Health Care Reform Lawsuit...What's Your Opinion?

Before the ink was dry on the Health Care Destruction Act of 2010, several states began filing lawsuits challenging the Constitutionality of the act.

Now, there is no question that the act is unconstitutional. That's not the question. You CANNOT read the constitution (unless you are a lawyer/judge) and conclude after reading it that the federal government has ANY authority to fund health care. Of course, you would also be forced to conclude, if you REALLY thought about it, that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal funding of education and a whole host of other things the federal government does are ALSO unconstitutional.

Of course, lawyers and judges can't read.

Or so it seems. When they read something, they obviously don't read or understand it the same way that you and I do.

Where I have a problem with the Supreme Court's rulings on the constitutionality of ANYTHING is that they don't really look at the constitution and what its original intent was. They look at everything else. Previous rulings, case law, their liberal agenda, etc.

I've always looked at the constitution as a contract. The American people voted on it (in the 1700's) and it's Amendments (in the years following). What were the writers thinking it meant when they wrote it? What were the voters thinking it meant when they voted on it? There is no way the framers of the constitution envisioned our current government. In fact, our current government, and in particular, our current administration, were precisely the thing they were trying to AVOID when they wrote the document.

So, then, the question, really is this: Does this lawsuit REALLY stand a chance of succeeding. Given the liberal nature of the court and the way they tend to rule on these kinds of issues, my feeling is the Health Care Destruction bill will stand as is. I don't think the Supremes will strike it down. But I'm not a lawyer, and, frankly, I don't follow these kinds of things that closely.

What do you think?

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Doctor Shortages On the Way

Dr. Melissa Clothier shares:

The Wall Street Journal shares this inevitable news:

The new federal health-care law has raised the stakes for hospitals and schools already scrambling to train more doctors.

Experts warn there won’t be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the law. At current graduation and training rates, the nation could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

That shortfall is predicted despite a push by teaching hospitals and medical schools to boost the number of U.S. doctors, which now totals about 954,000.

The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. These general practitioners, internists, family physicians and pediatricians will have a larger role under the new law, coordinating care for each patient.

The U.S. has 352,908 primary-care doctors now, and the college association estimates that 45,000 more will be needed by 2020. But the number of medical-school students entering family medicine fell more than a quarter between 2002 and 2007.

A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.

The whole point of health care reform was too feel better–not you, or your health–but liberal politicians.

It wasn’t to improve health care treatment.

It wasn’t to reduce costs.

It wasn’t even to get more people under care.

Wait, what? That’s right. More people will be insured, but patients will receive less care at more cost. It’s just logical. The new health care system creates a gatekeeper system that will eliminate individual choice and drive up costs. So, a person thinks something is wrong with his prostate–he goes directly to a proctologist. That saves 1. wait time 2. cost (no double doctor fees) and 3. diagnosis time.

But not now.

Oh no! Now, a patient must wait to get into an overburdened primary care physician, get a referral and then get into another physician. A patient will be dead by the time he gets diagnosed.

The inevitable response?

Cash-only doctors. Some doctors won’t accept this new insurance and work outside the system. So, people will pay into the health service, hate the waits and then, go pay cash for good care.

The rich will have good care while subsidizing everyone else. The middle class will be caught in a jam because the taxes will be so egregious they can’t afford anything, never mind a quick diagnosis. So they will be caught in government-mandated substandard care.

And the poor, who don’t pay into the system, will still misuse the system because they still won’t take care of themselves. And Medicare and Medicaid could have been expanded to help them as is.

But noooo. An overhaul had to happen. The government had to control health care.

If this diseased legislation doesn’t get revoked, America is going to go down the road of all disastrous socialized countries: chronic unemployment, disheartened and downwardly mobile middle class and an elite aristocracy for whom policy doesn’t matter.

In the liberal world that’s called utopia.

And by the way, a small board will decide what does and does not get covered under Obamacare. So, yes, death sentences will be handed down by the government. That too, is inevitable.

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Laws and Freedoms

I missed a corner, yesterday. I was driving down the street and I drove right by my turn.

I was too distracted. While I was driving, I was listening to Fox Radio on the Satellite. Neil Cavuto was interviewing a socialist who was marveling at how great it was to force everyone to buy health insurance, and he kept commenting over and over that we are "an nation of laws." He also asked the question four or five times, "Would you rather live in a banana republic" where the law is corrupt?

I was screaming at the radio when I drove right by the street I was supposed to turn on.

