The Healthstrocity

I just wanted to post here some of my thoughts on the passage of the Constitution crushing bill that was passed last night. I have had a bit of discussion back and forth with a few people via Facebook and one email today. I figured I would share it here on my blog as it does capture most of how I feel regarding this. I'll start with the Facebook and then the email that I got directly.

My initial post on Facebook last night:

"It's a lynch pin day for the socialists and progressives. Not only was the health care debacle passed which does not and will not stand up to the constitutional smell test. But the bond raters have all but confirmed the U.S. is losing its AAA bond rating."

What a friend posted:

"If you don't like health care do use it. Now people who need health care now can get it. USA is not losing but we are all winning so there"
Sounds like a sore winner to me. What are we, 2?

What my beautiful and sexy intelligent wife said in response.

"How is that the case Jeff? Even a child can figure out that to pay for something for 4 years before the health care even kicks in is ridiculous. Hello, people! It's simple economics!!!"

"STOP MORTGAGING MY KIDS FUTURE!!!"

My initial response:

"Jeff, I don't even know where to start man. All I keep thinking is Stalin's quote, something along the lines of, "useful idiots" I know he was referring to the media, but it can be spread out further.

I know you want to help people and are all into the touchy feely, but you have to open up your brain and exercise it a bit. Do some of your own research. I can have a good solid debate with people who know where they stand on their principles and are willing to keep themselves informed. Even if we are on opposite sides of the debate.

First of all, like Lisa said, this isn't going to go into effect for at least 4 years. It's like saying, hey we are going to give you this shiny new car in 4 years but you have to start paying for it now. The corruption behind this bill is soo unbelievable. I don't even know where to start. It is going to take a series blog post with the relevant sources and facts to base it up. I would hate to be a hypocrite.

Medicare which is the intended starting model for this whole mess is rife with fraud. Other than that, they compensate doctors so little the doctors can't even afford to pay their basic bills to stay open if they take too many medicare patients. That is why more than 50% of doctors are no longer taking new medicare patients. Walgreens in several regions is starting to stop taking Medicare as a form of payment for prescriptions.

If you like the socialized "free" (I use that term loosely) medical care, it's such a short flight to Cuba. You and Michael Moore can hang out in those great Cuban hospitals together.

http://bigjournalism.com/hfontova/2010/03/10/pssst-msm-about-that-fabulous-free-cuban-health-care/

Oh yeah, how am I winning when somebody is taking my hard earned money that I have taken a 1/4 of a lifetime of working hard to get into this situation, and giving that money to somebody else."

Friends response:

"Let just say you beleave what you want I can beleave what I want. I am just saying I am happy. I am sorry for saying it the way I did. Now we the US can get health care. Yes some of it won't start till four years later but there is a lot of good going to come out of of this. Most people want NEW Health Care and we need it."

"So mike if someone who can't pay for Health Care and they need help you would let them Die just becouse they can't pay? Or would you help them and yes paying taxes is one why we all can help. Caring for people is not about making money it is about just helping. I you don't like that you tell us how we can do it. What would you do to change health care tell me your plan and I will listen to it."

My response:

"The point of paying taxes is not to help people. The only use for taxes as set out by the constitution was to fund the government in the very limited things they were tasked with doing. As far as helping people, that should be done by individuals and local communities. They can see who needs the help and give it. Progressives believe that people are either too dumb or to selfish to know whom in their community needs help, so you have to be taxed so their "professional" social workers can come in and deem who is worthy of such help.

Actually, 75% of Americans did not want this bill. Of the 200+ million out of 300 million Americans that have health care, 85% like what they have. I don't see where you get your information on most people want "New" health care.

Oh yeah, your death comment, probably straight from the blinding talent of Michael Moore, HOSPITALS CANNOT TURN PEOPLE AWAY. If you are sick and not even dying they have to treat you. Even if there is no conceivable way for you to pay them back. Of all the people I know that had to go to the ER because they didn't have healthcare, the hospital has always worked fairly with them to attempt to get a payment plan going. If people can't pay the hospital back they write off most of the cost.

If the healthcare here is so bad, how come the leaders of all those countries with their great "Free" healthcare come here to have their procedures performed. It is because the healthcare we provide is the best in the world.

