I could live without healthcare reform! How about you?

[zilla]

                             The Truth About the Health Care Bills - Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney 08.24.09


                             Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

                             To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.

                             The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.

                             However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

                             The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

                             This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.

                             If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.

                             So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn’t stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” The 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

                             I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation” to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

                             For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution:http://www.archives.gov/ex hibits/charters/constituti on_transcript.html

                             And another to the Bill of Rights: http://www.archives.gov/ex hibits/charters/bill_of_ri ghts_transcript.html

                             There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

                             Michael Connelly

                             Retired attorney,

                             Constitutional Law Instructor

                             Carrollton , Texas

[Dale L]

If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

Which American people would that be,

I'm for it,

[crash]

I don't know who Michael Connelly is.  I don't buy his unsupported claims either.  This is a base appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy.

Don't get me wrong, I am pretty far right on the political curve, but the problem with the right is that the right is dumb.  Drivel like this doesn't help anything.

First off, Democrats don't have a monopoly on seizing power and limiting rights.  Just ask my internet poker playing buddies what the Republicans have done to them (they even call it getting Fristed, after former Senator Bill Frist).

Second, the Commerce Clause covers health care.  You have the 1964 Civil Rights Act to thank for that, along with volumes of US Supreme Court precedent.

Third, the 9th and 10th amendments are almost never cited, and are widely considered pedagogical in academia.  

There are lots of reasons that I am against the universal health care bill, including the obvious grab for power over an industry and continued government injection into an area traditionally given to the free market.

It is unfortunate that the real debate is lost in all of the rhetoric.  I think this is a reeally close question and reasonable minds can differ - Is there a fundamental right to health care?  Clearly not a constitutionally mandated right (although we could amend the constitution to include that right), but as a basic human right.  Indeed, courts have held that prisoners are entitled to health care as wards of the state.  But, we free hard working (and hard playing) Americans that aren't in prison are not wards of the state.  I think that it is patently clear that we cannot be forced to be insured (and the comparrisons to mandatory automobile insurance coverage don't inform the debate because I can choose to not own or drive a vehicle).  But what about the question of a fundamental right?

Do all children, by definition innocent, have a right to health care, provided by government through involuntary taxation, regardless of a parent's ability to pay?  (We already have that system by the way - Medi-Cal).

Do the mentally ill have a right to health care if they are incapable of caring for themselves?

Does it matter if the damage is self-inflicted (drug abuse, failed suicide attempt, whatever)?

Even if you conclude that there is no right or so-called "natural right" to health care, is it economically expedient, or even efficient, to provide it anyways?

These are the questions that need to be asked and debated.  Instead, we get fallacious ejaculate from the right and cheerleading, almost cult like devotion from the left.

**Those observant will note that the right/left distinction suffers from a reification fallacy, but it is convenient for the current discussion.  To cure it, Obama is a cult of personality and Connelly is unconstrained by principles of logic and fair debate.

That, and I didn't get any fishing in this morning and no beer because of the BLOTY committment, so I might be a bit testy.  This kind of crap really gets me though, because I am on your side but this crap is just intellectually dishonest.

[piski]

Well said, Crash. I lean way opposite of your usual curve, but you put this out very objectively, plain & simple. Too bad we don't see this in most of the discussions of this issue.

I don't know who Michael Connelly is.  I don't buy his [unsupported] claims either.  This is a base appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy.

ding ding ding ding, bingo!

[tallpaul]

It troubles me to see such a partisan divide over the very idea of health care reform. I think that, in a rational world, we could start with a solid bipartisan concensus that we need to do better- our costs are too great, and the fine quality of health care available to the well insured among us does not answer the need for better access and affordability for everyone else. We pay significantly more for health care in this country that in other industrialized countries, with worse outcomes. If you don't see that as a problem that needs correcting, please do some research. Or get a heart.

If a moral argument isn't compelling enough to drive a reform effort, we should take a clear look at the large scale effect on our economy resulting from the rapid and continuing rise in health care costs.

And it troubles me to see so many people who are well covered deny that there is a devastating problem for many others.

I can accept a partisan split on the proper response, on what the best solutions might look like. And compromise might be unworkable. But it is reprehensible to simply fail to try. Or refuse to try.

My perspective is informed by my work as a Paramedic, and watching patients agonize over the cost of an ER visit, or seeing the end result of untreated medical problems that needlessly progress to emergencies because primary care was unavailable.

 We can do better.

[SteveS]

WE can do better...WE must do better

In any nation, providing health care that is accessible to everyone, at the least cost to everyone is morally the right thing to do.

[scwafish]

I agree with Paul et. al.  We are lucky enough to have insurance and all we are doing is subsidizing those who don't.  Spread the base and get it right like pretty much every other country. Here's an example:

Last year Jelly got hurt in a football game.  He got backboarded and an ambulance ride.  He sat in the hallway for two to three hours, and got x-rays and a scan.  The bill AFTER insurance paid 80% was $7500.  If that doesn't seem @#$%^& ridiculous to you, please send me money.

