.  Sorry I wasn't specific enough.

Don't you have stuff like mandatory car insurance? Or don't certain professions have to get a mandatory malpractice insurance?

[Caliga]

I honestly did not know that.

http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/

[Admiral Yi]

Don't you have stuff like mandatory car insurance? Or don't certain professions have to get a mandatory malpractice insurance?

Imposed by the states.  For certain activities.

[grumbler]

*shrug* "diminished Jefferson's role as regards to the Enlightenment," if you must. 

That is a bit different than taking "Jefferson out of the school books!" 

[Fate]

This is a big fucking deal.

- Biden

[Martinus]

Don't you have stuff like mandatory car insurance? Or don't certain professions have to get a mandatory malpractice insurance?

Imposed by the states.  For certain activities.

Ok. I keep forgetting about your federal vs. state divide.

[Caliga]

This is a big fucking deal.

- Biden

Biden: Master of the Obvious.

[DGuller]

Insurers Back Effort to Make Health Care Reform Succeed
By MICHAEL SCHERER / WASHINGTON Michael Scherer / Washington 1 hr 57 mins ago
The health-insurance industry, which spent months campaigning against Democratic health reform, has shifted focus in the wake of its passage, pivoting from opposition to making sure the new law succeeds beyond most expectations.


America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry trade group, has agreed to sign on to a new, 50-state health care reform implementation effort, provisionally called Enroll America, which is being organized by Ron Pollack of the pro-reform group Families USA. "We are participating in it," says AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. "The goal is to get everyone covered." (Watch TIME's video "The Story of an Uninsured Woman.")


Other parts of the health industry, including drug companies and hospitals, are also expected to join the effort, which will focus on making sure as many uninsured Americans as possible get insurance under the law President Obama signed Tuesday. "We are literally going to try to raise tens of millions of dollars per year for the next several years, beyond 2014 when most of these things get implemented," says Pollack. He says he plans to meet Wednesday with Karen Ignagni, the head of AHIP, to discuss the involvement of insurance companies.


The Congressional Budget office estimates that 95% of legal Americans will have health insurance after the law is fully implemented by 2016, adding approximately 32 million previously uninsured people to the health-coverage rolls. Health insurers have long argued for tougher government mandates that would require more of those who are generally healthy to get health insurance, which helps spread the risk in the pool of insured. (See the sticking points on House and Senate health reform.)


Enroll America will focus on enticing the final 5% of Americans who will be eligible for health insurance under the new law but whom congressional budget scorers do not expect to enroll. On a state-by-state basis, the group will work to create an easy application process for benefits, including access to enrollment at doctors' offices, pharmacies and government agencies that provide other benefits like food stamps. "All of these groups have a business reason to do this," says Pollack, who notes that his new coalition would include "many groups that don't really see eye to eye."


Enroll America won't be the only outside group working to sell health-insurance reform in the coming months. A coalition of labor and other progressive interest groups plans to launch its own outside effort to educate voters about the benefits of the new reform law in advance of November elections. "If we can teach the public what's in it, it can help trump the politics of repeal," says one person involved in this effort, which is likely to work with Anita Dunn, who resigned as White House communications director in December. "We need to build a political case for health care reform over the next 10 months." (See what health care reform really means.)


PhRMA, the drug industry's trade group, is also expected by progressive activists to continue public education spending over the coming months, though the organization's board has not yet made any final decisions. The group has already spent tens of millions of dollars in recent months on ads promoting health reform.


While conservative groups and Republican politicians will surely continue advertising and organizing against the health-reform law, Families USA also plans to launch its own public education campaign, funded through foundation donations, over the coming months. It will include a "health-reform road show" across the country, which will seek to drum up local press coverage of the new law's benefits, says Pollack. The organization is also planning to release state-by-state studies of the number of beneficiaries from key parts of the law, like the new protections for patients with pre-existing conditions. (See "Multimedia: Health Care for the Uninsured.")


Individual insurance companies also plan to launch education efforts for their existing customers about the benefits provided by the new law. "Our top priority is to minimize disruption for the 200 million people we serve today," says AHIP's Zirkelbach.

Interesting.  I didn't expect the flip to happen so fast.  I did expect the health insurance lobby to switch over after the reform passed, though. 

The reason is simple: if you can't repeal the reform in full, then repealing parts of it would be a disaster for the industry.  Once the reform passes and sticks, their interests lie in making the reform work well, which would now pit them against the Republicans.  I wonder what the long-term implications are now that the insurers have strong incentives to be in the Democrats' corner.

[Fate]

The bill will be repealed in full. Republicans and Southern Democrats will have a super majority in 2010. I for one welcome our new conservative overlords.

[The Minsky Moment]

People who don't have health insurance are not delivering, purchasing, or selling health care services.

Nonsense.  They are not buying health insurance but they certainly are getting health care services of some kind during their lives unless they are living as a hermit in the wilds.

AFAICT there's no precedent in US history for fining people for not doing something.

There are plenty of mandates that require people to do things.  We require people to send kids to school.  We require them to answer the Census.  We require them to file a tax return even if they made no income.   If the claim is that the government cannot impose a penalty for failure to comply with these mandates it has zero support in either constitutional law or practice.

[Faeelin]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-23-health-poll-favorable_N.htm?csp=hf

WASHINGTON — More Americans now favor than oppose the health care overhaul that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds — a notable turnaround from surveys before the vote that showed a plurality against the legislation.

By 49%-40%, those polled say it was "a good thing" rather than a bad one that Congress passed the bill. Half describe their reaction in positive terms — as "enthusiastic" or "pleased" — while about four in 10 describe it in negative ways, as "disappointed" or "angry."

[The Minsky Moment]

Declaring something a "constitutional anachronism" and thus okay to ignore is an extremely dangerous precedent.

But not an unusual one.  It was done with the Second Amendment for quite a long time.  It has been done (and still is) with the Declaration of War power.  And even now the 11th Amendment is interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court in a way at odds with its plain text.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Don't you have stuff like mandatory car insurance? Or don't certain professions have to get a mandatory malpractice insurance?

Imposed by the states.  For certain activities.

Ok. I keep forgetting about your federal vs. state divide.

It is important when many states are the size of countries in their own right.

[MadImmortalMan]

Declaring something a "constitutional anachronism" and thus okay to ignore is an extremely dangerous precedent.

But not an unusual one.  It was done with the Second Amendment for quite a long time.  It has been done (and still is) with the Declaration of War power.  And even now the 11th Amendment is interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court in a way at odds with its plain text.

Is it really that hard to do it the right way and just make an amendment? Sheesh.