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Jewish World Review
Oct. 18, 2010/ 10 Mar-Cheshvan, 5771
Healthcare: Alice in Wonderland vs. The Constitution
By
Arnold Ahlert
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Apparently U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson is a fan of Lewis Carroll. Last Thursday, he allowed part of the lawsuit challenging the Constitutionality of ObamaCare to proceed, dismissing Democrat objections as an "Alice in Wonderland" defense of the statute. The two major challenges he allowed to go forward are critical: one, whether or not the federal government has the right to mandate individual Americans to purchase health insurance or face a fine; and two, whether or not the feds can require states to expand their Medicaid program.
It is refreshing to read the statements of a judge who clearly understands the fraud Democrats have perpetrated with respect to the health care bill. When Democrats were ramming this bill through Congress, the Obama administration defended the individual mandate by calling it a "penalty," dismissing Republican charges that forcing someone to purchase something against their will was a "tax." Yet as soon as Eric Holder's Justice Department was forced to defend the mandate in court, they decided that Republicans were right after all, citing the legality of the feds to impose taxes.
Judge Vinson was having none of it. "Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing, after which the defenders of that legislation take an "Alice-in-Wonderland" tack and argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely, thereby circumventing the safeguard that exists to keep their broad power in check," he said.
In other words, you can't tell outright lies to the American public or your fellow Congressmen in order to pass legislation.
The judge then issued the first critical ruling: because the individual mandate is indeed a penalty, Justice must defend it based on the Commerce Clause, not Congress' ability to impose taxes. This is huge. Going forward, the Justice Department will be forced to contend that Americans can be required, not to have a voluntary commercial transaction regulated, but to engage in commerce, period.
How serious is this? If the Supreme Court decides--and this case is undoubtedly headed there--that the involuntary engagement in a commercial transaction is Constitutional, America as we know it will cease to exist. For all intents and purposes, such an interpretation of the Commerce Clause would grant an imperial Congress virtually limitless powers based upon what progressives consider a "substantial effect on interstate commerce."
SOTUS has been down this road before, and the results are not encouraging. In 1942, Roscoe Filburn was ordered not grow wheat in excess of limits set by the 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act, despite the fact that the wheat was grown on his own land and limited to his personal use. The court's "reasoning?" Control over the entire supply of wheat in the country could not be achieved without control over the individual supply, and if enough farmers grew wheat for their personal use, such use would "impact" nationwide commerce.
Yet even in that case, the activity which the Court sought to regulate was pre-existing. What this Congress and administration is contending is that Americans can be compelled to engage in commercial activity simply because they exist, because if they don't, their refusal would have a "substantial effect" on the ability of ObamaCare to be economically viable. The fact that a substantial majority of Americans find the health care bill repugnant would be rendered officially irrelevant--along with our democratic republic.
Judge Vinson's second ruling was equally monumental: the part of the bill which mandates that individual states must expand their Medicaid program to include more people can also be challenged. This pernicious bit of nonsense could be economically devastating to states already struggling with budget deficits. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, spending on Medicaid already accounts for an average of one-fifth of state expenditures--before the health care bill adds another 16 million people to the 59 million already eligible for the program by raising the eligibility threshold to 133% of the federal poverty level in 2014. The feds will fully subsidize these new beneficiaries until 2016--at which point federal outlays will be lowered and states will be expected to make up the difference.
The fact that many state budgets are already imploding--largely due to Medicaid--is irrelevant to progressives, who apparently believe American taxpayers have an unlimited supply of funds to underwrite their socialist/marxist agenda. Apparently so is the fact that 40% of American doctors currently won't accept Medicaid patients at all, due to that program's low pay out rates. That last bit is key--for some unfathomable reason, progressives seem to believe that people having health insurance is the same thing as having access to health care.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
No doubt the same people who believe health care is a right consider it unseemly that doctors consider making a profit part of the equation for running a business. Too bad they don't feel the same way about lawyers. In 2700 hundred pages of mandates, not a single word regarding tort reform was included, even though malpractice insurance and unconscionable jury awards are substantial contributors to the overall cost of health care.
With his ruling on this particular issue, Judge Vinson demonstrates an understanding of the difference between federally-imposed, one-size-fits-all spending mandates and the ability of states to write their own rules regarding Medicaid spending and eligibility formulas. If there is one thing the public can thank the Obama administration and our Democratically-controlled Congress for, it is a level of arrogance that has re-ignited a long-overdue push for states' rights. Many Americans are appalled by the left's ambition to turn fifty separate constituencies into chattels of Washington, D.C.
The same Washington, D.C. which has racked up over a trillion dollars in deficit spending for the second year in a row.
ObamaCare is an unmitigated disaster-in-the-making. If people can be forced to buy health insurance and states can be forced to blow gigantic, federally-mandated holes in their budgets, this country will never recover. Our wannabe socialists in Congress and the White House are already, as Margaret Thatcher put it, "out of other people's money." The election in November may do much to blunt their odious ambitions, but they will never give up trying to turn America into a socialist nation. Judge Vinson is to be congratulated for seeing through their "Alice in Wonderland" manipulations. Here's hoping the Supreme Court deals an equally clarifying smackdown to our self-anointed "superiors" who believe Americans should be forced to engage in commerce against their will "for their own good."