Over the last several months as this debate has raged on, I have provided what I view as ways we can bring down the cost to make it more affordable. Even under the current plan, the democrats admit that not everyone will have health insurance coverage at the end of the day.

http://conservativesticks.blogspot.com/2009/07/hmo-or-dmv.html

Saddling the next three to four generations of any nation with this kind of debt is criminal. The process has been so corrupt it is unbelievable. Look up the "Louisiana Purchase", "Cornhusker Kickback", and a few others including naming one congressmans brother a federal judge in order to secure his vote.

All that being said of course, your state of Florida won't have to worry because they are wisely suing the federal government along with 41 other states to overturn the bill on constitutional grounds.

At least when FDR tried to pass health care and several other things as a "right", he attempted to do it through the constitutional ammendment process instead of steamrolling it and the will of the American people in the process."

Friends email:

"I am a supporter of this new Health Care plan and I did read all of it. if you need to read it here it is. there are lots of good in this bill and some of it sounds scary but it is not so bad as some people might think. after reading it I like it and yes we are going to pay new taxes and we all are going to need to get health care by Law. Just like Car Ins. we do now. We all pay taxes and do we all know where they all go I don’t and can you tell me that is a bad thing. We need to pay taxes for so many things so people can get things done. and yes paying 1.9 percent of my income is ok for me."

My lengthy response:

"You’ve read all 2000 pages of the bill? Plus the 700 plus pages that they are attempting to add through reconciliation? I am insulted that you would think that I have not read through these bills and also done the additional research to see what the effects of these provisions would be. You are just spouting the progressive/socialist talking points.

I have read the bill, I have read the amendments. This bill mandates that all citizens must buy health insurance. This is in violation of the Constitution. The car insurance argument is a crock. That is a measure decided by the states, which do have the power, also, you have the choice whether or not you buy and operate a vehicle. You are not required to buy something just because of the fact that you are a citizen. On top of that, they are going to fine me if I don’t buy health insurance or send me to jail if I don’t pay the penalty. It would be like saying I had to buy two dozen Krispy Kreme donuts every week just because I am a citizen.

This bill will cause people to lose jobs, by requiring businesses to provide health insurance. The money has to come from somewhere so they will lay off people to make up the difference cause they can’t raise prices. They say it will keep insurance prices down, but independent review also says that it will raise insurance premiums by 20%. In what bizarro world does that make any kind of common sense?

It means the IRS is scanning my personal information every month and violating my privacy to make sure I have insurance. That is a violation of my privacy on the level of the Gestapo. The feds used the Treasury Department to enforce prohibition instead of the FBI, why? It was all about power.

It creates an insurance panel of government bureaucrats that decide what has to be covered or not covered in an insurance policy. That is government getting in the way of me and my doctor.

Oh yeah, it also mandates the federal government pay for abortions. That means that my tax dollars, my personal money, is going to fund something I am morally opposed to. And don’t think for a minute that the most “pro-abortion” president in our nation’s history is going to sign an executive order outlawing it. His first act in office was to sign an executive order reversing the “Mexico City Rule” which outlawed the use of federal funds to pay for abortions overseas. Besides, an executive order outlawing a particular part of a signed law is unconstitutional. If a president could just executive order away any law he didn’t agree with that would be a dictatorship.

This bill creates $2.6 trillion in debt. Not the $840 billion they are trying to spout. They have shuffled off costs into other bills and reworded what is in the bill until they get it back how they want. The CBO only scores the language in the bill. If they said that the money to pay for it was coming from a pot of gold protected by a magical unicorn that is how the CBO would have to score it. Our nation cannot sustain this level of debt. It’s like saying, we’re in debt and we are going to lose the house, so let’s go out and buy 6 corvettes. We are about to lose our AAA credit rating. That is like defaulting on your credit card. That means the interest rate is going to be jacked up. That means all of a sudden we can’t even pay for our national defense let alone our debt. It means hyperinflation which turns us into a banana republic like Nigeria.

The founders of this nation never set it up to redistribute wealth. They were actually against it. They believed that the redistribution of wealth from one individual to another was an “evil practice.” That is what the USSR was all about. Telling somebody I know it sounds scary but it’s not as bad as you think is an argument used by tyrants throughout history. It is an argument used to strip people of their freedom. Castro and Che Guevara told their people the same thing. It’s the progressive elitist argument of I know you don’t want it but I know better than you do about what you need.

