Take Me To Post Comment Form The blogger who wrote - What Government Line Should I Stand In? - has written a blog that is sad on so many levels, but mostly in presentation and the perception that it is trying to present.

The blogger ignorantly states, "After the latest Shellacking from Justice Roberts the wind is gone from my sails and I am now bitterly accepting the direction that America wants to head." The only sails that have lost any wind are the sails on the Ship of Fools. Anyone with an iota of knowledge of our Constitution, and the roles of the Congress and the Supreme Court already know that this was the proper and expected outcome. The Constitution gives Congress the power to both regulate commerce and to tax. With that simple knowledge, and prior decisions from the Supreme Court over the past decades, there was only one decision that could come from the Court. The one that we received.

Now to claim some sort of "Shellacking" from the Chief Justice is not only ignorant, but merely politically motivated. The perception being presented here is that Roberts should be beholding to the ideology of the Party of the President that nominated him for the position, and not to the responsibility and integrity that is expected from the position of Chief Justice of the highest court in the land. Here is more hypocrisy from the right, they throw around the claim of activist judges, and then complain when a judge refuses to be an activist for their cause. Then you have right wing nut Congressman - and a sailor on the Ship of Fools - Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) wanting to impeach Justice Elena Kagan for not reclusing herself from this case because she, as he claims “violated federal law” by voting on the Obamacare decision after serving as Solicitor General when the law was passed. It should be pointed out that if this wing nut was being honest with himself and his constituents, he would also be calling for the head of Justice Thomas, whose wife is a lobbyist for the Healthcare industry, and both of them stood to make millions of dollars if the decision went the other way. In any case, if both of these Justices had recluse themselves from this case, the outcome would have been the same.

There are those on the Ship of Fools that are looking to blame Robert's need to take epilepsy meds as the reason his decision was tainted. Thank you for that argument, it is one that can now be used for the terrible decision on Citizens United. Now there is the effort by the wing nuts to say that Roberts changed his decision, originally falling on the side of the law being unConstitutional, basically claiming that he flip-flopped (which is a Conservative trait by the way, as we are witnessing in Romney). I would hope that our Justices are looking at all sides before making their FINAL decision, which seems to be the case here. I wonder why this flip-flopping tag hasn't been placed on Justice Scalia, who himself made a decision counter to statements he has made in the past concerning the powers of Congress. So is this blogger upset because the Constitutional process played out as our Republic is designed to do, and that at the very least one Justice followed the process and made his decision based on the integrity of his position? I would think that any good American would be happy to see that the process worked according to the way it was designed to do. I can almost guarantee that if the decision was different, the expectation would be that "the matter was decided, and now its time to move on", which is what 56% of Americans polled are saying about this decision.

Now before the "You're A Liberal" battle flag is hoisted on the Ship of Fools, I need to express that I am not a fan of the "individual mandate" or the fact that this wasn't a Healthcare reform law, but rather a Health Insurance reform law. I will be the first to say that based on their actions, this industry's practices needed to be reformed, which it is a form of commerce that falls under the powers of Congress, but if we really wanted to reform healthcare, we should have been dealing with the healthcare providers, and not the paying agent middle men. For all of the extremists on the Ship of Fools who parrot what they hear on the Ship of FoolsNews Channel, there have been no Socialist (capital "S" Socialist, and not small "s" socialist) programs implement, or Government paid healthcare given. What the law does do is regulate the practices of the Insurance industry, and require the states to set up exchanges where people can compared and buy healthcare insurance on the open market. One would think the Conservatives would welcome a system that presents competition and choice among the insurance providers, and in turn offering lower costs as their theory goes. There are subsidies built in for those who are at 133% of poverty, which isn't much money. The right defends subsities to wealthy oil companies or wealthy farmers who don't need them, at least provide them for those who do need them. I don't see how its Socialism when you give subsidies to people, but not when its given to corporations. Its just politcal speak from the Ship of FoolsNews Channel.

Here is a hypocritical point from the wing nuts on the right, they are against paying taxes for a bloated bureaucracy that provides poor service, and would treat people like cattle, but they are for paying their hard earned wages to the insurance industry, which is nothing more than a bloated bureaucracy that provides poor service and treats people like cattle. On top of that, these insurance companies do not provide any healthcare, draw large profits before providing service, and can refuse to provide any service if you get sick, which is when you actually need the service. We hear all of the time on how people are dropped by these healthcare insurance companies due to a T not being crossed, or an i not being dotted, basically for violating the terms of the agreement, but since this contract's terms weren't being met in the first place as the insurance companies claim, why do the insurance companies get to keep all of the money that they have collected from this person, since contractually, they were not bound to provide the service that the money was handed over for? That is also called stealing, or fraud.