Well, Mr Liberal-Spout-the-Democrat-Party-Line (I didn't catch who the guest was), it seems to me that we DO live in a banana republic where the law is corrupt. The new health care law was passed by a corrupt congress in a corrupt manner and it exempts those who created the law. How much more corrupt can you get?

But what really got me thinking was the idea of what makes America a great place to live. Or, maybe more accurately, what USED TO make America a great place to live, before Congress shredded the Constitution?

It isn't the fact that we are a nation of laws that makes America a great place to live.

What has made America great, what made America the place that people from other places in the world flock to the U.S., is not our laws, but rather our freedoms. People come here because we have, or rather HAD, a Constitution that protected us FROM the government and FROM the laws it wants to pass to deprive us of our freedoms.

Until this year, you could come to the U.S. and as long as you didn't do something to harm someone else, you could pretty much do what you wanted and the government was FORCED (by the Constitution) to leave you alone.

Now, for the first time in our nation's history, that is no longer the case. Simply by existing, simply by being here, you are now FORCED by the government to buy something, whether or not you want it.

Now, someone tell me .... how does that make us any better than those so-called "banana republics?"

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Obama's First Asteroid?

During a speech in which he tried "selling" Health Care Reform after he already signed it into law, O.B.A.M.,A.* mocked Republicans, Independents, TEA Party activist and the rest of us who don't like high deficits and debt, saying that when he signed the disastrous Health Care act, he looked around and didn't see any asteroids.

Well, look again, O.B.A.M.,A., the first one may be on its way...

The United States should consider raising taxes to help bring deficits under control and may need to consider a European-style value-added tax, White House adviser Paul Volcker said on Tuesday.

Volcker, answering a question from the audience at a New York Historical Society event, said the value-added tax "was not as toxic an idea" as it has been in the past and also said a carbon or other energy-related tax may become necessary.

Though he acknowledged that both were still unpopular ideas, he said getting entitlement costs and the U.S. budget deficit under control may require such moves. "If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes," he said.

* O.B.A.M.,A. = One Big Ass Mistake, America

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Christians and Jews = Dhimmis Under Obamacare

Opus (check out her blog at MAInfo) alerted us to the following:
Christians And Jews = Dhimmis Under Obamacare?

A dhimmi is a non-muslim in a muslim country who is treated as a second-class citizen, with punishing taxes, abuse, and no legal recourse.

Let’s Get this Straight:

President Obama Vice President Biden Speaker Nancy Pelosi Harry Reid White House Staff Cabinet Secretaries Congressional Staff* Amish American Indian Tribes Criminals Scientologists Christian Scientists Muslims Baptists Catholics Lutherans Jews

Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare Exempt from ObamaCare NO Exemption NO Exemption NO Exemption NO Exemption

*Congressional staffers who wrote ObamaCare, staffers working in a leadership office or for a Congressional committee all receive an exemption.

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Duck and Cover

By JOHN MCCORMACK (From the Weekly standard)

After signing the national health care bill, Barack Obama said he welcomed a campaign fight over the law. "Bring it on," he dared Republicans. He toured the country to boost the law's popularity. And on April 3, a Rasmussen poll showed that voters trusted Republicans more than Democrats on health care by a 16-point margin (53% to 37%)--a significant shift from just one month earlier when that number was essentially tied.

It looks like Obama's rambling 17-minute answer to a question about why we should be paying more taxes for Obamacare didn't do much to reassure voters about a bill they've consistently opposed for nearly a year. Other congressmen, like Paul Hodes of New Hampshire, have had a similarly difficult time directly selling the health care bill to their constituents. So, Politico reports, some Democrats, like Congressman John Boccieri of Ohio, have taken a different approach: hiding from their constituents.

Boccieri is not alone. He’s one of a number of House Democrats who’ve kept a low profile over the recess, a group largely defined by the level of political jeopardy they face this fall.

Like Boccieri, they tend to represent highly competitive seats. One of them, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), has not held any events in Republican-oriented North Dakota to talk about health care, his staff acknowledged. This week, he’ll talk about Social Security.

The offices of other endangered members, ranging from veterans such as Reps. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) and Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) to junior members such as Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) and John Salazar (D-Colo.), did not return messages asking about how they had promoted health care last week.

"Duck and cover" just might be a better motto for the Democrats than "bring it on."

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Federalism Gone

In an excellent article in The New Republic, Sean Wilentz takes to task those who wish to resurrect the pernicious doctrine of “nullification” to thumb their nose at the federal government on health care reform. Unfortunately, Wilentz conflates nullification with the idea of “states’ rights” in general:

Although not currently concerned with racial supremacy, the consequence of their doctrine would uphold an interpretation of the constitutional division of powers that would permit the majority of any state to reinstate racial segregation and inequality up to the point of enslavement, if it so chose.

