Health Care and Federalism (Please respond by Friday, February 11)
"[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;"In 2010, the United States Congress passed landmark health care reform. Among the law's intentions is the closing of the "uninsured gap" that sees nearly 50 million Americans living without health insurance.
~Article I, Section 8, Line 3 of the U.S. Constitution
What mostly divides the parties on the health care issue is a question of federalism: does the Constitution provide the power to Congress to regulate the health care industry?
More than 20 states (most with Republican governors or attorneys general) have joined various lawsuits against the new law. These suits take aim at the so-called individual mandate, a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance or pay a fee. Critics of the mandate claim the national government does not have the power to require individuals to purchase health coverage.
In the months since the suits were filed, judges in federal courts have ruled for both sides, likely foreshadowing an eventual decision by the Supreme Court.
This week, Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., concluded that "It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause.” The plaintiffs that brought the case claim the mandate is an unprecedented effort to regulate inactivity because citizens would be fined for NOT participating in commerce (purchasing health insurance).
Whether Congress has the power under the commerce clause to require citizens to purchase health insurance will likely remain an issue for debate until the Supreme Court decides.
Please respond to the question posed above and share your opinions. Feel free to comment on others thoughts as well.
15 comments:
While this can be a very confusing debate, based on what I do know, I do not believe that the federal government has the power to regulate the health care industry, let alone the healthcare of all Americans. Healthcare should be a private industry, as it has been in the past. It is not the government's job to make sure everyone has healthcare; I believe that is the individual's job. By the government intervening in the healthcare industry, it is just expanding and enlarging its power over Americans, which is unnecessary. In general, our government should exist to defend its citizens, hold people to justice, and represent the people of the United States of America to the world, not to regulate our healthcare. The healthcare of an individual is a private issue that the government does not have the right to infringe upon.
I agree with the critics who believe that the government does not have the authority to issue individual mandates. The government cannot hold its citizens in a safety net, ready to protect them from all of their possible mistakes or hardships. In all honesty, if a person is too stupid to not buy healthcare, then they don't deserve it. It's a common sense precaution! However, I understand that there are people who cannot afford healthcare. In this respect, yes, provisions can be taken to "help them out" (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid). But, this does not mean that the government needs to individually mandate everyone.
Obviously, healthcare has been a major issue in the past and present, and it stills needs to be addressed, whether the Reform Bill is repealed fully or not, whether the bill is eventually ruled unconstitutional or not. Parts of the bill are good and there should be provisions for them. For instance, before the bill, insurance companies could refuse to carry a person based on their pre-existing conditions. They can't do that anymore, which is a good thing. However,citizens should not be forced to all have the same healthcare. This may sound snotty, but I should not be receiving the same healthcare that some "unemployed, on-welfare, pregnant mother that already has kids all from different fathers" should receive. My parents work hard in their jobs for their healthcare benefits, and because we would hard and we pay the money for our healthcare, we should get better care then people who don't care. We should get better care then the people who take advantage of the system and rely on thousands of other Americans to pay their healthcare bills for them simply because we are responsible and we take these provisions so that we don't get screwed later on.
Like I said, this obviously is a heated and on-going debate. It needs to be addressed and it needs provisions, but not the ones that were implemented in the Healthcare Reform Bill last March.
I agree with Morgan that from my knowledge, I do not feel that the federal government has the power to regulate the health care for citizens in America. However, I believe that the government should take some steps to help those in need. I understand that people feel that if a person may not be educated and have a job, they do not deserve heath care, but that is not fair. A young child who has parents that have never attended college and have committed crimes, still deserves the same basic treatmeants as a wealthy child. We cannot stand by and watch people die simply because they cannot afford treatment due to their parents. They should not be punished for the path their parents have chosen, but given an equal chance to survive. Overall, I agree with Morgan that there should be plans to help them out but not require and provide it for the entire country.
I also agree that the government has so many other aspects to be concerned with and the people need to take some intiative on their own. The government needs to protect and help its people, but only to a certain extent. People need to learn how to live and support themselves in times of hardship. In closing, I feel the steps recently taken can be considered unnessecary when taking into account all of our current programs.
I agree with Morgan that from my knowledge, I do not feel that the federal government has the power to regulate the health care for citizens in America. However, I believe that the government should take some steps to help those in need. I understand that people feel that if a person may not be educated and have a job, they do not deserve heath care, but that is not fair. A young child who has parents that have never attended college and have committed crimes, still deserves the same basic treatmeants as a wealthy child. We cannot stand by and watch people die simply because they cannot afford treatment due to their parents. They should not be punished for the path their parents have chosen, but given an equal chance to survive. Overall, I agree with Morgan that there should be plans to help them out but not require and provide it for the entire country.
I also agree that the government has so many other aspects to be concerned with and the people need to take some intiative on their own. The government needs to protect and help its people, but only to a certain extent. People need to learn how to live and support themselves in times of hardship. In closing, I feel the steps recently taken can be considered unnessecary when taking into account all of our current programs.
