But the individual mandate extends the commerce clause’s power beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. While Congress has used its taxing power to fund Social Security and Medicare, never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company. Regulating the auto industry or paying “cash for clunkers” is one thing; making everyone buy a Chevy is quite another. Even during World War II, the federal government did not mandate that individual citizens purchase war bonds.The mind boggles that anybody thinks this is reasonable or even remotely defensible.
The Purple Avenger thinks this will put new wind into the President's sails and we are looking at a domino effect which will include higher taxes, cap and trade, card check, and more.
We just watched the Democratic controlled government take control of 1/6 of the nation's economy without a single vote from the minority party and with over 30 opposing votes from their own economy. So is it going to be fine with these same people when a Republic controlled government does the same thing? If not, why not?
Reason has a table comparing health care estimated costs with actual costs from other nationalized health care programs. Guess which way they all run? The smallest was Massachusetts, which so far is only running 1.20 to 1 over the estimates. Give it time, give it time.
Consider this Times article on this Health Care Plan:
With a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system, Congress would be giving the health care industry as many as 32 million additional paying customers in the next few years.
That would mean millions more Americans buying private health insurance and better able to pay for their hospital stays, doctors’ visits, prescription drugs and medical devices.
And some analysts said as the vote neared that the final legislation was shaping up as much kinder to the industry than many initially feared. Hospitals and drug makers, which supported the final legislation, would be clear beneficiaries, analysts say, even if the outlook for insurers was less certain....
Drug makers, meanwhile, may have the most clear reason to celebrate the legislation. Pharmaceutical companies are going to be asked to contribute $85 billion toward the cost of the bill in the form of industry fees and lower prices paid under government programs over 10 years. But they can look forward to tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue as more people with insurance visit doctors and fill prescriptions.
The legislation will also eventually close the gap in Medicare drug coverage, known as the doughnut hole, in which elderly patients must pay for prescription drugs rather than having them covered by the government. Many chose to stop taking their medicine or switched to lower-price generics.
And significantly, the legislation allowed the drug industry to “avoid any of the issues that were particularly of concern — price control or more regulation by the federal government,” said Barbara Ryan, an analyst with Deutsche Bank.
And you've got to read this response at Volokh Conspiracy
(which is where I got the above excerpt).
More on the worthlessness of the EO:
If Congressman Stupak truly believes that President Obama's Executive Order accomplishes the same thing as the Hyde Amendment, he is willingly deluding himself. A congressman who has served as long as he has should understand that an Executive Order cannot override a law passed by Congress. Yet that is the illusion that he sold his vote for.
As Yuval Levin explained yesterday, the Bush administration lawyers had looked into the same issue and found that an Executive Order would not accomplish what the Stupak group is pretending that it will.
The rest is highly informative, both about Medicare costs (it's going bankrupt) and the reasons why the President's EO isn't going to do a darn thing, and both of them must know it.
Florida and nine other states are set to file a lawsuit challenging the Health Care bill. Virginia will be suing as soon as the President signs the bill into law, the basis being that Congress has no Constitutional authority to mandate the purchase of Health Care insurance.
NeoNeocon:
That sort of vote breakdown is beyond non-bipartisan: passage without even a single opposition member’s vote to provide cover as well as over 13% of the members of the majority party against it! If I am correct about the unprecedented nature of such a split, there’s a reason it’s not happened before—we’ve never had a party with such huge majorities that was so ideologically extreme and out of step with the people, and therefore so committed to passing a widely unpopular bill and dragging Americans down a road they don’t want to traverse.Stupak never intended to do anything other than vote for the Health Care Bill. Here's video footage a year old where he admits as much. This was nothing but holding out for goodies and a political fig leaf. Pin It
I hope it comes back to destroy them as a force in politics for a long long time to come.
Aigh! I am getting tired of the number of people I am interacting who seem to feel that, if we just wish it hard enough, health care can be free! (or rather, paid for by the All Wise Uncle Government).
ReplyDeletePeople complaining about this bill because "I don't pay for my non health care now, and this would cause me to have to pay"
And others assuring them "Oh, I'm sure it won't cost you anything--but you'll have health care you don't now"
Don't people realize that the cost of health care is going up becausae all of these things -- doctors, nurses, technology, prescriptions -- actually cost money?!