Is opposition to health care reform at the state level leading to a resurrection of slavery? Really?

That much has been done in the last 100 years to undermine the 10th Amendment is not debatable. That the cause for this was considered just is equally true.

At the same time, in our zeal to improve the lives of American citizens, we have allowed the very concept of federalism to atrophy. Even debating the idea that the 10th Amendment can be redefined so that it can be made relevant in a 21st century industrialized democracy is seen as an exercise in futility.

There are few functions of government that are incompatible to the concept of federalism. While the idea of 50 nuclear regulatory commissions doesn't make sense, there is no doubt that the FDA (just to use one example) could be modified to be an agency that is overseen by a consortium of 50 States and that issued recommendations to the states instead of being an agency that wields the power it currently does. Nobody wants to see 50 OSHAs, but couldn't OSHA be another body that recommended standards to be adopted by states, instead of requiring them?

It is possible to take a hard look at federal agencies and discover a few responsibilities they currently enjoy that might be better performed by states? If it can be done without gutting them, why not try? Shouldn’t states have a lot more to say about how federal lands are used within their boundaries? Those lands are enormously valuable in many respects and yet the states have little say in the leasing and development schemes of the federal government. And it is long past time we take a very hard look at the Department of Education (with a $63 billion budget) and find a way to turn that department into an adjunct to local efforts at teaching our children rather than as a repository for bureaucrats to carve out their petty empires. With educational achievement at historic lows, it is evident that at least some of that money might be better given to states and local school districts to use as they see fit.

The concept of federalism today is a far cry from what the Founders envisioned. They may have written the Constitution for a small coastal republic of 7 million citizens, but were prescient enough to give their creation the revolutionary ability to change with a changing country. Yet the basic concepts, separations and the freedoms granted by the Constitution must remain in place. By deciding that we can simply toss portions of the constitution aside because they are inconsistent with our political ideology puts us in the same company as the former Soviet Union, China, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Now that we are a continental nation of 300 million – as diverse and vibrant a society that has ever existed -it is time to re-examine and reinvigorate the founding notion that power shared and dispersed among many is the bulwark against which no force can threaten our liberties. Resurrecting the ghosts of the past to discredit this notion should be met with the contempt it deserves.

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"I Don't Care about the Constitution"

Confronted by an angry Tea Partier with a camera Thursday, an Illinois congressman said in front of several constituents at a town hall that he doesn't care whether the new health care law violates the Constitution, as some critics have claimed.

In a video posted on You Tube, Adam Sharp of the St. Louis Tea Party asked Rep. Phil Hare which part of the Constitution authorizes the government to mandate that all Americans buy a private product such as health insurance. The Illinois Democrat replied, "I don't worry about the Constitution on this."

"Jackpot, brother," Sharp said.

Hare cringed in disgust and said, "Oh please. What I care more about, I care more about the people dying every day who don't have health care."

It's a good thing that Rep. Hare (D-Village Missing an Idiot) cares so much more about all those people just falling over dying from lack of health care. It's getting so that you can hardly walk down the sidewalk in a typical American city without tripping over the people that are falling over, dead, from a lack of health care. Around here, we don't even push them over to the gutter any more like we did back in the Bush days. There's just too many of them.

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Racism Accusation Reigns on O'Reilly

I usually find Bill O'Reilly entertaining, funny and sometimes thought provoking. However, as I've mentioned on this blog before, O'Reilly seldom has the wits to match his guests. He's no dummy, but he's also not as clever or as brilliant as the people he brings on.

The left, of course, is in the "You're Racist" mode, trying to sell the already-passed Health Care System Demolition Program to the American people with the idea that Health Care reform is great because anyone who opposes it is racist.

On Tuesday, O'Reilly had two guests on his program that played the race card effectively. Al Sharpton was invited by O'Reilly to respond to a Miami Herald opinion article which charged that the "Tea Party had an element of racism running through it." Sharpton defended the statement by playing semantic games with O'Reilly, and O'Reilly obviously never caught on.

Sharpton cleverly rephrased what the opinion writer said and told O'Reilly that there were, indeed, "elements of racism within the TEA Party movement," a phrase using similar language but which changed entirely the meaning of the author. He then argued that if even two or three people out of millions of TEA Party activists are even the least bit racist, then the TEA Party has "elements of racism" within it. After making this point, which O'Reilly had trouble arguing, he slipped back and forth between "elements of racism within" the movement and "an element of racism running through" the movement, which implies that the TEA Party has an inherent racist element in it's fabric and that every member must be, to some degree, racist to be associated with the party.