I don’t think that the government has the power to regulate healthcare. I also completely agree with Morgan on all points. I don’t think that people who aren’t working should get the same healthcare as I do. My parents work super hard to provide that for my siblings and I and I think it’s unfair for someone who is just as well able to work do nothing and get healthcare. I also agree with Celine that we can’t penalize the children. So those kids should have some healthcare. I know that some people haven’t had the opportunities I have had with education but people need to get it in gear and work, do anything. The government has so many other things to deal with than making sure everyone has healthcare but since this healthcare thing has already been passed they need to do something to make it right. I think it should be mandatory to buy some. My dad is always telling me that public school will no longer exist soon. Parents will need to pay to send their kids to school because kids have to go to school so I think it should be the same thing for healthcare. You need to buy your family healthcare. The end.
While I believe that government should take steps to help those in need of health care, I don’t think that making it a law will be productive or for the best of the people. In accordance with what Celine discussed, I agree that young children should not be punished and forced to live without basic health care simply because their parents lost their jobs or went to jail. Coming into the world, I think that all children deserve some basic things, and health care is definitely one of those which I believe they shouldn’t be punished for simply because they were born to the wrong family. I don’t believe everyone needs to be forced to have health care, but children definitely do in my opinion. Just as children must go to school and they can go to public schools where it is free, I believe health care should have a similar policy. Once you are eighteen or out of college, you need to fend for yourself when it comes to health care, but before then I believe our government needs to be willing to help adolescents out. However, I still believe Congress does not have the power to force people to buy healthcare since they already pay taxes and many work long hours and do their best to support their families in all the other ways that are necessary. I'm not in the position where I can make assumptions about why people don’t buy healthcare, but I know that some simply don’t think they need it. If this is a risk they want to take rather than just paying a fee every month of year, then I don’t think it’s governments job to force care on them.
I agree with what Morgan in saying that the government should not regulate healthcare. The government can’t be responsible for everyone’s healthcare; people need to be able to take care of themselves also. There are still always going to be people that are uneducated and cannot afford healthcare, but they should just be helped out I agree with what Celine said about children automatically getting health care because it is not the child’s fault with what situation they are in. It is not fair to them when they have never done anything to not deserve the basic necessities of life. However, adults should be fully capable of taking care of themselves while it is impossible for children to fend for themselves. The government cannot take on the burden of providing health care for every single person while people are doing nothing in order to get it. Of course health care is important for everyone to have but the government cannot force it upon them. People need to be able to fend for themselves and be able to get their own healthcare. I think that if people cannot afforded healthcare, they should be able to receive assistance. I don’t believe that everyone should have the same healthcare plan. People who work hard should be able to receive a better plan than someone unemployed and not as financially stable. Like most things in life, healthcare should be earned. It should be an incentive for people to get jobs and get their life on track in order to receive it.
I too believe that the federal government does not have the power to regulate the health care industry, require all Americans to have health care, or provide such services to the public. The individual alone, not the government, should decide if having health care is in their best interest or not. People have their own reasons for not having health care, and the government should not be able to determine that all Americans should have the care provided by the government. I agree with Morgan that our government has more issues to worry about than regulating health care. It is not the job of the government to decide for the citizens; health care is a personal matter, not a governmental concern. Those who have health care work very hard to provide for their families and insure their health, so giving out the equivalent to all is not fair at all. One should work for what they deserve, and health care falls into that category. If the government provides all people with the same type of health, that is not fair to the hard workers in the country. Giving all people equal health care is an open invitation for those who do not work for their keep to keep on taking advantage of the system. That being said, I do also agree with the others about providing some sort of programs to help the children who have parents that are unable/unwilling to provide health care, but only to a certain extent. Overall, this very debatable topic and its future is up in the air until it's finalized, but the government should leave the issue of health care to the private industry and focus on the more pressing matters America is facing at the present time.
I agree with Alannah because my parents work so hard to provide for our family. It truly is unfair that they work hard for nothing basically because everyone is getting healthcare with this reform so why bother working? I also agree with Morgan because I believe that healthcare should be a private industry. I think that Congress should have the right to regulate the healthcare industry. While I am unsure if the Constitution allows it, I believe that the time to act is now. I know that the Senate will never pass it since the majority party is Democrat, but in a few years it won't be that way. I think that the House of Representatives should start drafting ideas about how to find the happy medium to pelase everyone. What I mean by this is finding certain parts of the healthcare reform to keep and revise and keeping what is necessary to every person. You never know what situation a person is in. Some people are just dealt a tough hand in life in terms of money. But, I also believe that it is everyone's responsibility to find a job and a steady income. I think some people are lazy and the healthcare reform could increase that laziness because if everyone gets health insurance then why work for it if you don't have to? I think that the government can help people with their health because the federal government is for public needs, but I think that it is our responsibility to try our best to not need welfare checks or healthcare money from the government.
