Health Insurance: Do It or Die?

Call me anti-authoritarian if you want, but I have never liked being told what to do or what I can and cannot do. Frankly, it bothers me when individuals – and especially groups of them on either end of the spectrum – try to do exactly that. Yes, I have my opinions and ideas on how I want to live, and how society could as a whole; however, that does not give me the right to demand that all have and adhere to the same. That is the compromise between majority rule and individual liberty – live and let live, even if you disagree with how each person does it. Defending to the fullest the right to do it.

Perhaps I have read too much Twain, Cooper or Alger, holding on to the archaic, frontier mythos that individuals, given the proper avenue, can lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. Individuals creating their own destiny, rather than having it decided for them. When society restricts those circumstances, to the supposed betterment of the collective, individual liberty is no longer. Government, especially one of a republican nature, does not exist to dictate our lives, but rather to ensure that we can live our lives. Live our lives as we, the people, see fit. Not vice versa.

With the push for universal health care, the government wants to ensure that we can live those lives. After all, a healthy citizenry means a healthy society. The latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) show that there are just over 2.43 million annual deaths in the United States; heart disease and cancer, the two leading causes of death, account for half of these. Moreover, according to MSM reportage, 45,000 annual deaths are due to the lack of health insurance – touted as a leading reason behind the need for universal health care. But what about the 2.4 million who apparently, by mere deduction, had health insurance yet still ended up dying? How is forcing thousands of uninsured individuals to get health insurance stopping the death of millions?

It isn’t, plain and simple. All it does is allow the government to strip away another layer of our individual liberty in deciding our own fate, while not addressing the genuine cause for those deaths. Instead of billions of dollars spent on overhauling health care, why not fund research to find real cures to ailments like heart disease and cancer? One reason:  cures, as opposed to regular treatment and preventive management, are a detriment to the multi-billion dollar industries that treat, not cure, diseases. Can you imagine what would happen if a cure for cancer was discovered? For starters, a lot of medical specialists and vendors would be out of business – half a million people still alive being the only annual side effect.

Fact Check:  45,000 Die Because They Lack Insurance? Not So Much

No, the lack of health insurance is not what kills people. The thinking goes against the Hippocratic Oath that binds medical professionals to attend to the afflicted unconditionally. On the other hand, a federal mandate that forces Americans to have health insurance is yet another fatal blow to individual liberty, and a stepping-stone to the eventual death of the Constitution. But maybe I just do not like being told what to do, or how to go about living my life.

Copyright © 2010 Steve Sagarra

Checks & Balances

With clear-cut committee provisioning still to hammer out, Congress’ passage of “Obamacare” nonetheless initiates sweeping changes to, and the nationalization of, health care in the United States. Nevertheless, in spite of President Obama’s signature signing the health care reform bill into law, it is not the law of the land just yet. For starters, a majority of the measures do not take effect until 2014. Before that fateful date, there are still avenues available to counteract its institution:  the initiative process, which is highly unlikely given the historical improbability of success; Congress itself reversing and repealing the law, which can only happen with sweeping changes to that bodies majority makeup in the November elections; and the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the law, which is the most likely if that body so chooses. Currently, the Supreme Court theoretically holds a 5-4 conservative majority, and it is inconceivable that Antonin Scalia, a strict interpreter of the Constitution, is not chomping at the bit for such a showdown of fundamentals.

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There is precedent. As President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to guide the country out of The Great Depression, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional six of the eight statutes of the "New Deal" passed by Congress. Just two months ago, decades-old campaign finance laws were overruled, dismantling the McCain-Feingold Act enacted by Congress in 2002. In all, the Court has found just over 150 acts of Congress unconstitutional since 1789.

Though the government will commence immediate collection of taxes as outlined in the new law, four years is a long time for the enactment of intended changes. By then, it is conceivable that those opposed to the reforms will have overturned them. At least, conservative America – and the small businesses that will bear the harshest burden – can hope. Just don’t expect any previously collected taxes to be returned. Undoubtedly, those will have been spent already on bonuses for Wall Street executives, or at least for the government commissars overseeing them.

©2010 Steve Sagarra

How Bills Used To Become Law

Like many kids growing up in the 1970s, I learned early about how laws are made in the United States from watching Saturday morning cartoons. Specifically, School House Rock's "How A Bill Becomes A Law." That is why like a lot of Americans, I am confused by the "reconciliation process" that could possibly allow the healthcare reform bill to be passed without going through proper channels or garnering the necessary votes for passage. Instead, Congress would "deem" the bill to have passed, and thus undermine the Constitution and everything for which it stands. I know Democrats like to tout that these (self-mandated) reforms are "for the people," but does this sound like government "of the people, by the people"? It certainly doesn't to me.

Yes, "deem and pass" has been used in the past to push through legislation, and so I agree with the cries of hypocrisy over the current furor. The real problem, for me and for many, stems from its use at all in any issue. Frankly, I don't see how it can even be considered Constitutional, with its circumvention of the legislative process and representative government; perhaps it needs to be judicially challenged. (Supreme Court? Hello?) With something as important as health care, the issue should not be forced by such a process but resolved through a vote of the entire Congress.

As a Wall Street Journal editorial points out, "Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a 'Bill' to 'become a Law,' it 'shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.' This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes...If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of [James] Madison's core checks and balances."

Perhaps today's politicians need to re-watch some old-time Saturday morning programming.

©2010 Steve Sagarra