Such thinking is enough to make one sick.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR Contributor Arnold Ahlert's column, by clicking here.
Previously:
10/11/10: Vote for Restoring the Rule of Law in November
10/11/10: Dems: Running From Clarity
10/07/10: Hypersensitive Hogwash
10/04/10: Comprehensive Con Artists
09/29/10: Why Dems Are Going Down in November
09/27/10: The Unholiest of Unholy Alliances
09/22/10: Two Words for Republicans to Remember: I Won
09/20/10: Purging Me First Politicians
09/17/10: No More Lesser of Two Evils
09/15/10: Recovery Arms Race
09/13/10: Bigots in the Majority --- Again?
09/09/10: Giving Voters Something to Vote For
09/07/10: Irresponsible Dems, Incomprehensible Bills
09/02/10: War Weary Americans vs. Implacable Islamists
08/31/10: A Dream Debased
08/25/10: American Bigots Versus Media Propagandists
08/23/10: Recovery Bummer
08/19/10: An Unholy Alliance of Radicals
08/16/10: You've Lost America, Mr. President
08/13/10: The Twin Towers of Progressive Disconnect
08/11/10: A Far Better National Discussion
08/09/10: It's Only One Dead Nun
08/06/10: Incremental Tyranny
08/04/10: Ground Zero Mosque: Context Counts
08/02/10: The Arizona Ruling: a Gift for November
07/29/10: The United Cities of America
07/26/10: JournoList: Coordinated Ideological Bankruptcy
07/20/10: Go For Broke Or Get Out of the Way
07/14/10: You're a Liberal/Progressive if You Believe…
07/12/10: $33-an-hour--For Sleeping On the Job
07/08/10: Extortionist Government
07/06/10: Commerce Clause Totalitarians
07/01/10: Another Public School Travesty in MA
06/30/10: Calling YOUR Bluff, Mr. President
06/28/10: A Trifecta of Progressive Corruption
06/23/10: Plug the Darn Hole --- In Our Border
06/21/10: Our Empty-Suit-in-Chief
06/16/10: Betraying Our Children
06/14/10: Who Gets the Benefit of the Doubt?
06/07/10: Politically Correct Warfare
06/01/10: Bill Maher's Black President
05/25/10: A Mosque At Ground Zero
05/23/10: Libs Stand Tall --- For Mexico
05/19/10: The 'Unintended Consequences' of Liberalism
05/17/10: 'Los' Suns: Stuck on Stupido
05/12/10: Union Audacity: Yes We Will!
05/10/10: Greeks, Leaks and and Double-Speak
05/05/10: Twelve Million Illegals --- or Thirty?
05/02/10: Republicans: Playing Not to Lose Doesn't Cut It
04/28/10: Arizona: Progressivism's Waterloo?
04/26/10: Son of Amnesty
04/22/10: Mortgages and Moral Meltdowns
04/20/10: Bashing Christians Or Gays?
04/15/10: Personal Integri-tea
04/12/10: Fools, Tools and Ghouls
04/08/10: (Tea) Party On
04/05/10: The Triumph of Mediocrity
04/02/10: Two For the Road
03/29/10: The Innate Immorality of Liberalism
03/24/10: The Art of War
03/22/10: I Want My Country Back
03/18/10: A Perpetual Process
03/17/10: American Exhibitionists
03/15/10: A Light Bulb Moment of Clarity
03/10/10: Little Things Mean A Lot
02/03/10: Budgetary Fork in the Road
02/01/10: Liberal Economic Illiteracy
01/27/10: Roe-ing and Wade-ing Back to Reason
01/25/10: Arrogance When Up, Denial When Down
01/20/10: Connecting the Educational Dots
01/19/10: The Next Tea Party?
01/15/10: The Myth That Keeps on Giving
01/13/10: Airport Security Begins Away From the Airport
01/11/10: Secrets and Lies
01/08/10: Embracing Bigotry or Rejecting Bullying?
01/06/10: Hanging by an Ideological Thread
01/04/10: Our Wonderama Bureaucracy
12/30/09: A Day Off
12/28/09: Dangerous Myths
12/25/09: I, Me, Mine
12/23/09: A Very Harry Christmas
12/21/09: My Opinon
12/18/09: The Party of Repeal
12/15/09: Privileged Exemption
11/30/09: Settled Science and Unsettled Children
11/30/09: American Sharia Law
11/23/09:The Trial (Travesty) of the Century
11/04/09: American Vampires and Their Political Enablers
11/01/09: Opting Out of Insanity?
10/28/09: Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer. Brain Required
10/26/09: Communism: Nazism With Better PR
10/21/09: Just Asking
10/16/09: Cost Projections vs. Actual Costs, or Hope and Change vs. Reality
10/14/09: News you can use …
10/07/09: Incremental Insidiousness
10/05/09: MIA: Common Sense and Common Decency
09/30/09: Iran: Bad Options and Unpreparedness
09/21/09: Crying Racism: the Last Refuge of Scoundrels
09/11/09: 9/11 Cannot Be Sanitized
09/08/09: Truthers and Consequences
09/01/09: A Paper Trail Challenge for the Mainstream Media
08/31/09: Drowning in Amorality
08/26/09: The Republican Recovery Program
© 2010, Arnold Ahlert
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