We aren't inventing the wheel on this issue, we are catching up with the rest of the world.  Unfortunately all of this partisan bickering will turn it into a huge piece of sausage as they try and placate every idiot with an opinion and it will get so complex it will be unweildy disaster.

[littoral]

I prefer my propaganda to be a little less obvious.

[obkook]

Costs are way too high, whether they are being borne by the uninsured (or underinsured) or being underwritten by the insurance companies.

A few months ago, I woke up with excruciating pain that ended up with my wife driving me to the ER. 36 hours later, I was back home sans appendix and with a bill of $42,000. That's right - a single overnight stay at UCSF, and laproscopic surgery added up to that much.

I was lucky enough to be insured so I "only" paid about $5K, but those are real costs that are ridiculously inflated and indicative of a broken system.

So without getting into how the reform should look, to respond to the question posed in the topic of this thread - I believe we are in serious need of healthcare reform.

[SteveS]

I prefer my propaganda to be a little less obvious.

LOL...you got that right

[FishFarmer]

I prefer my propaganda to be a little less obvious.

LOL!!!

And well said Crash. The answer to your question, in my mind, is that health care only becomes a right when we as a society say it is. We should. In a weird and distorted way we practice a right to health care through emergency rooms, as noted by Bush II not that long ago  . That fact also tells us we've already socialized health care. Our insurance paid $800 for a bandaid and a tetanus shot a while back at an ER. That fee helped pay for all the uninsured waiting in the ER with us.

I'll disagree with you on one point. Comparing the mandating of insurance to auto insurance is valid. You are right, you can choose not to drive a car and thus avoid the mandate. But by not driving a car there is nothing to insure. The corollary to health insurance would be, "I have no health, so I don't need insurance".

We spend 16-18% of GDP on health care, France (reputed to be the world's best bang for the buck) spends 11%. They do it with a public insurance fund that most people supplement with private. (Doesn't that sound like US medicare?) There's absolutely no reason why we can't do something similar.

Ben

[crash]

Here's an example:

Last year Jelly got hurt in a football game.  He got backboarded and an ambulance ride.  He sat in the hallway for two to three hours, and got x-rays and a scan.  The bill AFTER insurance paid 80% was $7500.  If that doesn't seem @#$%^& ridiculous to you, please send me money.

A few months ago, I woke up with excruciating pain that ended up with my wife driving me to the ER. 36 hours later, I was back home sans appendix and with a bill of $42,000. That's right - a single overnight stay at UCSF, and laproscopic surgery added up to that much.

I was lucky enough to be insured so I "only" paid about $5K, but those are real costs that are ridiculously inflated and indicative of a broken system.

Our insurance paid $800 for a bandaid and a tetanus shot a while back at an ER. That fee helped pay for all the uninsured waiting in the ER with us.

And I am self employed and pay for medical insurance out of my own pocket.  My daughter ended up in the NICU isolation 10 days after she was born for 3 days over meningitis concerns with a 105 degree fever.  Fortunately, she turned out to be just fine.  I paid $14,000 between the delivery and the NICU, on top of the $9k per year I spend on premiums.

That said, the cost isn't necessarily an indication of a broken system.  It is very obviously expensive to provide medical care.  It should be expensive.  Just because we get hit in the pocket doesn't mean that the government should pick up the tab.  No one else benefited from the medical care provided to my family - just me.  We aren't talking about building a bridge or a communications infrastructure that will be used by any and all, whether directly or indirectly (transport goods and services that we all use whether or not we drive that road or use a cell phone or fiber optic connections).

I think it detracts from the fundamental question of whether or not health care such a fundamental human right (or economically expedient) that we all must bear the burden of supporting it.

Some day, when I am philosopher king, I will get to frame every debate.  Until then, I get to just watch in horror, one 15 second sound bite at a time.

[crash]

And well said Crash. The answer to your question, in my mind, is that health care only becomes a right when we as a society say it is. We should. In a weird and distorted way we practice a right to health care through emergency rooms, as noted by Bush II not that long ago  . That fact also tells us we've already socialized health care.

This is an important point that is also lost in the current debate.  Very good point.

[promethean_spark]

As someone with family members who are doctors, I can't take any 'reform' seriously unless it includes tort reform.  Hospitals aren't casinos and the way things currently are everybody basically has to buy 100 lottery tickets with each visit.

The only part of the current legislation that sounds good to me is doing something to fix the problem about pre-existing conditions and rescission.  However, I'm very concerned about what it might do to the affordability of health-care.  An great bill would combine tort reform with a pre-existing condition fix - and ONLY THOSE TWO THINGS.  One saves money, one costs money, hopefully they'll balance out more or less and leave us with a system that gives us more bang for the buck.

[FishFarmer]

and ONLY THOSE TWO THINGS

I think that falls short. A huge % of personal bankruptcies (70%??) are rooted in medical costs, and 75% of those folks *had* insurance. It also doesn't address the issue of those who don't have insurance and rely on emergency rooms.

I fully agree that costs have to start be brought under control, but according to the CBO tort reform would have little impact. That said, they tend to underestimate cost savings and tort reform certainly wouldn't hurt.

All this really fascinates me. Scandinavians and Europeans handled this long ago, why do we find it soooo difficult?

Ben