I cannot be certain, but The Patch article concerning the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act (or "Obamacare") may just be the single most popular article The Patch has ever posted.
If the number of reader comments is any indication (801 as of this writing) and the number of votes in the non-scientific poll that is part of the article offers any hint (6748 votes so far), this article has drawn more direct reader participation than any previous Patch article, ever.
It is more than safe to say that many Patch readers feel very strongly one way or the other about this topic. I know this to be true because I am among them.
For those who have not yet read the actual Supreme Court Opinion, I strongly encourage you to do so. I've attached a .pdf version to this article.
My interest in this historic Supreme Court decision has less to do with healthcare and more to do with what I consider to be a far bigger and far more significant picture: Our federal constitution and the impacts this decision will have (has already had) upon the constitution's ability to continue to constrain the power and authority of the general (federal) government.
First, allow me to say, right up front, that I am not necessarily opposed to the theory of universal healthcare or to some variation on the theme of universal health care. Much of our own American society is ordered according to methods that are clearly more socialist, or socialized, than not.
My objection has more to do with the idea that this approach to health care should be applied on a national scale in the United States. Many developed nations seem to have adopted universal healthcare with varying degrees of success. Proponents point to nations like Sweden, Canada, and the United Kingdom as models the U.S. should try to emulate.
Though many proponents seem reluctant to admit this truth, nationalized universal healthcare systems are not without considerable challenges of their own. Nor are any of those other nations organized as constitutional republics None of those nations has a constitution that was ratified with the specific idea of insuring the greatest degree of personal liberty and individual freedom to citizens, by imposing strict and specific limits on the general government.
This brings us to the bigger-picture concern I have with Obamacare. It is the same bigger-picture concern I have every time the federal government exceeds its specifically-enumerated counstitutional bounds. Through Obamacare, the federal government can now compel you, me, and every other adult legally residing in the U.S. to either purchase a product, or pay a penalty (which it calls a tax) for declining to do so.
Think on this for a moment. Regardless of whether you happen to like this particular product or not, do you really want the federal government to have that much authority over your personal decisions about whether or not you will buy this (or any other) product?
I can assure you that I most assuredly...most emphatically...do not want the federal government to have that sort of authority over my daily life. The reason is simple: If the federal government can control my personal purchasing decisions and daily life in this area, it can and most assuredly will try to do so in others.
That is not the sort of nation I desire to live in. Nor should it be the sort of nation any of us has to live in.
The entire concept of a constitutional republic has to do with the idea that the general government has a few, very limited, specifically enumerated, powers and, beyond those, power and authority is reserved to the States or to the people, as individuals.
This is precisely how it is possible (and quite logical) for presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Willard Mitt Romney to have helped enact a form of universal healthcare in his home State of Massachusetts, yet be opposed to the same or a similar sort of system for the entire nation.
Governor Romney seems to understand the concept of federalism.
He appears to understand that what may have proven good and desireable for Massachusetts may not be good and desireable for Delaware, or Texas, or some other State. Gov. Romney seems to understand what President Obama clearly does not seem to:
That the people of each State should be able to decide for themselves what sort of universal healthcare program (if any) that want to institute in their own States.
The logical result of this -more constitutionally compliant- approach is that some States, like Massachusetts, will enact universal healthcare while some other States will not. Because this is so, people who desire to live in a State with universal healthcare can do so and those people who do not desire to live in such a State, are likewise free to not do so.
In other words, through the federalist approach -the approach our nation was founded upon, the approach our constitution defines- we enjoy a far greater degree of personal freedom and individual liberty than otherwise. We have more options from which to choose how we, as sovereign individuals, prefer to live our own lives. More choices about how we desire to raise our families.
That is the "forest" so many seem to be missing, while they are fixating on the monstrous and rotted "tree" that is Obamacare.
It is high time to take some giant steps back, my friends. To acquire a much broader focus, and much deeper understanding.
Obamacare is just one, very large, very sick "tree", but the entire "forest" that is our freedom is at very serious risk.
I very much welcome your questions and comments.
Social Security...Medicare..Etc..the different is that ..there are no boxes in your tax form to check .. You have to pay.
Yes, ACA is the law of the land for now, but laws can be amended and laws can be repealed. Slavery was the law of the land once also. Should that abomination have remained on the books too? Chief Justice Roberts offered a not-so-subtle clueas to what one proper response might be: "Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise northe prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences oftheir political choices."
I respectfully disagree with the premise that we cannot live without either social security or Medicare. I think we can live without both. I think we *did* live without both for many long years before they existed. Have those programs helped many who otherwise may not have been? Sure. Does this mean other programs...originating in the States and controlled and managed by the States...might not have been conceived and prove useful instead? I think not.
