Re: H.R. 3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009
Congressman:
Based on the recent media buzz regarding angry Townhall attendees as “mobs,” “astroturf,” and “un-American” I unfortunately feel the need to establish my credentials before continuing in my comments to you regarding H.R. 3200.
I am 27 years old, a U.S. citizen by birth, well informed, and well educated. My wife was recently laid off from her position at a local law firm due to economic downsizing. I am not a Democrat or a Republican – I no longer believe in the two-party system as a viable, honest, or useful system for governing this Republic. Neither side has shown that they truly understand the fundamentals that our Founders clearly espoused, as so eloquently detailed in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States. Both parties have dug this nation deeper and deeper into debt, while wholly abandoning the ideals that have made this country great. Now, it seems, rather than relying on our tried and true American work ethic and reward to the individual for hard work and success, we are sliding faster and faster towards establishing a national government hell bent on intruding into every facet of our life and punishing any attempt to change the new status quo.
I am not funded by any health care provider, insurance company, or pharmaceutical manufacturer. I have not been contacted by any group attempting to organize a Townhall protest or any other political exercise. I am simply writing to you as an individual American who has a strong knowledge of both history and current events and who is paying attention.
My concern with H.R. 3200 lies in several key areas, although the main source of my concern is in the implementation of a so-called “public option.” While the Congress may be acting out of true concern and with good intentions, I sincerely believe that there are two key reasons that such a public option is not only a bad idea, but one that will forever change the health care fabric of this country for the worse:
1. The establishment of a public option is unconstitutional. The Constitution provides absolutely no authority to the Federal government for the establishment of a system of national, public health care or public insurance. While the statement “promote the general welfare” contained within the preamble to the Constitution has been abused to suggest that the Founders would have allowed a national health care plan, the preamble does not specifically assign any powers to the federal government, nor has the language of the preamble ever been used as a primary factor in any judicial review in deciding a case.
Further, the preamble to the Bill of Rights states unequivocally:
The Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution. [Italics mine.]
The text of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution reads:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. [Italics mine]
Additionally, Thomas Jefferson made clear the point that the Constitution did not grant any powers to the Federal Government unless specifically outlined:
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition. [Italics mine].
“The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution.”
“A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.”
James Madison wrote, in Federalist 45:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace negotiation, and foreign commerce; The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.
The Articles of Confederation as ratified in March 1781 and upon which the Constitution was established, stated:
Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. [Italics mine].
Two previous judicial decisions have also expressly found that the federal government has limited power and therefore no role in the direct control of medicine[1]:
Any provision of an act of Congress ostensibly enacted under power granted by the Constitution, not naturally and reasonably adapted to the effective exercise of such power but solely to the achievement of something plainly within the power reserved to the states, is invalid and cannot be enforced. P. 268 U. S. 17.
“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously beyond the power of Congress.” P. 268 U. S. 18.
Based upon this evidence, it is clear that the Founders had absolutely no intention of allowing the federal government any powers to legislate on any subject not specifically granted it within the Constitution. Based on this premise, I believe that any form of public health care is unconstitutional. Moreover, the existing federal health care programs such as Medicare are also unconstitutional on this basis, and any attempt to further them in any form will be yet another abuse perpetrated against our Republic.
2. Medicare and Social Security are already insolvent. The current federal deficit for Medicare and Social Security alone is projected to be $53 trillion by 2019. This does not include the rising national debt which currently stands at $11.67 trillion [updated 3/14/2010 - $12.6 trillion]. Under President Obama’s plan, the national debt would nearly double over the next 10 years, putting us in the hole for nearly $75 trillion. What is the kicker? This doesn’t include any new spending on Universal health care or any “public options.”
Now I know, the provisions in H.R. 3200 aren’t really Universal health care, just an option to compete with private health insurance with a goal of driving prices down. Of course, since the federal government has no incentive to turn a profit (for a good example look at Amtrak, which has required a federal bailout every year for the past 40 years of its operation), the public option insurance premium can be held artificially low which will drive more and more people to suckle at the government teat, thus reducing the size and scope of private insurance rolls. Add to this new taxes on individual’s who have employer-sponsored private insurance, taxes on those who don’t have any health insurance (amazing, I know), and a tax on small businesses who don’t offer any health insurance, and in effect the federal government has tilted the playing field. More and more people will join in on the public option until private insurance is not able to compete, because after all, in the private sector a profit must be had for the insurance plan to be fiscally viable.
Let us make no mistake in defining exactly what President Obama is looking for in terms of health care reform:
“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House. [2]”
“Someone once said to me, ‘this is a Trojan Horse for single-payer.’ I said, well it’s not, a Trojan Horse, right? It’s just right there! I’m telling you! We’re going to get there over time, slowly, but we’ll move away from reliance on employment-based health insurance, as we should, but we’ll do it in a way that we’re not going to frighten people into thinking they are going to lose their private insurance. We’re going to give them a choice of public and private insurance when they’re in the pool, and we’re going to let them keep their private, employment-based insurance if their employer continues to provide it.” - Dr. Jacob Hacker, July 21, 2008
“But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process, I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out…”
“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer Universal Health Care program [applause]…”
“A single payer health care plan – a Universal health care plan, that’s what I’d like to see.”
Based on both of these points, although more directly on the former, it is clear that the Congress has no authority to enact legislation creating any form of national health insurance or health care, any form of national insurance exchange, or any mandate of requiring an individual to purchase a private good or service of any sort. The provisions contained within H.R. 3200 are unconstitutional and should be rejected on this basis alone.
If Congress wishes to enact some form of health care legislation, I would suggest that it begin by removing federal legislative controls preventing the purchasing of insurance policies across state lines. Consider this – there are approximately 1,400 private health insurance companies in existence in the United States. However, a resident of New York City, as a result of both federal and state legislation, only has access to less than a dozen. This is the direct result of Progressive legislative controls on commerce.
In love of Liberty,
The Bulletproof Patriot
1. Linder v. United States, U.S. 1925.
2. Obama, B. 2003; Available from: http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-in-03-id-like-to-see-a-single-payer-health-care-plan/
