Notre Dame Files Lawsuit Over Obamacare

[RallySonsOfND]

You guys are being obstinate with respect to ptk's point, honestly. You can go through life without having health insurance, but you cannot guarantee that you will go through life without needing medical care. Those two things aren't the same. If something happens to you and you need an ambulance ride to the ER and emergency surgery, followed by a medically necessary hospital stay, you get that whether you can pay for it or not. It could easily cost far more than a person can afford to pay.

Okay. So what if I would rather put money I would have to put towards health insurance in investments and wanted to self-insure? You would be taking away my freedom to do that.

 

[Rhode Irish]

Okay. So what if I would rather put money I would have to put towards health insurance in investments and wanted to self-insure? You would be taking away my freedom to do that.

What if you don't have any money?

 

[RallySonsOfND]

What if you don't have any money?

Then I wouldn't self-insure, I'd get health insurance.

 

[Bluto]

If you had the money you could still pay for other services...kind of like in New Zealand. Lol.

 

[RallySonsOfND]

If you had the money you could still pay for other services...kind of like in New Zealand. Lol.

Yes, New Zealand has a two-tier system with a blend of public and private. But this goes back to the school example. Just because someone can afford double tuition doesn't mean they should have to pay it.

 

[Rhode Irish]

Then I wouldn't self-insure, I'd get health insurance.

Right, and now we are back to the root of this whole discussion. Many people cannot even afford that. This is why there is a healthcare reform law in the first place.

 

[Bluto]

So what you're getting at is that anybody who's super rich should not have to pay taxes? That kind of sounds like the system of governance in Mexico, Haiti and a bunch of other third world countries.

 

[RallySonsOfND]

So what you're getting at is that nobody who's super rich should have to pay taxes? That kind of sounds like the system of governance in Mexico, Haiti and a bunch of other third world countries.

How the hell did you get that from my last post?

 

[RallySonsOfND]

Right, and now we are back to the root of this whole discussion. Many people cannot even afford that. This is why there is a healthcare reform law in the first place.

Good grief, I'm not going to get into all the other ways to cut costs and the numerous better ways there are.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

The insurance companies were pushing for this otherwise they would have started bitching about it. Contraception is normally about $50 a month but lets say it costs $100 a month. The average birth costs $8000, and that is saying nothing goes wrong. It takes over 6 years (closer to 7) of contraception to cover the cost of one birth and that is not including anything after the birth of the baby. Of course insurance companies want it. It saves them millions of dollars.

Again, whether covering contraception is cost neutral is irrelevant to the constitutionality of this mandate. The Feds can't force a religious organization to alter the compensation package it offers to its employees in a way that violates that organization's sincerely held religious beliefs. It's a violation of the Establishment Clause.

The reason they wouldn't do this on their own is they didn't want the backlash. Now the government gets it.

With all due respect, I don't buy that for a moment. If plans that don't include contraception end up costing insurance companies more, they'll pass that cost onto the religious organizations that use them.

 

[pkt77242]

That was basically Verrilli's argument in defense of the mandate. And I suppose that's fine if you're comfortable with there being virtually no limit on the scope of the Federal government's power. I'm not comfortable with that.

In any case, pkt's claim that Rally's question is "unfair" is clearly not true, as that question cuts to the central issue of the mandate's constitutionality.

You can feel that it is a fair question and can feel that it isn't. You will need medical coverage at some point in your life. If you don't have coverage, the hospitals are forced to care for you and if you can't pay for it that cost gets passed on to everyone else. If we force hospitals to treat everyone than we must force everyone to have health insurance. Those two go hand in hand.

 

[pkt77242]

Again, whether covering contraception is cost neutral is irrelevant to the constitutionality of this mandate. The Feds can't force a religious organization to alter the compensation package it offers to its employees in a way that violates that organization's sincerely held religious beliefs. It's a violation of the Establishment Clause.



With all due respect, I don't buy that for a moment. If plans that don't include contraception end up costing insurance companies more, they'll pass that cost onto the religious organizations that use them.

But by the numbers it won't and they don't want the backlash, just look at how we freak out about things like "pink slime" etc and force companies to change plans. Also go back to healthcare reform and look at the money spent by insurance companies to get what they wanted. If they were so against it they would be spending money to influence it. We would already be seeing commercials about how it is wrong.

We will have to agree to disagree about the first point, you think they are forcing the religous organization to cover it and I say they are forcing the insurance company to cover it.

 

[connor_in]

Now time for a quick break in the action...

...and we return you to your regularly scheduled debate...

