Throwing the law under the bus

Thirty eight states are in the process of passing laws to either protect their citizens from the socialized medicine takeover, or to sue the US government over the illegal and unconstitutional parts of it. Very nice. There are likely to be a number of challenges also if they end up doing the "deem and pass" method. As many lawyers and constitutional scholars have mentioned, it is a direct violation of the constitution. Normally progressive violations of the constitution aren't so blatant.

Ultimately, of course, they are dead set on usurping the will of the people and doing whatever accomplishes what they are trying to do. Read the bill. It has VERY little to do with good healthcare, does zero to control costs, but has a massive, overwhelming number of regulations seizing control of every aspect of people's lives. Of course, every objective reviewer of the plan says costs will go up, choice will disappear, one third of doctors surveyed say they will find another line of work, and the draconian rationing will begin (as it does under every socialized system, let's not be naive about it). At the risk of repeating myself, 400,000 new bureaucrats to start, 112 new bureaucracies, 38 new taxes, 3,500 new mandates for individuals to obey. And that's just to start.

And the best part, you get to start paying next year, but get no benefits at all until 2015. Actually, the best part is that the government must have direct access to your bank account, and if you refuse you can go to prison for up to five years. That is heartwarming care.

Naturally, we couldn't do a simple and cost saving thing like getting government out of the middle of the healthcare business so they they can compete and drive down costs and find efficiencies. We couldn't do tort reform, which actually is desperately needed. We can't allow competition across state lines and common sense solutions like that. Only injecting hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats and miles of red tape will do. Republicans had plans on the table based on the Swiss and Dutch insurance reform models, but of course they couldn't be considered since it is clear from the bill that it nothing whatsoever to do with healthcare.

Good article about the illegality of it.

Despite what they say, they know this plan to cram this down America's throat by any sleazy means necessary is a suicide pact. An overwhelming majority of Americans oppose it. I have to ask the question I always ask. Since representative democracy is a popularity contest, why are they barely afraid to inflict one bill after another after another on voters who don't want them? What has changed that they don't care what voters think? What do they know that we don't know? We know that 92% of Americans want to remove their local congressman, and only 21% believe the government has the consent of the governed. Again, why don't the vast majority of the politicians care? What do they know?