"If I wanted to, I could fill up the comment thread of every single post on this blog with profane anti-reality ravings."
No, you can't. The comment system tracks IP addresses; it can search and delete by IP, and ban IPs from posting. (Don't you remember that whole business a few weeks ago?)
You could be a pain in the ass for a while, but you can't "wreck the blog".
*******
You're correct that you can't be compelled against your actual will to follow the comment policy, or indeed any law at all. You can always say "my behavior is an entirely voluntary decision made in order to avoid punishment" if it makes you feel better to look at it like that.
But all this does is move the goalposts from "can the government compel you to purchase a product from a private seller" to "can the government punish you if you do not purchase a product from a private seller". You don't actually change the problem; you just put a different shirt on it.
"Why are we still focused on the idea that health insurance is a pre-paid medical care plan, instead of, well, insurance against catastrophe?"
As well as the notion that it's absolutely impossible to pay for health care without some kind of shared-cost plan. To return to the car analogy, I don't expect State Farm to cut me a check in reimbursement for my oil change and brake inspection.
Or, for an inverse (and more contemporary) example, imagine if "Firefly" had gone on for eight seasons. Would we still remember it as the Best Thing That Ever Happened Ever? Or would we be saying "well it started strong, but ended well past its prime, just like Buffy and Angel"?
So if I can construct a scenario where healthcare is "more than twice removed" from interstate commerce, then I show that the Obamacare mandate is unconstitutional?
"Well no if the rate was so low that each patient was a net loss then he would go out of business."
Yeeeesss, and...
"H makes money at $40..."
Bingo. He makes money at $40. He can therefore afford to charge me $40. Maybe he'd like to charge me more and get more profit, but that his decision--and then it's my decision to say "it's not my moral responsibility to pad your pockets".
"The doctor grumbles but agrees to be a ‘preferred provider’ of some HMO or insurance company and take $40 per visit as his pay because the insurance company will send him enough patients to keep his day filled with patients. "
What, so he'll lose a little bit on each patient and make it up in volume? :D
If he can't afford $40 per visit then he'll go out of business. You may have noted stories about how fewer and fewer doctors are accepting Medicaid patients. There is a reason for this.
"When he can’t, when it’s just you Mr. I’ll pay OOP no Insurance for Me you get charged $100 because that’s what he honestly can afford to charge you."
And I can honestly afford to take my ass down the street to a doctor who can honestly afford to charge me the market rate for service.
...so you're saying that the inappropriate reduction that results in a false inconsistency is, in fact, not an inconsistency? That is is in fact a valid result which we should take seriously, and not just as a cheap "gotcha" towards political opponents?
You sound like someone who's "just asking questions" about whether there might have been thermite planted in the WTC.
"Or maybe the problem is that our economic lives are now so intgrated, so globalized that it’s almost impossible to even imagine any plausible commerce that is purely ‘in state’ anymore."
Can we please remember that this whole thread is in response to Wickard v. Filburn, in which case it was explicitly stated and demonstrated that the wheat in question was solely for personal use?
If "personal cultivation reduces the market" is an actual justification then you're effectively saying that 100% of everything that anyone does must be for someone else. Cooking dinner for yourself is now illegal because it reduces the demand for restaurants...
"The non-zero chance that in a given year the doc may come to you and say “Mr. Duck, we found a dense mass in your brain on that xray….” "
That's what catastrophic coverage high-deductible insurance is for. It's like car insurance; the only time you get a payout is if you lose the car through damage or theft.
"Even though it may not have been obvious, you probably did benefit from the counter weight your insurance played with your doc. "
Ho, ho, ho. If the doctor can afford to provide medical care at that cost when the insurance is paying, then he can damn well afford it when I'm paying, or else I'll go to another doctor.
...or, at least, that's how I'd play it, if the doctor didn't have an entire population of people who were used to letting their insurance pay for all of everything.
But then we get into the question of why this conflict appears to exist. And what Pierre and I are saying is that the conflict is due to the reductionist nature of the "experiment", rather than due to inconsistencies in our moral framework.
I'm not really seeing how you can read "between the states" as an expansive definition allowing restrictions on entirely in-state commerce.
And--look. This thing where we say "it's entirely in-state commerce" and you say "well THAT DOESN'T MATTER because they SAID that they could DO IT ANYWAY". This thing is really getting annoying, because it's the same kind of reasoning that says cops shouldn't be investigated because the cops are never wrong because they're the cops.
"Why is that a smart decision for the 25 year-old? Is he psychic enough to know that he will never get in a car accident or tear up his knee playing basketball?"
Why are you talking as though health care is inherently expensive and there's no possible way for a person to pay for it on their own?
As I said, I'm a diabetic. And on a dollars-paid basis, I break even on coverage. If you add up the amount I pay in premiums, and then add up the amount of expenses that are covered by the insurance provider, then they turn out to be within 10% of each other--and the balance goes to the payments side.
