Posts Tagged ‘ HRC ’

Legal Challenges to Health Care Reform: Justice, or Just Us Pouting?

March 25th, 2010. By Hunter West

Some lawsuits are there to right a wrong. To seek justice, and elicit compensation. 

Others are simply put out there to make noise. For posturing. 

As part of the continued opposition to the Obama health care reform bill, 14 states launched legal challenges to the health care reform, claiming that requiring Americans to purchase health care coverage flies in the face of the Constitution. 

Okay. So 13, of the 14 attorneys general who have filed lawsuits are Republican. The GOP is known to be against the long-held Democratic dream. The White House has been told not to worry, that the legal challenges are not winnable by the plaintiffs. 

And never mind that Timothy Stolzfus Jost, a professor of law at the Washington and Lee University (disclaimer: he’s a Democrat), blogs on CNN that there is no legal merit to the challenges. “…These cases are going nowhere legally,” he says. 

But beyond all that let’s look at the fundamental claim that government has no right to tell me that I HAVE to buy health insurance. 

Fine. Then why must I buy automotive insurance? The last time I checked, auto insurance was a requirement. You’re not allowed to drive a car if you are uninsured. Get caught, and you face a hefty penalty. 

Now, I’m a careful driver. I don’t take chances. And I own my car outright. I can see if I was making payments to a bank, a manufacturer or a finance company, then I might be compelled to have insurance in order to protect their investment in the case of an accident. If I default on my payments the repo comes and gets the car, and the bank sells it for as much as it can get. 

However, you have to have a vehicle to do that. If the vehicle is totaled the driver has nothing Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Health Care Reform, HRC
Posted in Emerging Issues, Insurance, lawsuits | 1 Comment »