 

[Rhode Irish]

Good grief, I'm not going to get into all the other ways to cut costs and the numerous better ways there are.

I don't even know what you are trying to say here, but if I had to guess it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with what I said. If you're saying there are better ways to get everyone insured than the law that was passed, then we agree. Otherwise, you lost me.

 

[Bluto]

How the hell did you get that from my last post?

Whoops see edit. Meant to say anybody. You keep making the argument that if someone can afford to "opt out" of a public service such as education or healthcare by paying for it privately then they should not be taxed at all to support those public institutions. If you follow that logic people paying for private security should not have to support the local police and on and on. The central government becomes defunded which leads to poorer and poorer delivery of public services and there goes the neighborhood. Actually, that is pretty much how California's public education system currently works as well due to the 2/3rd majority required to pass bond issues and or raise taxes. As a life long resident of that State I can assure you it has been a disaster and furthermore Golson should start.

 

[connor_in]

But by the numbers it won't and they don't want the backlash, just look at how we freak out about things like "pink slime" etc and force companies to change plans. Also go back to healthcare reform and look at the money spent by insurance companies to get what they wanted. If they were so against it they would be spending money to influence it. We would already be seeing commercials about how it is wrong.

We will have to agree to disagree about the first point, you think they are forcing the religous organization to cover it and I say they are forcing the insurance company to cover it.

Those that self insure do not have an insurance company paying for it

 

[aaronb]

Yeah I totally agree. This is a legit philosophical difference. I'm probably a bit of an anomaly in this respect, because I actually have a lot of libertarian views. But in general, I think government has gotten a bad wrap and people blame the government for everything. I don't think of government as an evil entity. We are a self-governing people. We ARE the government. That doesn't mean I don't disagree with things the government does, because I do. All the time. But I don't hate it or completely mistrust it like a lot of people seem to.

As far as the insurance part of it, I don't think it is as much about trusting my individual employer as it is about trusting the healthcare insurance providers. I trust them not at all. I could not think of anyone or anything I trust less. I have "good" insurance, and these *******s fight you about everything. I shutter to think what would happen if I got really sick. Part of the reason why I was and am supportive of the healthcare reform we did get, even though I think it was incomplete and not even close to a total fix, is that it at least made some effort to stop the insurance companies from screwing people. Allowing kids to stay on their parents' insurance is a good thing; no discriminating against preexisting conditions is a good thing; no lifetime coverage cap is a good thing. I even believe the individual mandate is a good thing, even in spite of the libertarian in me. I think in this specific case, the ends justify the means.

As far as government vs. private companies, who has more incentive to "ration care"? A supposed free-spending government or a private company that has to worry about bottom lines and accountability to shareholders?

This absolutely echo's why I have the feelings that I have now about the insurance industry. I'll go ahead and share my story of the only time I've actually used insurance.

First off I am a single father raising a daughter, and I make a fairly better than median income. However I am not rich by any stretch. And I work for a small company without a deep insurance pool. So the coverage is expensive and not as good as it should be for the price I pay.

I had a major knee injury from a kickboxing spar session in 2009. I have never used my insurance and almost never go to the doctor.

Between the initial doctor visit. To the sports medicine person twice, to the visit with the orthopedist, to the MRI's, to the day of surgery.

I was timed into two separate billing years as far as my deductible was concerned. So I ended up starting out 3K in the hole. From there I had almost every procedure declined and ended up almost 8K in the hole once everything was said and done.

I was able to fight some of that and get about 3K of it finally covered. However when you take into account that I pay 340 a month for coverage. And it was the first and only claim I have ever made in 33 years. It has left a really sour taste in my mouth.

Bottom line, I feel it is unethical for an insurance company to bottom line profit by looking for ways to deny services to their customers.

It's just an industry that needs to not be for profit. Just like I feel the local police force shouldn't run on a for profit model. Same way I feel about medicare and any Social Security modifications that might be shoved down our throats going forward.

 

[RallySonsOfND]

I don't even know what you are trying to say here, but if I had to guess it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with what I said. If you're saying there are better ways to get everyone insured than the law that was passed, then we agree. Otherwise, you lost me.

Yes I am saying there are better ways to 'fix' our healthcare system, and they involve less government intervention, not more.

 

[PJWhitfield]

Notre Dame has a right and a moral obligation to be Notre Dame. To say that government can interfere with Notre Dame's mission (or for that matter, an insurance company's mission) is to give powers to the government that no government should have.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

But by the numbers it won't and they don't want the backlash, just look at how we freak out about things like "pink slime" etc and force companies to change plans. Also go back to healthcare reform and look at the money spent by insurance companies to get what they wanted. If they were so against it they would be spending money to influence it. We would already be seeing commercials about how it is wrong.