Then, to further exaserbate the "Socialist" take on healthcare, the general premise from the right is that "Socialism" is where people are getting a lot of something without equally contributing having the remaining provided by others, which is what the blogger is implying when he states, "I will be looking for my lines and filing for my government entitlements and begin to leach off of the doers in society." So, what is your expectation from an insurance company? That when you are confronted with a medical need that cost a great deal of money, that others will be paying for that bill even though they aren't the one receiving the healthcare? Where do you think the money comes from? Is the thought that the money you were paying into the insurance company was somehow, over time supposed to equal the cost of the care provided, or were you thinking you would get more than you paid for? Why is this different than if the care was being paid for by pool of 300 million people as opposed to the pool that is paying premiums to an insurance company now? At least with the tax payer system, you aren't paying outrageous CEO salaries or profits to investors.

Once you pull away the perception that this service provided by the government is Socialist, it becomes obvious that it is the same service provided by the paying agents, but it is politically labeled differently in order to benefit those who invest in the insurance companies with the expectations of large profits. There are no more need for efficiency from the insurance company to keep premiums down than there is from the perception of the government administering the service, only difference is that the premium increases go to investors in the form of profits to investors.

If we really wanted to reform healthcare following capitalist principles, the insurance companies would have been left out the equation, and a system where the service provider is directly paid by the person receiving the healthcare. Why does anyone believe that someone else should be paying for service provided to them? Why do they expect to get more than what they pay for? If an example of a type of healthcare reform is needed, look at the Kaiser model. You pay your monthly premiums directly to the healthcare provider. The paradigm of the independent Doctor as a small business man has been changing over the decades, and more and more Doctors are working for Kaiser like healthcare providers. They aren't wanting to make the investment in offices and/or equipment to service those needing healthcare, so the trend has been moving towards Doctors being employees of larger programs.

This model can be built off of groups, whether they be based on the size of a town or section of a town, county, state or a national group. In this model the healthcare provider is responsible for the administration costs of the services eliminating the need for another bureaucracy, allowing the provider to control its costs through efficiencies of operation. There is no reason to offer insurance through an employer, which only adds more administration costs as it requires the employer to hire people to oversee their insurance programs.

The money that comes out of one's paycheck now towards insurance premiums, which typically ranges from between $400 and $600 a month, would be by the employee directly to the provider of his choice. Any monies that the employer pays out in premium subsidies could be paid directly to the employee as a part of their income which in essence is what it is now, and would be used to go to their healthcare provider. This is a win-win for employers since now they can get back to their business, and not the business of healthcare. Since the employee is now responsible for choosing their healthcare provider, it will force providers to complete for these people who are now themselves choosing who provides them their healthcare. The healthcare providers will need to find efficiencies in order to keep costs down in order to draw these newly liberated customers to their service.

This is one way that you reform a broken system that currently benefits the Healthcare providers, the insurance company middle men, refuses service to those who pay for it, and forces businesses to focus on and creates an additional expense on something that is not related to the business that they are in. Is this what we received in the reform that is in this law? No, the politicians found ways to tweak what we have so that those who are benefitting off of the needs of others can continue to do so, just not take as much advantage as they were able to do before.

To listen to the blogger, we are on the road to the minions getting free healthcare. This isn't true. That isn't what happened in Massachusetts where Romney set up a similar plan. Also statistics show that only 1% of the citizens there needed to pay the fine for not having insurance. Regardless of what the Republican Party Chairman, Reince Priebus (again, take all of the vowels out of his name, and you get RNC PR BS, some are just destined for their vocation) is saying that this is a tax, the Republican candidate for President is stating otherwise. There is con*flect in the political party on how to sell the propaganda on this one. As I said, the Ship of Fools.

So, with all of the political football that is being played by the Parties, and their respective propaganda machines, we are left with an electorate that does not even understand how their system works or should work, and are whining that they are on the road to Socialism. Again, this blog is sad on so many levels, and we still aren't getting Healthcare reform, or any benefits that would come from a Socialist system.

Maybe now, the two parties will get together and actaully reform the healthcare system to one like the example that I gave, or like the many Single Payer programs that all other major industrialized nations provide for the their citizens. Who am I kidding, if I really believe that then its time to buy a ticket on that Ship of Fools.This is California, if you are going to give us a whine, at least provide the cheese to go with it.