I admit that I'm not taking into account the pre-tax nature of the premium payments, but the point is that it's not out of the question for someone to buy their own doctoring, even with an expensive chronic condition like diabetes.
I think it's interesting how supporters of the Act say we're supposed to conform to the exact language in the "tax versus mandate" sense, but we're supposed to just understand that the Act includes severability even though the text doesn't say any such thing.
"Given these facts then where is your actual argument that a person growing wheat for their own use shouldn’t be touched by a Federal law?"
How about the Tenth Amendment? That seems a pretty clear justification for the argument that Congress can't use the ICC to regulate an activity which is neither commerce nor interstate.
But I have to say that, given all the myriad ways that children die, I wouldn't necessarily rank "miscarriage" as a serious medial issue either--with the caveat that any number of unintentionally dead babies is too many, and that ranking miscarriage as "less serious" on a relative scale doesn't mean I believe it's not serious.
And, frankly, I doubt that the philosophy test lets me make that distinction.
I have real problems with "philosophy tests" like this, mostly for the same reason as you; they seem to be more constructed around the idea of "gotchas" than an attempt to analyse or discuss actual philosophies.
"Their track record is proven beyond just about any other methods, but the Church is strongly against all of them."
Well, that's because the Church isn't so much pro-life as anti-sex. If you can have sex without consequences then you'll just do it all the time, instead of going out and doing the Lord's work. And, as they always say, the best form of birth control is someone else's bratty kid.
(And then they wonder why the priests can't keep their hands off the altar boys, but that's a different discussion.)
On “The Two Obfuscations of Obamacare”
"If I wanted to, I could fill up the comment thread of every single post on this blog with profane anti-reality ravings."
No, you can't. The comment system tracks IP addresses; it can search and delete by IP, and ban IPs from posting. (Don't you remember that whole business a few weeks ago?)
You could be a pain in the ass for a while, but you can't "wreck the blog".
*******
You're correct that you can't be compelled against your actual will to follow the comment policy, or indeed any law at all. You can always say "my behavior is an entirely voluntary decision made in order to avoid punishment" if it makes you feel better to look at it like that.
But all this does is move the goalposts from "can the government compel you to purchase a product from a private seller" to "can the government punish you if you do not purchase a product from a private seller". You don't actually change the problem; you just put a different shirt on it.
"
...so, yes, you did expect us to take an Argument From Authority seriously.
On “The Importance of Being Insured”
"Why are we still focused on the idea that health insurance is a pre-paid medical care plan, instead of, well, insurance against catastrophe?"
As well as the notion that it's absolutely impossible to pay for health care without some kind of shared-cost plan. To return to the car analogy, I don't expect State Farm to cut me a check in reimbursement for my oil change and brake inspection.
On “History’s Lost, Part I: Stesichorus”
Or, for an inverse (and more contemporary) example, imagine if "Firefly" had gone on for eight seasons. Would we still remember it as the Best Thing That Ever Happened Ever? Or would we be saying "well it started strong, but ended well past its prime, just like Buffy and Angel"?
On “The Two Obfuscations of Obamacare”
So your argument is that taxes are, in reality, a penalty paid for refusing to receive government benefits? :D
"
Are you honestly expecting us to take an Argument From Authority seriously?
"
But then you'd confuse the poor furry fans!
On “Florida Judge Voids Affordable Care Act”
So if I can construct a scenario where healthcare is "more than twice removed" from interstate commerce, then I show that the Obamacare mandate is unconstitutional?
"
"Well no if the rate was so low that each patient was a net loss then he would go out of business."
Yeeeesss, and...
"H makes money at $40..."
Bingo. He makes money at $40. He can therefore afford to charge me $40. Maybe he'd like to charge me more and get more profit, but that his decision--and then it's my decision to say "it's not my moral responsibility to pad your pockets".
"
"The doctor grumbles but agrees to be a ‘preferred provider’ of some HMO or insurance company and take $40 per visit as his pay because the insurance company will send him enough patients to keep his day filled with patients. "
What, so he'll lose a little bit on each patient and make it up in volume? :D
If he can't afford $40 per visit then he'll go out of business. You may have noted stories about how fewer and fewer doctors are accepting Medicaid patients. There is a reason for this.
"When he can’t, when it’s just you Mr. I’ll pay OOP no Insurance for Me you get charged $100 because that’s what he honestly can afford to charge you."
And I can honestly afford to take my ass down the street to a doctor who can honestly afford to charge me the market rate for service.
On “A Utilitarian Framework for Evaluating the Morality of Abortion”
...so you're saying that the inappropriate reduction that results in a false inconsistency is, in fact, not an inconsistency? That is is in fact a valid result which we should take seriously, and not just as a cheap "gotcha" towards political opponents?