What backlash are you talking about? Contraceptives are widely used by a strong majority of Americans. Who, precisely, would be unhappy with an insurance company's decision to offer contraceptive coverage on certain plans? Ignoring the issue of whether Obamacare has the right to mandate such things in the first place, I have no issue with this mandate itself. It's their refusal to exempt Catholic organizations from the requirement that's a problem.

We will have to agree to disagree about the first point, you think they are forcing the religous organization to cover it and I say they are forcing the insurance company to cover it.

Both the Church and ND agree with me, which is why they're suing. The insurance coverage ND carries is part of the compensation package it offers to its employees. By refusing to exempt Catholic organizations, the Feds have forced ND to either compromise one of its core values or to drop health insurance for its employees entirely-- which may have been the plan all along.

 

[Buster Bluth]

what if the Pope/Vatican ever approved the use of condoms or contraception...would anyone's views on this topic change to reflect those of their Church?

Not really.

 

[Buster Bluth]

.

This country does have a huge problem.

 

[RDU Irish]

Then don't live in a flood plain area!

That requirement would stem from a mortgage lender, insurance companies generally do not cover flood damage. Just like flood insurance is available to beach homes and if you don't get it, you are not getting a mortgage on that bad boy. If you own it outright, you are stupid not to get the insurance but no one is REQUIRING it.

Even for car insurance, the requirement is liability coverage. You are not required to insure against your loss, just the potential loss inflicted on someone else. And yet, we still buy uninsured motorist protection even though the nanny state makes it illegal for an uninsured motorist to exist?

So to remain consistent with the auto insurance argument, you would need the governement to require individuals to buy insurance on those health conditions they INFLICT on OTHERS, or liability health insurance.

 

[Black Irish]

You can feel that it is a fair question and can feel that it isn't. You will need medical coverage at some point in your life. If you don't have coverage, the hospitals are forced to care for you and if you can't pay for it that cost gets passed on to everyone else. If we force hospitals to treat everyone than we must force everyone to have health insurance. Those two go hand in hand.

You are forgetting to mention that when you go to the emergency room you are presented with a bill for services rendered. If you can't pay, either by being uninsured and/or not have the cash on hand, you are in the same position as someone who defaults on a debt. The debt goes to collection and there is a negative record on your credit report. Of course, you can negotiate a payment plan usually for less than the total amount (an uninsured co-worker of mine did this).

True, the hospital does have to eat the cost for those who can't pay and does pass that cost onto paying consumers. But that is what happens with all sorts of businesses and a business can write those costs off. Unless you're talking about a general hospital (gov't funded) then the costs are getting spread around to taxpayers anyway, just as they would with an individual mandate. Except we are not being forced to buy anything by the government.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

That requirement would stem from a mortgage lender, insurance companies generally do not cover flood damage. Just like flood insurance is available to beach homes and if you don't get it, you are not getting a mortgage on that bad boy. If you own it outright, you are stupid not to get the insurance but no one is REQUIRING it.

Even for car insurance, the requirement is liability coverage. You are not required to insure against your loss, just the potential loss inflicted on someone else. And yet, we still buy uninsured motorist protection even though the nanny state makes it illegal for an uninsured motorist to exist?

So to remain consistent with the auto insurance argument, you would need the governement to require individuals to buy insurance on those health conditions they INFLICT on OTHERS, or liability health insurance.

It should also be mentioned that health "insurance", as we use the term today, isn't really insurance at all. Traditionally, insurance involves risk pooling against were unpredictable and expensive casualty events-- car accidents, early death, house fires, etc. An insured has little control over (or incentive to cause) such casualty events that give rise to claims.

Modern health insurance, on the other hand, is more akin to a financing mechanism than risk pooling. Virtually everyone consumes at least some health care services on an annual basis, and an insured typically has full control over (and incentive to use) such services. This is the driving cause behind the inflation of health care costs, and the main problem with our third party payor system.

Catastrophic health coverage is much closer to the definition of true insurance, which is why I'd favor the government providing it for everyone; that achieves the desired risk pooling without any of the perverse incentives. But for mundane services, Obamacare, single payor, and other non-market-based "solutions" perform very poorly, because they don't properly incentivize people to control their consumption of such services.

The best one can do these days is by combining a high deductible plan with an HSA.