While I think Sharpton is un-American, a Marxist, and uses the cloak of religion for credibility, (while he, himself has no problems with lying to achieve his own ends), he's certainly no idiot, and has a great command of the language. He knew what he was doing. O'Reilly was no match.

In a later segment, Alan Combs appeared. Combs seems like a smart enough fellow, but seems to view his job as spouting whatever the democratic talking points for the week are. If Gibbs and Pelosi and Reed were to come out tomorrow and say that the sky is red, Combs would be telling us all exactly what shade of red the sky is and how racist it is to deny that the sky is red.

This week, of course, the talking points are that ObamaKare is Great because the TEA Party is racist. It's a theme, apparently. And in the segment, which was not about race at all, Combs started his argument stating that (essentially) anyone who opposed ObamaKare does so because they don't like having a black man in the White House. Monica Crowley, his "co-guest' (if there is such a thing) started to argue with Combs, but O'Reilly was insistent that Combs have his say, even though he pointed out there is no evidence to the contrary.

I find these things very offensive.

In fact, I'm going to make a statement that many will probably disagree with, but here goes: I think that making the accusation of "racist" to someone for whom there is no real evidence of racism, is as offensive as using the "n-" word.

There, I said it.

Watch for more accusations of racism over the next few months (and probably years) as the left continues to try to peddle the idea that voting against democrats is a racist move. They will continue to tout the "fairness" of their programs against the "racism" of the Republican ideas.

Frankly, I think it takes a twisted sense of morality to define "fairness" as taking stuff away from the person who has worked hard to get it, in order to give it to the person who has not worked for it.

... but then again, I'm racist.

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Stupidak's Vote Paid For With Earmarks

A government watchdog group called the Sunlight Foundation, has uncovered the "payoff" for Bart Stupidak and ten other House members who exchanged their vote on health care for earmarks. I looked all over the news for this and found nothing. A google search (using logical words from this story) also uncovered NO RESULTS in the "news" section. (This article was found under a blog search). If you wonder how they were able to get the needed votes to pass the "Health Care Theft of Freedom Act", now you know...

A day after Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and ten other House members compromised on their pro-life position to deliver the necessary yes-votes to pass health care reform, the “Stupak 11″ released their fiscal year 2011 earmark requests, which total more than $4.7 billion–an average of $429 million worth of earmark requests for each lawmaker.

The eleven members were the focus of high level pressure by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats because they threatened to vote against the health care reform bill, whichpassed the House on Sunday, March 21, by a seven vote margin. Granting earmark requests are one of the ways leadership can encourage members to vote their way.

Stupak requested more than $578 million in earmarks, including $125 million for a replacement lock on the Sault Ste. Marie, $25.6 million to build a federal courthouse in Marquette, Mich., $15 million to repaint the Mackinac Bridge and $800,000 to preserve the Quincy Mining Company smelter near Hancock in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

In 2009, the first year that members disclosed earmark requests, most members requested far more earmarks than were funded by the Appropriations Committee, which approves or denies requests. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, Stupak’s funded earmarks–including those he requested jointly with other members–totaled $28.6 million.

Despite a newly enacted ban on earmarks to for-profit firms, Stupak requested a total of $52 million for companies in his district out of the $65.9 million he requested from the Defense Appropriations bill.

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Premiums to Rise under ObamaCare

(Source: Newsbusters)

It's no shock to rational, thinking people that healthcare legislation currently before Congress will do nothing to halt rising insurance premiums, but that the folks at the Associated Press would come to such a conclusion AND write about it is quite surprising.

There it was in a piece published Wednesday called, "FACT CHECK: Premiums would rise under Obama plan."

Readers are strongly encouraged to fasten seatbelts tightly, for they're about to enter what has to be an alternate universe (h/t Ed Morrissey):

Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.

Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say.

Shhh. Wait. It got better:

Listening to Obama pitch his plan, you might not realize that's how it works. [...]

An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of earlier Senate legislation suggested savings could be fairly modest.

It found that large employers would see premium savings of at most 3 percent compared with what their costs would have been without the legislation. That would be more like a few hundred dollars instead of several thousand.

The claim that people buying coverage individually would save 14 percent to 20 percent comes from the same budget office report, prepared in November for Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. But the presidential sound bite fails to convey the full picture.

The budget office concluded that premiums for people buying their own coverage would go up by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent, compared with the levels they'd reach without the legislation.

Imagine that. Real facts about ObamaCare from the AP as the Democrats try to garner enough votes to get it passed.