No, they don't realize that. Frustrating, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI'm watching this healthcare debate with interest. I have lived in both the USA and Canada. Had decent jobs in both countries, and lived on student loans/part-time income as a family in both countries. And I really appreciate Canada's health care system. Yes, taxes are higher, especially for those with higher incomes. But, I pay no co-pays. I didn't get a bill after my son had an MRI, and 3 EEG's, plus an emergency appointment with a neurologist on Christmas Day. I did get a financial statement, which made me gasp. One big difference is the concept of private insurance. These companies need to make a profit. My provincial government doesn't. So the provinces pay the same percent of GDP for healthcare as the American government(s), but ALL Canadians (well, after they've been in their province for 3 months) are covered, instead of only those covered by Medicaid/Medicare.
ReplyDeleteIt's sort of like funding schools. If you own property, you pay school taxes. Even if you don't have kids, and never will. Even if you homeschool or pay tuition to a private school. By distributing the cost among everyone, based on wealth (presuming that more expensive real estate means more financial resources) everyone gets at least the basics. And the government is a reasonably efficient way of collecting and distributing the resources.
Of course the Canadian system isn't perfect. Voluntary surgery (ie joint replacements, cataract surgery) has waiting lists. Not fun, but when immediate medical attention is needed, it is there. And families don't go bankrupt because of cancer.
Another benefit: as employers aren't paying massive health care premiums and spending time searching out the best plans and administering them, my benefits, which are good but not spectacular, include 80% medication coverage -up to $1500 for the year, then it's free. Alternative medical treatments such as massage therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathic are also covered 80%. Eyeglasses $450 every 2 years. And 4 weeks vacation to start. After 10 years it goes up by a day a year.
I don't see universal health care coverage as "socialist", but rather more in line with the medical-expense group you belong to. Or the early church when everyone contributed what they had and so everyone's needs were adequately met.
I realize that there is a difference between paying taxes into a system which has been in place for more than 40 years, and being forced to buy an insurance policy. But it does make it possible for some people to get coverage when that had not been possible before (pre-existing conditions etc.).
So that's my view, having been on both sides of the border. Hopefully it's worth at least 2 cents :-)
I have also lived on both sides of the border, although I was a child when we were there. My mother still has friends there, and because they are growing older, she also hears more stories of older relatives there in miserable pain because a hip replacement is 'optional' and they are, after all, old.
ReplyDeleteI am also afraid people do not see universial health care coverage as socialist more because of modern sensibilities than because of any objective definition of socialism. I think if you objectively consider the definition, you will have to admit that it is socialism.
And the thing is, that in Canada when somebody wants quicker medical care, or your politicians want better care, they come here. Families there may not go bankrupt because of cancer, but the truth is that cancer patients have a vastly higher rate of survival here than they do in Canada or the UK (or anywhere with socialized medical plans). I think that's something valuable and precious, far more precious than mere money, and we are throwing it away.
I agree that insurance should be separated from employment, but historically the only reason it is attached in this country is because of government interference in the first place.
80 percent of Americans are HAPPY with their Health Care plan, and many of the uninsured here are uninsured *by choice.* It was not at all necessary to alter everybody's plan and raise taxes the way they are going to be raised to add roughly 30 million uninsured people to an insurance plan. I am not impressed with the government buying eye glasses for everybody, or overseeing vacation plans. That doesn't sound appealing to me, it sounds appalling. That is not relationship I want with my government.
Universal health care coverage from the government forever alters the relationship of citizen with government. It's not remotely in line with medical expense groups, which are voluntary associations- I can leave, I can barter for a better price, I can choose different services, I can go to a different medical expense group. It's not remotely like the early church, where, again, contributiions were entirely voluntary, not coerced- and they went to people you KNEW, so you knew what they needed and what they didn't need, and the system could not be easily gamed by the slackers- you might remember two things here- the Bible expressly said not to give to those who will not work, and in the story of Ananias and Saphira, Peter tells them their property was theirs to do what they wanted with it. How that resembles a coercive governmental system which can take everything you own and put you in jail for not participating to their satisfaction (I will take bankruptcy, thank-you very much), is really baffling to me.