It's not about health care
Why force a fatally-flawed and financially ruinous ObamaCare upon America that very few of us want? Because it guarantees a permanent socialist culture, and The People be damned:
"It redefines the relationship between Americans and the state in ways that make limited government all but impossible." So sayeth author and columnist Mark Steyn, and not even a true statist acolyte would disagree.
After all, this is a goblet filled with the power potion, a magical elixir for which the radical Left has thirsted all these many decades. It is near their lips and they mean to drink greedily.
In fact, ObamaCare represents a longed-for leftist tipping point that has little to do with something so mundane (to them) as the health care afforded to Americans -- much, much more is at stake here. ObamaCare is not about health care, it is about growing government and the permanent transference of the power to regulate the very lives of Americans to a centralized authority. As Steyn relates:
"Obamacare represents the government annexation of 'one-sixth of the U.S. economy' -- i.e., the equivalent of the entire British or French economy, or the entire Indian economy twice over. Nobody has ever attempted this level of centralized planning for an advanced society of 300 million people. Even the control-freaks of the European Union have never tried to impose a unitary 'comprehensive' health care system from Galway to Greece. The Soviet Union did, of course, and we know how that worked out."
Do not be foolish enough to doubt this: With the passage of ObamaCare, the last pound of flesh to tip the scales in favor of permanent statism will have been paid.
Constitutionality
Is ObamaCare even constitutional?
The Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must reference at least one of its powers enumerated in the Constitution as the basis for any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress' powers"...it is one thing for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage. It is another to mandate that engagement." to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce.
Congress has often attempted to stretch the commerce clause to the breaking point, exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the Supreme Court. However, it is one thing for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage. It is another to mandate that engagement. It is a line that Congress never before crossed nor the courts ever sanctioned. Until now.
Socialists also argue that Congress may pass ObamaCare because they believe it "promotes the general welfare." Those four words appear in Article I of the Constitution, but they most certainly do not grant power for Congress to legislate on a whim or at will. Rather, the general welfare clause identifies only the purpose for which Congress may spend money. The individual mandate tells Americans how they must spend the money (Congress has not already taken from them) and has nothing to do with congressional spending.
Requiem for a republic
Which leaves us with what? How did we ever allow our Republic and our Constitution to be placed in such grave jeopardy? To be sure, constitutional analysts, scholars, and lawyers are just beginning to examine the issue of constitutionality. We are guaranteed a plethora of legal challenges and litigation should ObamaCare become reality.
But regardless of what comes later, it is quite obvious that Obama and the Democrat Congress consider themselves above the restrictive legal authority of the Constitution. It is also quite obvious that they hold the will of the American people in vile contempt.
America's Founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent, sovereign place in our system of government. This Democrat Party scheme to take control of the American health care system is the most sweeping and intrusive federal program ever devised. If the federal government can do this, then it can do anything.
And if it can do anything, then the limits on government power that our liberty requires will be nothing more than myth, certainly not reality.
Hype and Chains.
background:
Image by Beck Rulez
Health Care Reform Pushed Ahead Despite Opposition
Obamacare worth the price to Democrats
Steyn on Obamacare's Kamikaze Raid on America