Clinton calls for socialized health care

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

On the federal level? Very few. All departments except for the Defense, State, Justice, Interior, Treasury, Transportation, Commerce, and Energy should be eliminated.

Goodbye: Coast Guard, Border Patrol, TSA, Customs, Secret Service, FDA, NIH, CDC, Forest Service, Pell Grants.

Also: To the end of American agriculture. And the military, since no one will join up once we tell them we are eliminating their post-service benefits.

I mean, I know you and Clarence Thomas are all brothas and all, but...

Psh -- all you gotta do is put everything from Homeland Security back where it belongs -- Department of Defense. Same with with TSA, Border Control, and Customs.

The Secret Service is part of the Department of the Treasury, genius. The Forest Service? Department of the Interior. CDC - Defense. Pell Grants? Not the federal government's place.

No no no no

Do explain your position on farm subsidies

It should be precious

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

The Secret Service is part of the Department of the Treasury, genius. The Forest Service? Department of the Interior. CDC - Defense.

Secret Service is Homeland Security. Forest Service is Agriculture. CDC is Health and Human Services.

Besides, I don't really see the point of eliminating departments if you're just going to move everything they do around.

Hmm, that's odd -- they must've moved the Secret Service when they made HLS.

Regardless - I don't play on moving everything they move around, just the rightful government services some of these departments perform. All the extra-constitutional shit needs to be eliminated completely from the federal government.

And after re-reading my post, I didn't make myself exactly clear -- the Forest Service should be moved to the INterior Dept and CDC should be under the Defense Dept.

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

And after re-reading my post, I didn't make myself exactly clear -- the Forest Service should be moved to the INterior Dept and CDC should be under the Defense Dept.

Explain your reasoning for making the CDC a part of the DoD, if you don't mind. I'd also be interested in hearing you answer Pang's last question, since he's dropped his track now, and you have no reason to ignore him. I'd really be intrigued to hear your answer myself.

Ok, I looked for some quotes, but not hard enough, so please clear this up for me:

Is government-provided health care on the STATE level a better alternative? I mean, clearly NP thinks that it should be in the private sector, but a few of you seem to argue that it wouldn't work federally, but it wouldn't be so bad if every state had a method.

And, if it WAS on the state level, barring discussion of the legality or morality of government-provided healthcare, would that be more feasible, economically, than on a federal level?

Originally Posted by Hachifusa

Is government-provided health care on the STATE level a better alternative? I mean, clearly NP thinks that it should be in the private sector, but a few of you seem to argue that it wouldn't work federally, but it wouldn't be so bad if every state had a method.

And, if it WAS on the state level, barring discussion of the legality or morality of government-provided healthcare, would that be more feasible, economically, than on a federal level?

The major legal argument against government-provided healthcare on a federal level is that the Constitution does not delegate such a responsibility to the federal government (one could concievably argue otherwise, but it would require a loose construction argument). At the same time, under the Tenth Amendment, powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states and to the people. Therefore, constitutionally, responsibility and authority for something like this would rest with the states.

In addition to removing the biggest legal obstacle, moving this to the state level would also reduce the necessary scale. Sweden's government may be able to provide wonderful healthcare to it's people, but at the same time, Sweden has a population roughly equivalent to that of Georgia. With fewer people to take care of, Sweden can spend much less to provide the services, and much less to support the bureaucracy needed to keep the system working. As the size of population goes up, so do the costs associated with providing service and for supporting the system, and larger countries begin to have problems. Providing for more people means having to spend more on them, and more on the bureaucracy needed for their management, which would become less efficient as the size of what it had to manage continued to grow.

As an example of costs, remember the above figure of around 670 billion for Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs budgeted in 2007. These payments, for systems that many consider grossly inadequate, almost equal the money budgeted for Defense and the War on Terror combined (and exceed by around 50% DOD's normal operating expenses without additional War on Terror expenses).

Anyway, by assigning such a program to the states, the combined costs would likely be even greater than would a national system, but those costs would be broken down into several independent pieces, and each state would only be responsible for its own system and people, and as a result have less to spend, and be able to provide better, more efficient service.

Moving it to the state level, in addition to spreading the costs around, would let different states experiment with different systems. If Massachusetts wants to build a more comprehensive system than does Maryland, and Montana doesn't want to establish anything, each would be able to do things the way they wanted. It would save all that federal money that would be needed to cover a national system, and would hopefully remove the issue and the associated passions from the national level.

I don't think there's any way that Congress would be stopped from making a government-provided health care system federally administered if they so chose. The Commerce Clause trumps the Tenth Amendment.

One argument for federal administration is that giving that power to the states creates even greater inequalities. Who will give better health care, Connecticut or Mississippi? Do people from Connecticut deserve better health care because they are richer and can use more of the budget for health care? If so, why move away from an insurance system, where users themselves can just buy health care? Texans get worse coverage because of the expense of running the program over such a wide area, while Rhode Island, with much more concentrated centers, can provide the same care for much cheaper (or better care for the same amount).

I don't think state-funded health care would be a good idea, specifically because I know that my home state is run by old republican bastards in the senate who would rather shut down the government than raise taxes to generate more revenue. I'm serious, they're talking about cutting police numbers. I'm like lol what.

Anyway, if it's a matter of sheer volume of red tape, I don't know why federally-funded but state-run health care would be a bad idea. In fact, isn't that how basically everything that isn't disaster relief or the army is run?

Well, the first thing that comes to mind that's completely federally-funded and administered, but with a total local impact (branches, employees, purpose) is the Postal Service. And the post office is pretty healthy, I think.

Others? FBI, IRS...

Well, the Postal Service is comprehensive to the entire nation and thus subject to a coherent and universal standard that can be easily communicable between all states.

I suppose that could be argued for health care as well, but I'm not seeing why a broad plan is necessarily better for the nation. I find myself more willing to be beholden to the average Texan than the average American for certain things, or to put it generally, different things have their proper scope.

Besides, there's quite a few state-by-state discrepancies in other areas, like sales taxes and whatnot.

Quote:

The Commerce Clause trumps the Tenth Amendment.

Ok, since you seem to be some kind of Constitutional expert -- how in the HELL did you arrive at this conclusion?

How does this:

Quote:

Article I, Section 8

The Congress shall have power...

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes

Trump this:

Quote:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.

Your answer had better be damn good.

Art I, Section 8, Clause 18.


I mean, did you read the Tenth Amendment?

"Powers not delegated to the US by the Constitution"

Then, you quoted a passage out of the Constitution

"Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce"

Add in clause 18, where Congress can do basically whatever it needs to regulate commerce.

Commerce Clause trumps Tenth Amendment.

NO IT DOESN'T BECAUSE

THE TENTH AMENDMENT IS BETTER DUE TO

STUFF

Read it again, genius --

It has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes, not all commerce period. No more, no less.

Because the 10th Amendment says that the federal government's power is limited to what it is given in the Consitution, that means that commerce within state governments and between individuals and corporate entities within the same state are not under Congress' jurisdiction.

Let's try to understand the language we've all agreed upon, ladies and gentlemen.

There are limits to government power, kid.

So, NP, let me ask you... what parts of America are not within "the several states"?

Ok, yes, the territories but you know what I mean

You are reaching like Dhalsim when he goes rock-climbing

You're just being silly, Pang.

The Congress has the power to make all laws necessary and proper for the regulation of commerce between the states -- in other words, commerce that occurs between two entities that live in different states. If two individuals or companies or a state government want to do business within their own borders, the federal government has no power over it per the Constitution.

Understand now?