Archive for October, 2009
I’ll Pass on ‘Opting Out’
Posted by Bruce Kaskubar in analysis on October 29, 2009
Ann Coulter explains how the “opt out” plan is a scam and how government is the problem in health care at Human Events.
A GOP health plan
Posted by Bruce Kaskubar in commentary on October 28, 2009
Finally. An other major media outlet — the Chicago Tribune — admits there is a GOP plan for health care. In fact, the ideas presented are part of the Patients’ Choice Act (HR.2520 and S.1099), a GOP plan presented to the House and Senate BEFORE the Democrats’ own HR.3200 (the official name of the House’s version of ObamaCare). The legislation is stuck in their respective introductory committees by their Democratic committee Chairs.
Health care bill violates Constitution
Posted by Jon Kovaciny in analysis, letter on October 22, 2009
This Letter to the Editor by Paul Bade was published in the October 20, 2009 issue of the Mankato Free Press. Has your letter been published recently? Submit it!
Congress is ignoring two crucial factors in its debate over health insurance. One is the reality that the problem is not health insurance, but high medical prices due in part to market distortion caused by federal entitlement programs and income tax policies related to health insurance.
The more crucial issue is that the proposed federal health insurance mandates are unconstitutional in principle and in detail.
You have a constitutional right to be secure in your person, property and papers. That means that no government has any authority to search or demand your health insurance or medical records unless there is probable cause that they are related to a criminal matter.
You have a right to a federal government limited to the powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The power to mandate individual or employer-based health insurance is not among those powers, nor can such power be properly derived from the power “to collect taxes…to promote the general welfare of the United States” or even the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Congress is proposing variously disguised taxes on those who do not have health insurance. These are direct taxes, which are prohibited by the Constitution unless apportioned by state, yet they cannot be apportioned since uninsured persons are not apportioned. Therefore these schemes are illegal.
Congress also wants to criminalize lack of health insurance as intent to defraud health care providers; this is as absurd as declaring gun ownership proof of intent to murder.
It is up to each of us to sternly remind our senators and representatives that they are acting outside their legal authority, and demand that they cease and desist.
Great Moments in Socialized Medicine
Posted by Bruce Kaskubar in news on October 9, 2009
From Best of the Web Today (10/7/9)
London’s Daily Mail reports, “A grandmother dying of ovarian cancer was sent home five times by medics who said her crippling pain was caused by trapped wind.”
Barbara Collins, 68, was bed ridden for months with agonising pain and bowel problems, classic signs of the killer disease, but sent home with only laxatives. The mother of four was correctly diagnosed with ovarian cancer a staggering four months after her first visit to Manchester Royal Infirmary, and died 10 days later. Mrs Collins’ family criticised the medics, who they say made her feel like a nuisance. She could have survived if only her cancer had been diagnosed sooner, they claim.
As former Enron adviser Paul Krugman notes, “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”