The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced that it is siding with a district court ruling that found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.The move is an escalation of the Trump administration's legal battle against the health care law.
The DOJ previously argued in court that the law's pre-existing condition protections should be struck down. Now, the administration argues the entire law should be invalidated.
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor ruled in December that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the rest of law is therefore invalid.
The DOJ said Monday that it agrees the decision should stand as the case works its way through the appeals process in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
"The Department of Justice has determined that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed," the department said in a short letter to the appeals court.The notion of the government making people buy a particular product was always as offensive and counter to everything about America's essence as anything ever foisted on the nation. Ditto the notion of the government making private organizations offer particular products and price them according to governmental dictates.
Now, can we please try an actual free-market approach?
"The notion of the government making people buy a particular product" is no longer applicable, given the removable of the noncompliance "tax", and inelastic goods like medical care are not responsive to "actual free-market" demand curves.
ReplyDelete*removal...not removable
DeleteSure they are. Everything in this world that humans beings need or want has to be provided by a fellow human being. That fellow human being may or may not wish to so provide based on what the person needing or wanting is willing to pay.
ReplyDeleteWrong. Econ 101. Look it up, dude.
DeleteBy what criterion are you going to set prices for any good or service in the category of health care if not what their market value is?
ReplyDelete"Market value" is meaningless for inelastic goods for which price has little or no effect on demand - basic econ.
DeleteSo the "price" set for getting your pneumonia diagnosed needs to be the same as having you house fire put out.
DeleteFire departments are local entities. Also, firefighting is a public safety matter.
ReplyDeleteWe can shout "somebody has to meet this inelastic demand!" all day, but it's not going to get met unless someone wants to meet it. And few people are going to be motivated to meet it if they have to work for a government bureaucracy and have pay and other conditions of their work dictated by others.
ReplyDeleteTrump has no known plan so all this does is take us back to Square One where we might go in directions bloggie rues. I read where there is some comsiderable faction of Republicans who think this is a big mistake.
ReplyDelete