Does the Constitution provide the power to Congress to regulate the health care industry? Health care really isn't my strongest subject; I mostly know that a lot of people are angry about having to pay and provide health care for other people while it is sometimes hard enough to cover themselves. From what I think I understand though, is that regulating heath care is not in the Constitution. If it was, I do not believe such a controversy would have been created over the subject.
Like most of my classmates have stated, health care is a personal thing. People choose whether they wish to have health care plans or not. The government should not force that on Americans. I am learning in sociology right now that a core American value is work. We work for what we have. Health care in my opinion is a benefit, especially since not all Americans have access to it. People who actually work for what they have should not be required to provide for others who do not work. It is just how America works; there is the wealthy and poor. Two totally different lives and classes. This should require two different health care plans and benefits for it, not the exact same one. No matter what direction Congress takes with this, there will always be a problem simply out of fairness. My parents and my family works hard for what we have, and we are the ones who deserves to reep the benefits, not shore them with others who can't afford it simply because they are uneducated or something of that sort.
The government does not have the power to make sure that everyone has/ is required to have health insurance. Universal health care is like communism in a way; it's good in theory, but in the end it just doesn't work. The problem is the Commerce Clause. It is so broad, and to use that to say that the government DOES have the power to make it mandatory that everyone has health insurance is quite literally, crazy.
I do not believe that the government's responsibility to the people is to make sure that everyone has health insurance. That is the individual citizen's repsonsibilty. We all know what happens when there is too much government involvement and quite honestly people need to learn how acquire things on their own. If they are lazy and stupid enough to not acquire health insurance then I say let them learn the hard way. The government's responsible is not to spoon feed its' citizens. The United States Government needs to let the people be responsible for themselves. When it comes to the people who cannot afford health insurance, then other systems like Medicaid and Medicare should be accessible. This is my opinion on the whole universal healthcare topic.
I understand where Alannah is coming from in regards to how hard our families have worked to be able to afford high-quality health care coverage. Though I would like to agree with Obama's health care bill, I feel its crippling affect on American health care standards far outweighs its social benefits. I do believe the government should reach out to its poorest citizens through serious reform of its Medicare and Medicaid programs. However, the universal health care system Obama has proposed is far too similar to Canada's to be successful.
Passage of this bill would result in funding for hospitals plummeting, making it even more difficult to maintain a superlative health system like we have here in Cleveland. Even more than this reform's affect on my own family's monthly health insurance bills, I worry that hospitals could not continue researching and remaining on the pinnacle of innovation if their funding is cut so much by this bill. It is so important for health research to be ongoing, and knowing many relatives who work in the health care field, it seems passage of this bill will lead to "health care" in theory, but the health care provided will not even be good. Therefore, though it may SEEM like an improvement on the surface, in reality it is glossing over a problem and will still leave the poor with a bare minimum amount of coverage, and lower standards for American health care, creating a whole NEW problem. Bottom line, it does not fix very much.
I like that drastic reforms are being considered, but this bill just is not right for the country.
I believe that American people generally rely too much on the government to fix all aspects of their lives. I agree that all people should have access to healthcare, but I don’t think it’s the government’s job to supply it, and other ‘wealthier’ higher-income people shouldn’t have to provide for that healthcare from their own wallets. I think if health care is that important to people they would prioritize better when spending money. There are too many circumstances where people are wasting money on fancy cars and new clothes and slipping through the system by welfare and unemployment. Those people could easily live a less elaborate lifestyle and pay for their own healthcare. If they cared enough they would put that first. And as Celine said there are also some circumstances where a child (or person in general) cant help the lifestyle they were born into, and in those cases I believe that a plan can be devised top provide them with healthcare, but that isn’t always the case and I don’t believe it’s the federal governments job to intervene. I would compromise that subcommittees or organizations such as CARE that could construct a plan that could finance health care to those who truly cannot afford it, and deny those who choose to keep it as a bottom priority.
I do not feel that Congress has the power to regulate the healthcare industry. The government’s purpose is to benefit the general welfare, so I think there are some things that should be done in order to help fix the controversial issue of health care. However, I agree with what Morgan said about how its not the governments job to make sure everyone has health care. Everyone should have a choice if they want it or not and what they have to pay. The amount you pay is how much coverage you get. I do not think it is right to have us tax payers who are working to pay for someone else’s health insurance. Also, he different parties as stated, have not been able to come to compromise on this debate and I am positive there will be plenty of issues regarding the health care system in the future as well. There are many other issues the government should be focusing on.
I believe the idea of requiring health care coverage for everyone is well-intentioned and is great on paper or in an idealistic world. However, America is not idealistic and a national health care system such as the one proposed by Obama would be unsuccessful and rightly challenged as unconstitutional. It is not the job of the government to require health care to America. It's their job to offer it and to make sure it's available to anyone who wants it but they shouldn't be able to force it upon people. I feel like the government would be more productive if they were forcusing on the other pressing issues that face America, such as the economy and the wars overseas.
Post a Comment