 

[Bluto]

You are forgetting to mention that when you go to the emergency room you are presented with a bill for services rendered. If you can't pay, either by being uninsured and/or not have the cash on hand, you are in the same position as someone who defaults on a debt. The debt goes to collection and there is a negative record on your credit report. Of course, you can negotiate a payment plan usually for less than the total amount (an uninsured co-worker of mine did this).

True, the hospital does have to eat the cost for those who can't pay and does pass that cost onto paying consumers. But that is what happens with all sorts of businesses and a business can write those costs off. Unless you're talking about a general hospital (gov't funded) then the costs are getting spread around to taxpayers anyway, just as they would with an individual mandate. Except we are not being forced to buy anything by the government.

This is a pretty good example of everyone being a part of the healthcare market place whether they conciously choose to be or not. That being the case Congress can regulate this under the commerce clause.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

This is a pretty good example of everyone being a part of the healthcare market place whether they conciously choose to be or not. That being the case Congress can regulate this under the commerce clause.

Odds are good that 5 Justices disagree with you. Considering this interpretation of the Commerce Clause would grant Congress virtually unlimited power, I can't say I disagree with them.

 

[RDU Irish]

The insurance companies were pushing for this otherwise they would have started bitching about it. Contraception is normally about $50 a month but lets say it costs $100 a month. The average birth costs $8000, and that is saying nothing goes wrong. It takes over 6 years (closer to 7) of contraception to cover the cost of one birth and that is not including anything after the birth of the baby. Of course insurance companies want it. It saves them millions of dollars. The reason they wouldn't do this on their own is they didn't want the backlash. Now the government gets it.

By the same token, the government should pay me to kill my kids. They are damn expensive. Not sure how our civilization survives long term under this new mandate but that doesn't matter because politicians are only working to the next election and kids can't vote anyway.

Secondly, why waste money on birth control when abortion is cheaper, only necessary when that pesky pregnancy "condition" strikes and you don't have the monthly outlay or risk of irresponsible patients missing doses.

No in reality, we have incentives in place for poor to have more kids and rich to have fewer. This plays out statistically in poorer households have more kids and richer have fewer. If you want to bust the cycle of poverty, incentivize the rich to have more kids and the poor to have fewer. Incentives (i.e. free markets) work, thus the compounding problems afflicting our society. Government incentivizes dependency and punishes success, guess what they get more of?

 

[autry_denson]

Let me start out by saying that I don't like the health care reform legislation, simply b/c it does little to reduce costs in the long term. The AMA monopoly on medical care is the main reason why costs are so high, and the incentive structure for health care providers is out of whack in a way that encourages people to get unnecessary care and pays doctors exorbitant amounts to provide it. The AMA is powerful, doctors think they deserve it, and thus the system stays in place.

Let's separate this discussion from our feelings about the merits of the health care legislation as a whole. The reality of this situation is that ND is making a political move to advance a socially conservative agenda, nothing more. Institutions like Notre Dame constantly provide funds to states, and thus indirectly "support" or "pay for" things like the death penalty, which runs counter to Catholic beliefs. For instance, even though they are tax exempt, they pay payroll taxes and provide payments to localities and states in lieu of property and income taxes. Under the logic being espoused by a whole bunch of members of this board, they should not have to provide any money to the state if the policies of the state are in conflict with the religious doctrines of the university. This is wrong, this is not how institutions work in the US. Institutions are required to comply with federal law. ND has to pay payroll taxes to the state that allows the killing of criminals, despite the fact that this runs against Catholic doctrine.

ND is currently receiving enormous benefits from operating under the law of the federal government, including the ability to raise money and own land without being taxed. As an employer and a nonprofit organization, they are subject to federal law. The fact that the government is providing an exemption that would mean the insurers provide contraception to employees is silly, but it's a token gesture meant to allow the university to maintain that it is not taking any action that might directly or indirectly lead to activity that is inconsistent with its own doctrines. This is satisfactory to many Catholic groups, but not Notre Dame.

Rhode Irish is right that the only reason this has an even remote chance of going forward in court is that the Supreme Court is advancing a radical right wing agenda. It's extremely embarrassing to me that ND is playing any part in it. There are lots of things about the Catholic church as an institution that I value tremendously - its backward positions on gender and sex are the ones that make me truly ashamed. There's a sex issue that the Catholic church has to deal with, and this isn't it.

 

[WaveDomer]

When people are arguing that birth control is cheaper than having a child, they are neglecting something huge. The child is a future payment on that insurance plan and hopefully their own insurance plan when they get older. If insurance companies took a loss on people being born, they would be out of business by now. That is the answer to the question of why they just haven't given out free contraception, because it doesn't save them anything. It would cost them future profit.

*I mean cheaper for the insurance company.