You sound like someone who's "just asking questions" about whether there might have been thermite planted in the WTC.
On “Florida Judge Voids Affordable Care Act”
"Or maybe the problem is that our economic lives are now so intgrated, so globalized that it’s almost impossible to even imagine any plausible commerce that is purely ‘in state’ anymore."
Can we please remember that this whole thread is in response to Wickard v. Filburn, in which case it was explicitly stated and demonstrated that the wheat in question was solely for personal use?
If "personal cultivation reduces the market" is an actual justification then you're effectively saying that 100% of everything that anyone does must be for someone else. Cooking dinner for yourself is now illegal because it reduces the demand for restaurants...
"
"The non-zero chance that in a given year the doc may come to you and say “Mr. Duck, we found a dense mass in your brain on that xray….” "
That's what catastrophic coverage high-deductible insurance is for. It's like car insurance; the only time you get a payout is if you lose the car through damage or theft.
"Even though it may not have been obvious, you probably did benefit from the counter weight your insurance played with your doc. "
Ho, ho, ho. If the doctor can afford to provide medical care at that cost when the insurance is paying, then he can damn well afford it when I'm paying, or else I'll go to another doctor.
...or, at least, that's how I'd play it, if the doctor didn't have an entire population of people who were used to letting their insurance pay for all of everything.
On “A Utilitarian Framework for Evaluating the Morality of Abortion”
But then we get into the question of why this conflict appears to exist. And what Pierre and I are saying is that the conflict is due to the reductionist nature of the "experiment", rather than due to inconsistencies in our moral framework.
On “Florida Judge Voids Affordable Care Act”
I'm not really seeing how you can read "between the states" as an expansive definition allowing restrictions on entirely in-state commerce.
And--look. This thing where we say "it's entirely in-state commerce" and you say "well THAT DOESN'T MATTER because they SAID that they could DO IT ANYWAY". This thing is really getting annoying, because it's the same kind of reasoning that says cops shouldn't be investigated because the cops are never wrong because they're the cops.
On “History’s Lost, Part I: Stesichorus”
That guy's name sounds like a dinosaur. "The fearsome Allosaurus often preyed upon the stolid Stestichorus..."
On “Florida Judge Voids Affordable Care Act”
"Why is that a smart decision for the 25 year-old? Is he psychic enough to know that he will never get in a car accident or tear up his knee playing basketball?"
Why are you talking as though health care is inherently expensive and there's no possible way for a person to pay for it on their own?
As I said, I'm a diabetic. And on a dollars-paid basis, I break even on coverage. If you add up the amount I pay in premiums, and then add up the amount of expenses that are covered by the insurance provider, then they turn out to be within 10% of each other--and the balance goes to the payments side.
I admit that I'm not taking into account the pre-tax nature of the premium payments, but the point is that it's not out of the question for someone to buy their own doctoring, even with an expensive chronic condition like diabetes.
"
If I weren't a diabetic, then I wouldn't have had a single health-care expense since the day 20 years ago when my wisdom teeth were removed.
"
I think it's interesting how supporters of the Act say we're supposed to conform to the exact language in the "tax versus mandate" sense, but we're supposed to just understand that the Act includes severability even though the text doesn't say any such thing.
"
"Given these facts then where is your actual argument that a person growing wheat for their own use shouldn’t be touched by a Federal law?"
How about the Tenth Amendment? That seems a pretty clear justification for the argument that Congress can't use the ICC to regulate an activity which is neither commerce nor interstate.
On “A Utilitarian Framework for Evaluating the Morality of Abortion”
I can't go to the site at work, due to filtering.
But I have to say that, given all the myriad ways that children die, I wouldn't necessarily rank "miscarriage" as a serious medial issue either--with the caveat that any number of unintentionally dead babies is too many, and that ranking miscarriage as "less serious" on a relative scale doesn't mean I believe it's not serious.
And, frankly, I doubt that the philosophy test lets me make that distinction.
"
I have real problems with "philosophy tests" like this, mostly for the same reason as you; they seem to be more constructed around the idea of "gotchas" than an attempt to analyse or discuss actual philosophies.
"
"Their track record is proven beyond just about any other methods, but the Church is strongly against all of them."
Well, that's because the Church isn't so much pro-life as anti-sex. If you can have sex without consequences then you'll just do it all the time, instead of going out and doing the Lord's work. And, as they always say, the best form of birth control is someone else's bratty kid.
(And then they wonder why the priests can't keep their hands off the altar boys, but that's a different discussion.)
"
See, the funny part is that you're being as inflexible and absolutionist as the anti-abortionists you despise.
On “Wealth Transfer”
Same here, although I had to ask twice to be shown a scenario that wasn't two-mortgage interest-only nothing-down ARMs.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.