As I tried to convey in the article, what *is* extraordinary, indeed, completely unprecedented in all of our jurisprudence to date, is the judicial notice that has now been taken, that the Fed can compel us to purchase a product or penalize us through taxation if we choose to not do so. When we pay into social security or Medicare, it is with the understanding that we will see some sort of return for our investment. Not much of an investment, I'll grant you, but something nonetheless. When some start paying this "penalty tax" they will not be receiving anything in return. Others will benefit from the moneys the Fed will tax away from them, and all because some of us neither want, nor need, health insurance. This is what is extraordinary, Joe. That the Fed can attempt to compel all of us to purchase something many of us do not want or need to buy. In my view this is a despicable intrusion into our personal lives by a level of government that was never intended to have that sort of power.
A quote from an recent New Yorker article, "The Republicans have made the individual mandate the element most likely to undo the President’s health-care law. The irony is that the Democrats adopted it in the first place because they thought that it would help them secure conservative support. It had, after all, been at the heart of Republican health-care reforms for two decades." Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/06/25/120625fa_fact_klein I think the real question we should all ask ourselves is who is funding all the efforts to maintain the status quo? Who really benefits when 30 million plus US citizens can't afford their medical care? My guess is that it is the financial institutions themselves that are quite afraid this new law will take away their "right" to continue fleecing the middle class. The best thing of all that could happen would be to do away with medical insurance entirely and run healthcare the same way we do public schools, police & fire services and roads. All hospitals should be non-profits. No one should be making a profit off the misery of others. It is morally repugnant.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/conservatives-and-the-individual-mandate/ That, as they say, was then and this is now. ACA is a considerably different piece of legislation from what HillaryCare attempted back in 1994. Different liberal-minded, federal government power grabs require different sorts of arguments in rebuttal. No reasonable person I know of, liberal or conservative, has ever argued that there are not serious challenges in our current healthcare system that need to be addressed. The argument is, and always has been, how best to address those challenges. Again, I am not necessarily opposed to some version of universal healthcare enacted at the State level. What I oppose -and vehemently- is a nationalized model that mandates everyone purchase health insurance or pay a penalty (in the form of a tax) to the federal government for declining to do so. The national model leaves an otherwise free people with no choice in the matter. A State-centric model allows people who do not desire to live with (or help pay for) such a system, to move to States that do not have, and do not want, such a system. (more)
If the government that is running these hospitals is State-level or smaller, I could see that being acceptable to the majority of voters in some States. I do not see bringing all healthcare throughout the nation under government control. This government cannot run an allegedly sacrosanct social security system without raiding it to pay for all of the many other things it should not be doing. Imagine how far the quality of federal government-provided healthcare would fall as that same government started raiding those funds as well?
As I hoped to make plain in the column, I am not necessarily opposed to the theory of universal healthcare or to some variation on the theme of universal health care. I also hoped to make clear in the column that I believe much of our own American society is ordered according to methods that are clearly more socialist, or socialized, than not. Some of this ordering includes some of the very things you have listed. However, I must renew my suggestion that many of the aspects of ordering our society that we have, over many years, ceded to the general government, or that through our ignorance and apathy have allowed it to intrude upon, are not the proper place for that level of government to be involved in. For example, you cite education. Our current nationalized (socialized) model for K-12 public education is quite simply failing us. We are no longer the world leader in this area that once we were. According to figures from the NCES, we have increased federal per-pupil K-12 spending in the U.S. from *one* (constant 2006) dollar in 1940, to $993 in 2006. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_171.asp Despite this astronomical increase in federal funding over 66 years, our overall K-12 educational achievements have been consistently degrading even while high school drop rates have been increasing. This tells me that the nationalized education is not working. I think we will find the same will prove true for healthcare.
I recently found some very interesting factual information about Canada's system that I thought readers might be interested to consider. Here are some of the highlights: - In 2011, a significant number of Canadians—an estimated 46,159—received treatment outside of the country - At the same time, the national median wait time for treatment after consultation with a specialist increased from 9.3 weeks in 2010 to 9.5 weeks in 2011 - Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment — the longest they have ever recorded - In some cases, these patients needed to leave Canada due to a lack of available resources or a lack of appropriate procedure/technology. In others, their departure will have been driven by a desire to return more quickly to their lives, to seek out superior quality care, or perhaps to save their own lives or avoid the risk of disability http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/articles/leaving-canada-for-medical-care-2011-ff0712.pdf No healthcare system is perfect, least of all Canada's...