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Jun 24

On Life Support: Healthcare Reform and the Supreme Court

Categories:

Politics

by Blaise Zerega

A NEW FORA.tv SERIES: This Thursday the United States Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the healthcare reform signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. To state the obvious, the decision will go one of three ways: wholly struck down (or dead on arrival), parts of it voided, or wholly upheld (the equivalent of a clean bill of health).

On the eve of this historic moment, FORA.tv presents a new video series, On Life Support: Healthcare Reform and the Supreme Court. We chose the title because of the many uncertainties surrounding the legislation as it stands today, and for the continued ambiguity sure to exist should the Court rule key elements of it unconstitutional, namely the individual mandate.

Our editors have selected more than 30 video programs to show the long and winding road to the Supreme Court showdown. These programs tackle many of the big questions of this thorny issue: What does universal care look like? How to pay for this increase in spending? Should there be a public option? What’s the role of insurance companies? Will this be the equivalent of The New Deal? Included are gems such as aPresident Ronald Reagan recording in which he speaks against socialized medicine in 1961, a face-off between Hilary Clinton and Newt Gingrich in 1995, and President Obama’s vow to overhaul healthcare at the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

To gain a quick sense of the decades-long battle, enjoy this video featuring audio of President Reagan from 1961:

Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine (The Album) from The Hoover Institution on FORA.tv

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    • kafantaris

      So you don’t like the individual mandate in the health care law. 
      Fine.  
      What would you replace it with? 
      Why do you think Newt Gingrich back in Hillary’s days was for it — after they had looked at everything else? 
      There was no way around it. 
      “The insurance mandate is socialism, plain and simple.” 
      If it’s socialism, you’d have to buy it from the government, which would also tell you what doctor or hospital to go to.  But you can buy health insurance from anybody, and you can get treated by the doctor and hospital you want.  What’s socialist about that? 
      “Can’t you see, the government is making us buy insurance. We have no choice in the matter.”
      Do you have a choice not to get hurt, or not to get sick?  Why then do you want a choice not to have insurance to pay for it when you do?
      States in fact already have an individual mandate for car insurance, and they have been putting uninsured drivers in jail for years. 
      “That’s different.  Driving is a privilege.” 
      Then free health care must be a right in your book.  Maybe this idea came from hospitals continuing to treat the uninsured the last half century.  
      The tradeoff to us living in a civilized society is that we have to follow rules we don’t agree with.  In return, we get great many things, including goods and services that otherwise would be unavailable. But, we still have to pay for them. The mandate makes sure that we do.
      What’s wrong with that?