Who'd have thunk it?

Unfortunately, this piece still didn't accurately reflect the entire truth as Ed Morrissey noted Wednesday:

The insurance policies of the future under ObamaCare would provide more comprehensive benefits, but that’s because ObamaCare would outlaw more modest plans. The federal mandates of ObamaCare would mean that healthy people would no longer have the choice of low-cost, high-deductible plans that encourage direct spending on routine medical issues, the exact kind of policies that realreform would emphasize. Obama and the Democrats want to force young, healthy people into committing more money into risk pools in order to keep premium increases down for others — in essence, subsidizing medical care for older, higher-risk pool members.

Despite this oversight, the AP did a pretty good job, especially as it referred to a speech Obama just made this week in a Cleveland suburb:

"You'll be able to buy in, or a small business will be able to buy into this pool," Obama said. "And that will lower rates, it's estimated, by up to 14 to 20 percent over what you're currently getting. That's money out of pocket." [...]

"Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent," said the president, "which means they could give you a raise."

A White House press spokesman later said the president misspoke; he had meant to say annual premiums would drop by $3,000.

It could be a long wait.

Makes you wonder what might have happened during the presidential campaign in 2008 if the AP had spent its time fact-checking Obama's stump speeches rather than gushing and fawning over them.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/03/17/shocking-ap-fact-check-premiums-will-rise-under-obamacare#ixzz0jPp1zDv0

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Unconstitutional Procedure Will Be Used to Pass Unconstitutional Bill

House leaders are preparing to ram through ObamaCare this week without a vote. Not only is the legislation unconstitutional, but the process being used to pass it is unconstitutional. The House is preparing a rule that would consider the Senate-passed version of ObamaCare passed in the House even though members would never directly vote on it. That would violate Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution.

Here is how the trick would work: In the House, the Rules Committee sets up the parameters for debate on legislation. House leaders are considering a complicated rule that would be structured so that a vote on the rule setting down the structure for the ObamaCare debate would allow the Senate’s version of health care reform to pass without a vote. First, there would be a vote on a rule. If the rule is passed by the House, then the House would vote on a health care budget reconciliation measure that is an amendment to the Senate passed ObamaCare bill. If that reconciliation measure passes, then reconciliation goes to the Senate and the ObamaCare legislation is deemed passed without a direct vote. The plan for the legislation is unclear. House leadership will either structure the rule to either immediately present ObamaCare to the President for his signature or they will hold the bill and deliver it only if the Senate passes a health care reconciliation measure. Either way, the Constitution and the American people are the losers.

Understand that this procedure is drafted in a way so your average American can’t understand it. The simple way to understand the situation is that the House is trying to pass a bill without a vote.

The Constitution states that the House and Senate are supposed to pass identical versions of a bill before the President can sign it into law. One of the reasons for this tricky procedure is to provide cover for moderate Democrats who don’t want to vote for the Senate-passed ObamaCare bill because it includes the federal funding of abortion.

Michael McConnell, Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, explains it this way at the Wall Street Journal today:

Democratic congressional leaders have floated a plan to enact health-care reform by a procedure dubbed “the Slaughter solution.” It is named not for the political carnage that it might inflict on their members, but for Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, who proposed it. Under her proposal, Democrats would pass a rule that deems the Senate’s health-care bill to have passed the House, without the House actually voting on the bill. This would enable Congress to vote on legislation that fixes flaws in the Senate health-care bill without facing a Senate filibuster, and without requiring House members to vote in favor of a Senate bill that is now politically toxic.

McConnell is right. The Constitution says that:

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law.

If a branch does not vote on a bill, then that bill did not pass. This proposed procedure seems to be a clear violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution. There will be debate on the proper remedy for this constitutional affront, but all can agree that, at a minimum, House members can raise a constitutional point of order against the rule.

Liberals in the House understand that this process is hard to defend. Chris Frates at Politico writes about a leaked memo drafted by Assistant to the Speaker Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) intended to provide talking points to Democrat members when challenged on the unconstitutional process.

The Van Hollen memo also advised members to avoid talking about the process. “At this point, we have to just rip the band-aid off and have a vote — up or down; yes or no? Things like reconciliation and what the rules committee does is INSIDE BASEBALL,” the memo says. “People who try and start arguments about process on this are almost always against the actual policy substance too, often times for purely political reasons.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the House Rules Committee have come up with a very complicated procedure to get ObamaCare to the President’s desk without House members having to vote directly on the bill. This procedure is going to be debated extensively this week and may be the key issue as to whether President Obama signs legislation to provide a de facto government-run health care system.

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