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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (12570)	12/23/2009 12:01:26 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

and run afoul of the constitutional guarantee that all regulated industries have to a reasonable, risk-adjusted, rate of return on their invested capital. What constitutional guarantee? I don't remember anything in the constitution about risk-adjusted rates of return. Depending on how you interpret and implement such an idea, it may or may not be a good idea. Interpret it broadly and it guarantees the impossible, that all industries (since essentially all industries face regulation), are guaranteed a reasonable rate of return. Interpret it narrowly, that highly regulated industries, where the prices are set or controlled by the government, should be allowed to have high enough prices to get a reasonable return (without having the actual return guaranteed), and it might be considered a pretty good idea. The orthodox legal approach was summed up in Justice William Rehnquist's unanimous 1989 decision in Duquesne Light v. Barasch. Duquesne Light allowed the state regulators a wide choice of methods so long as the "bottom line" secured the appropriate rate of return. OK, I guess that's what he means. I guess I'm unusually in that I would not call such a thing a constitutional right just because the Supreme Court ruled that way. If it was reasonable based off some actual right or principle in the constitution (X), than I'd say their constitutional right to X, rather than their constitutional right to the specific court mechanism for enforcing the constitutional right. If it isn't reasonably based on an actual constitutional right I'd say something more like "the legal right created by court decision Y", or "their rights under Duquesne Light v. Barasch" .