The Senate Health Care Bill is Actually Worse than the House
Posted by: John Gonzales // Category: Guest Contributors, Kevin PriceIn spite of the rocky road to date in the pursuit of socialized medicine, it seems that policy makers are bent on pursuing the most difficult course possible in making this bill become law. The costs exceed earlier expectations, it is picking up questionable policy additions along the way, and it is receiving criticisms from every sector. This trend in the US House is continuing in the Senate.
There is the sticky matter of abortion funding in the bill. Pro-life members of the Senate are convinced this bill will lead to federal funding of abortions. Fox News quotes Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb) stating
“Citizens get charged a premium that includes abortion coverage. The taxpayers pay a percent of the premium. Who can determine what dollar went here or what dollar went there?”
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., concurs and is threatening to filibuster the bill, under which the so-called “public option” health insurance plan and subsidized plans would allow for abortions, if covered with private money.
Even Obama himself admits the proposal does not have the proper balance to appease all the forces in the debate. “Not yet,” Obama told Fox News’ Major Garrett in a recent interview.
Abortion is just the beginning of the problems facing the legislation.
Union members, a strong part of Obama’s constituency and of members of Congress behind the bill, could find themselves paying a tax on the part of family health insurance plans that exceed $23,000 in value.
The bill takes aim at those who can afford elective procedures by charging an additional tax on aesthetic procedures. It is being affectionately referred to as the “botox tax.”
Than there is the Medicare tax which would rise for people making more than $250,000 a year from nearly 1 1/2 to nearly 2 percent, in the Senate bill. “Tax” is a popular theme through out the bill. In fact, the group Americans for Tax Reform notes the bill uses the term “tax” 183 times. This should not be a surprise, since the bill is more than 2,000 pages long and its enormity has become a prop for its critics during debates.
As is the case in every legislation, the Devil is in the details. With more than 2,000 pages, there are plenty of those to be sorted out. For example, one popular idea among “nanny minded” members was a proposal to tax sugary drinks that did not make it to either the House or Senate bill. However, to hedge their bets, the food industry is still running ads critical of it. One such advertisement points out that “They say it’s only pennies, well those pennies add up when you’re trying to feed a family.”
In my opinion, the only thing that will allow this awkward bill to pass, in light of its many targets for critics to attack, is to use fear. Essentially they are going to try and convince the American people that doing nothing will be far more harmful than passing a bill that is riddled with social agendas, outrageous taxes, and prolific spending. This does not even begin to discuss the problem of rationing that will follow the addition of tens of millions of individuals added to the health care system. In spite of significant majorities in both Houses of Congress, this bill likely is “dead on arrival.”
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November 24th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Given that the federal Constitution is silent about public healthcare, the 10th Amendment automatically reserves government power to regulate healthcare to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress. In fact, the USSC has already officially noted that the Founders had decided against federal healthcare.
“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925. http://supreme.justia.com/us/268/5/case.html
Also noteworthy is the fact that the USSC has appropriately established the case precedent that Congress cannot lay taxes in the name of state power issues.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” –Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN, 1824. http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html
So not only is Obamacare constitutionally unauthorized, but the corrupt Congress has never had the power to lay taxes in the name of healthcare in the first place.
What a mess! :^(
What’s going on is this. Regardless that Reid and Pelosi wrap themselves in the general welfare and commerce clauses (Article I, Section 8, Clauses 1 and 3 respectively) to promote constitutionally unauthorized federal healthcare, Thomas Jefferson’s writings indicate the following about Reid and Pelosi’s claims. His writings indicate that their PC interpretations of these clauses are perversions of what the Founders had actually intended with respect to the federal government’s limited powers. See for yourself.
“For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.” –Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bank-tj.asp
Note that Jefferson also clearly explained the general welfare clause in the document referenced above, emphasizing the importance of constitutionally express powers in order to limit the powers of the federal government.
Reid and Pelosi’s perversions of the general welfare and commerce clauses actually got started in constitutionally clueless FDR’s administration. More specifically, by 1942, Socialist FDR had managed to nominate eight pro-big federal government, outcome-driven justices to the USSC.
And the goal of FDR’s showcase of state-sovereignty ignoring justices was evidently the following. Their goal seemed to be to simply ignore pro-state sovereignty constitutional statutes like Article V and the 10th Amendment when they interpreted (perverted) the general welfare and commerce clauses in Congress’s favor when deciding pivotal state-sovereignty related cases.
The bottom line is that Reid and Pelosi are unthinkingly carrying the torch of FDR’s perversions of the Founder’s intentions for the general welfare and commerce clauses to try to justify constitutionally unauthorized federal healthcare.