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Welcome To The Cesspool
By Scott Tips
January 28, 2010

When it comes to legislation and regulation, 2009 was a year to forget. Whether in Europe, Canada, or the United States, the government control freaks advanced their agenda yet farther along the path to running every aspect of our lives, especially in health matters. Underlying it all, though, and largely ignored in the media, was the age-old trickle that became a stream and is now a raging river of influence-peddling money in which politicians regularly bathe. Addressing this, a Russian proverb says “When money speaks, the truth is silent.”

National Disease Care

Many applauded when the United States Senate recently passed its own “universal” health-care bill. The Surface Feeders (those who just look at the surface and no deeper) think that universal health care is the heaven-sent answer to their dreams. These people hear the clichéd mantras and attack the deeper thinkers who oppose this kind of “health care” because of what it really represented: A coercive enshrinement of the same old medical-mafia monopoly that kills hundreds of thousands of people each and every year.

“Disease Care” supporters want to extend this equal-opportunity death to all in the childish belief that everyone’s health will be improved by more of the same failed medical system. Are voters really that easily fooled by surface appearances and ignorant peer pressure? Do they not realize how many persons will be harmed and even die because of their “good intentions”?

The Federal government is utterly incapable of administering a national health-care system. Among other things, it has failed at managing the country’s money supply (97% loss of value since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913), at administering health through Medicare (Medicare is broke), at fighting the War on Drugs (more drugs and crime than ever), at fighting the War on Cancer (more persons getting cancer than ever), and at fighting poverty (no diminishment since the 1960s, when that campaign began). As Milton Friedman once said, “If you put the Federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” This is a disaster in the making.

Unconstitutional

The problems with this law are legion, but foremost amongst them is the fact that it is simply unconstitutional, no matter how optimistically one interprets the Constitution in favor of Federal power. The House and Senate Democrats ran multiple constitutional red lights in their race to passage and never once stepped on the brakes.

South Carolina's attorney general Henry McMaster recently assigned attorneys in his office to investigate whether the horse-trading used to secure the last few votes for the health-care bill violates the Constitution. This horse-trading included special exemptions given to Nebraskans but no other Americans, something strictly forbidden by the Constitution. Other State attorneys general also are investigating these constitutional violations and considering “opt outs” from the Federal plan.

And as Senator Orin Hatch just wrote, along with Kenneth Blackwell and Kenneth Klukowski, in the Wall Street Journal, “Congress has many times stretched this power to the breaking point, exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the Supreme Court since the Great Depression. It is one thing, however, for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage; it is another to require that individuals engage in such activity. That is not a difference in degree, but instead a difference in kind. It is a line that Congress has never crossed and the courts have never sanctioned.” Undoubtedly, there will be many court challenges to this law, once finalized, as it is nothing more than a bug looking for a windshield.

Michael Agopian, an NHF member and former United States Department of Justice official, with a keen ear to the Washington D.C. ground, observes that the mood in the nation’s capital has become somber and short-sighted. He notes that the national health-insurance plan seems driven by political arrogance and self-interest. Agopian notes that the plan was essentially created in the dark, propelled largely by pharmaceutical and insurance giants, and is built on risky financial projections. Components of this massive “health re-design” may even violate principles in the U.S. Constitution. Political and corporate self-interests, according to Agopian, seem to have over-run the nation’s interests.

In 1993, HillaryCare – the previous attempt to pass socialized healthcare in America – led to a tremendous backlash that swept the miscreants from legislative power. The same thing could happen this year, maybe even in a big way, as the American mid-term elections will take place this coming November 2010.

And even if in the unlikely event a court does not strike this legislation down, it could still be repealed. As Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw have noted, the legislation suffers a fatal flaw in that the pain that it will inflict through heavy monetary burdens will kick in immediately, whereas the “benefits” will not start for three years. That is plenty of time for a dissatisfied electorate to repeal it before those with a vested interest try to protect their share of the loot.

Born of Corruption

The corruption that gave birth to this is spawning a growing anger for more citizens than the mainstream media wants to reveal. For just one example of the source of this anger, there are several provisions in the Senate bill that will specifically benefit medical companies, including expanded insurance coverage and the continuation of the fee-for-service model, while the drug companies Amgen and Alexion would benefit because the Senate bill gives them marketing exclusivity of five years for “small-molecule” drugs and 12 years for biologic drugs, a move that could mean that small molecule supplements such as resveratrol and quercetin could be lost to the natural-products industry. These life-quality-enhancing natural substances would become drugs, at higher prices of course. Now how does this extend “health care” to all?

Then, there are the infuriating “death panels” that would decide whether it would be in the national interest or not to provide health care to someone who was too old or infirm to warrant money being spent on him or her. These panels were actually established in the Stimulus package passed by Congress almost a year ago, but would dovetail in with the national health care system being established by Congress.

Nat Hentoff, the left-libertarian activist, recently commented about the “death panels” in the health-care system currently being launched into the water, “In England, you have what I would call government-imposed euthanasia. Under the British healthcare system, there is a commission that decides whether or not, based on your age and physical condition, the government should continue to pay for your health. That leads to the government not doing it and you gradually or suddenly die. The present Stimulus Bill sets up the equivalent commission in the United States similar to that which is in England. The tipoff was months ago on the ABC network. President Obama was given a full hour to describe and endorse his health plan. A woman in the audience asked Obama about her mother. Her mother was, I believe, 101 years old and was in need of a certain kind of procedure. Her doctor didn't want to do it because of her age. However, another doctor did and told this woman there is a joy of life in this person. The woman asked President Obama how he would deal with this sort of thing, and Obama said we cannot consider the joy of life in this situation. He said I would advise her to take a pain killer. That is the essence of the President of the United States.”

Uncle Sam, the Monopoly Man

One of the worst aspects of the final national health-care legislation will be the enormous black-hole monopoly over health care that will be created with the current FDA-Drug Companies marriage at the Center. The gravitational pull of money, energy, and attention to the Center will be irresistible. Who, after all, would want to buy increasingly-costly supplements or go to alternative practitioners when one has already paid for conventional, orthodox care? The hard core amongst us, of course, still might; but the vast majority, in the center and with an increasingly costly life, will inevitably be sucked into the mainstream medical monopoly.

As Ron Paul recently wrote, “This government intervention will eventually create a near monopoly of providers in health insurance as smaller companies are squeezed out and innovation comes to a grinding halt due to formidable barriers to entry. The government will determine prices and levels of service that will apply to everyone, regardless of want or individual circumstances. The true insurance model of healthcare cost management, meaning major medical coverage only, will basically become illegal. Opting out of the system will incur heavy tax penalties.”

To Them, the End Justifies the Means

Our Lobbyist reports that House and Senate Democrats intend to bypass traditional, bipartisan protocol when they negotiate a final compromise on their health-care legislation. They will deliberately ignore Republican lawmakers so that they can pass this legislation and remake the country's health-care system before Obama delivers his State of the Union address. So much for the even thin pretense of bipartisanship that never really protected our liberties anyway.

So, regardless of what they may say, the Surface Feeders clearly think the end justifies the means. Taken to its logical conclusion, then, if someone protests and resists being forced into this new “disease care” insurance program, he or she could be jailed, even shot, if they resist. But that’s okay, because some “poor” person somewhere will have been given the drugs bought from the wealthy pharmaceutical company with the money stolen from the imprisoned or shot person. The sad thing about all of this, though, is that it will not result in a healthier, happier population; instead, it will just mean more arbitrary power to the bureaucrats and more monopoly profits for the medical companies. Sadder still are those saps who think that they are the moral ones.