Obama, Clinton. Which is the lesser of two evils?

[DividedThigh]

if you feed him, he will not leave, lol,dt

[DividedThigh]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

LOL! I've never studied out the "lifetime appointments" of the Supreme Court. Why was that instituted? What is behind the thinking on that?

origninally it was for continuity and consistency in law rulings, but with the libs we have now, yikes, dt

[TRFrance]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Here is what McCain is proposing on the Healthcare issue for review.

(excerpt or article)

Interesting.

Looks like we'll have a fundamentally different (better?) system regardless of who wins in November. I'm all for it. It cant be a lot worse than what we have now.

[Baron1710]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

LOL! I've never studied out the "lifetime appointments" of the Supreme Court. Why was that instituted? What is behind the thinking on that?

The idea is that they can make judgments without having the political pressure of having to be reappointed. That because of this they can be more objective, because they are not seeking reelection or reappointed.

But that was a time when life expectancy was dramatically shorter, take a look at the length of time the early justices served.

[TRFrance]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

LOL! I've never studied out the "lifetime appointments" of the Supreme Court. Why was that instituted? What is behind the thinking on that?

Originally Posted by DividedThigh

origninally it was for continuity and consistency in law rulings, but with the libs we have now, yikes, dt

I don't like the lifetime terms thing.
I think it should be no more than 12 years, maybe 15 max.
(without reappointments, so there's no pressure to vote a certain way to increase your chances of getting re-appointed)

Not that it'll ever change, but I think that would be a better system.

[Baron1710]

Originally Posted by DividedThigh

origninally it was for continuity and consistency in law rulings, but with the libs we have now, yikes, dt

actually the continuity and consistency was stare decisis

[ChristopherHall]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Here is what McCain is proposing on the Healthcare issue for review.

(excerpt or article)

e

Here’s an assessment of what McCain is proposing on the Health care issue for review:

http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?...ntentid=254627

PPI Health Care Wire:

[excerpt]

Sen. McCain: One Step Forward, One Step Back

Sen. John McCain (D-Ariz.) has recently refined his presidential campaign's health care proposal. In a major speech on health care, he reiterated his proposals for tax credits and insurance deregulation that would encourage people to purchase coverage on their own instead of relying on their employer. He also addressed one of the problems with the non-employer health insurance market for individuals: insurance companies routinely deny coverage to patients who have pre-existing medical conditions. Specifically, he proposed that the federal government work with states to develop a guaranteed access plan for those with pre-existing conditions.

A guaranteed access plan would work like a high-risk insurance pool does today. When an insurance company turns away people with pre-existing conditions, they can apply for coverage through a high-risk pool in several states. Such coverage, however, can cost 50 percent or more than a typical premium. For family coverage, the cost would be $16,000 or more. Although Sen. McCain's proposal would offset some of the additional costs for lower-income families, these costs would fall heavily on middle-class families.

Besides the high costs, another problem with high-risk pools is that they don't always allow patients to keep their own doctor. If a patient's doctor leaves the network for a high-risk insurance plan, that patient has no choice but to stay in the high-risk pool and find a new doctor. Patients with pre-existing conditions would also lose their choice of health care plans because once they get a serious disease, no other insurance plan would have to provide them coverage under the McCain proposal.

The lack of choice for patients in high-risk pools also undermines competition to lower costs. Patients with pre-existing conditions naturally have higher costs and therefore offer a huge potential for providing streamlined care. Without competitive pressures to develop new cost-saving techniques, a high-risk insurance pool plan will undoubtedly miss some important innovations.

A better alternative to McCain's proposal is more like what large employers and the federal government offer. Large employers typically don't worry about patients with pre-existing exclusions because they have a large enough pool of employees to spread out the costs of sick patients. The Federal Employee Health Benefits program also allows workers to pick their own health plan and keep their coverage and doctors if they change jobs with the federal government. This approach forms the basis of the Obama and Clinton health care plans.

In some states with very loose insurance regulation, a high-risk pool may make sense, but it would undermine progress in many other states like Massachusetts where they have already eliminated the need for high-risk pools. A one-size-fits-all federal solution to the complex problem of guaranteeing access to health care coverage is likely to fail. Instead, the federal government should craft a solution that reflects the variation in state's experiences and policies while setting a clear goal: access to coverage for everyone.

For more information:

"Straight Talk on Health System Reform," John McCain 2008:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/
19ba2f1c-c03f-4ac2-8cd5-5cf2edb527cf.htm

"McCain's Health Care Proposal: Darwinian Redux,"
Health Policy Wire, Progressive Policy Institute, April 18, 2008:
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=111
&subsecID=900033&contentID=254621

A Performance-Based Approach to Universal Health Care,"
By David Kendall, Jeff Lemieux and S. Robert Levine, Progressive Policy Institute, November 15, 2002:
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=111
&subsecID=137&contentID=251284

[DividedThigh]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

actually the continuity and consistency was stare decisis

really my lawyer friend, what does that translate as, lol

[Baron1710]

Originally Posted by DividedThigh

really my lawyer friend, what does that translate as, lol

Sorry that was in the news so much during the confirmation of John Roberts, I thought it had become common usage. It's the shortened form of a phrase which means to let the decision stand. They grill conservative justices on it because they want to make sure they will let the abortion decision stand. In the common law one case builds off of another and the idea is that you look back at previous decisions to determine how to rule so that the law remains the same.

[ChristopherHall]

I have an audio series titled, “May It Please the Court”, that has audio recordings of major Supreme Court sessions where they mentioned stare dicisis. It’s fascinating really. What really interested me is how Roe v. Wade was argued and how the court evaluated both sides. After hearing the audio recordings I had a better understanding of why the court ruled as it did. Sometimes we loose sight of the details in our heated debates on social issues.