This country was founded on the notion of maximum liberty and very minimal government. By doing so, our success as a nation and as individuals has done more to elevate the quality of life of mankind than more than 6,000 years of history. I think that is a pretty good accomplishment in a little over 200 years. This bill strips those qualities and abilities away from us.

There are solutions that will work that do not violate the constitution, freedom, or my individual right to choose for myself. If I don’t want to buy health insurance and eat double fried apple pie stuffed into a gigantic cheeseburger pizza all day every day that is my right. When I die it is my fault, but I am the one that pays for my decision, nobody else.

The amount of corruption, arm twisting, special deals, favors, and buy offs are astounding. This legislation has nothing to do with helping the 11 million that are uninsured and want health insurance. They could settle that with a bill that is 5 pages long and cost less than 10% of their projected cost on this bill. It has always been about power and control. With this legislation added to the takeover of the auto industry, the insurance agency, and the banking industry; the federal government will now either own or substantially control 47% of the economy. The last time I checked that was called communism.

James Madison said, "If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."

And don’t forget this gem from Benjamin Franklin, “I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

As I have said before, this is not about health care and people having access to treatment. They already have those things. It is about a government power grab.

When people become dependent on the government for their well being they give up their freedom and ability to choose much like a drug addict gives up their freedom to the substance they are addicted to. The so called “War on Poverty” started by President Johnson has been raging for over 30 years and the stats show it actually made the poverty situation worse.

Oh yeah, in looking at the access to care argument, 50% of doctors already refuse to take Medicaid patients. Why? Because the federal government’s repayment rates to the doctors are so low the doctors can’t afford to keep their offices open much less make any kind of living. 1/3 of doctors have stated that if the bill is passed and goes into effect they will leave their practice. How does that increase access to medical care? It just leads to rationing and denial of care like they have in the UK and Canada. Speaking of denial of care, a recent study showed that the insurer that denied THE MOST claims was Medicare/Medicaid.

Speaking of our taxes and where they go, yes by law we are told where are taxes are going. They don’t just disappear down into some magical money pot. In fact, your precious bill states that it is being covered by specific taxes. Of course, none of that money in the first four years will go into it anyways. They’ll use it to say they are bringing down the national debt or the budget deficit. Obama has only been in office a little over a year and he has already outspent all other President’s in US History.

I refuse to let our elected leaders shred the constitution, spit on my individual rights, mortgage my great-grand children’s future, and subvert the will of 75% of the people all so they can feel nice and fuzzy and secure themselves even more power."

As I mentioned in another post, the people were protesting outside while the bill was being debated and voted on last night.

The short short of what I would do is this. First of all, scrap the whole freaking thing. No bill needs to be 2700 pages and this one is just a nightmare. Allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines. This is something that is currently prohibited by federal law. Tort reform to put caps on malpractice lawsuits. The malpractice insurance rates for doctors are driving them out of business because of the frivolous lawsuits and awards. Portability, allow me the individual to buy my insurance policy instead of my employer. This allows me to take it with me when I decide to move on from current employment somewhere else. It also ensures coverage in case I am laid off. Allow me to pick what I want in my policy a la carte. I don't need fertility treatment coverage, so why should I have to be in that risk pool and pay for it. It's the state mandating that insurance policies in that state have certain coverage. These are just a couple simple ideas among many that would help bring down cost. One thing about letting the individuals buy the policy instead of employers, means that the companies can give the money they pay towards employee health insurance to the employee as part of their salary. That gives an instant raise.


One of the things I didn't mention before is the health care bill states that to purchase a gun you have to pass a psychiatric exam. That is such a blatant violation of the 2nd ammendment it astonishes me. The reconciliation package they are trying to push nationalizes the entire student loan industry. What the hell does that have to do with healthcare?

Yes, I come across as empassioned during this whole thing. That is because to me my personal liberty and that of my children is one of the most precious gifts we have. Before coming down to this life there was a war fought in heaven over the basic principle of choice. Am I free to make my own choices. This bill and push by progressives strips away our individual choice. I am tired of people being sucked in by the propaganda press and not doing their own research into the issues. That is one of the reasons I started this blog was to attempt to help keep my friends and family informed on what is going on out there and to help educate a little bit. I also try and mention all sources of my information so it just isn't me spouting off.

As always everyone, keep yourself informed and don't be afraid to speak out.