Senate health care bill amended in attempt to allay gun owners' concerns

     U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
        Official U.S. Senate photo

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The acrimonious, bitterly partisan fighting over proposed health care reform has gone on for months now, and things are hardly likely to get any more cordial during the reconciliation process between the House and Senate versions.  Anything approaching a comprehensive discussion of the desirability of dramatically increased federal government involvement in the health care system is well beyond the bailiwick of this column, but there has been some discussion about how such reform might affect gun rights (specifically, whether or not the reform might be used to undermine those rights), so a bit of a look is perhaps in order.

Gun Owners of America has probably been the most vocal and persistent in warning of potential dangers to gun ownership in America posed by this massive piece of . . . legislation, issuing alerts since at least June.

Those warnings have been consistently dismissed as "gun nut paranoia" by left-leaning writers, such as Slate's Timothy Noah, in his charmingly titled "Gun Nuts Against Health Reform: How the gun lobby groped its way into the Obamacare debate."

What does health reform have to do with gun control? Absolutely nothing. But when you're a wingnut and right-wing rage is in the air, the sidelines can seem awfully lonesome.

Like I said--charming.

The Senate, however, with Democrats desperate to mollify as many objections to the bill as possible, sought to allay those concerns via an amendment sponsored by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), which (supposedly) addresses any such concerns (although National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea makes a very good case for the argument that those reassured by the amendment are being overly optimistic).

The amendment prompted Timothy Noah to weigh in again:

But gun owners also won another provision forbidding private insurers participating in the bill's exchanges from charging higher premiums, or denying coverage, or denying wellness discounts on the basis of gun ownership. Unlike the previous section, this one doesn't place a restriction on what government may do. It places a restriction on what the private sector may choose to do on its own. It inhibits that most holy of right-wing sacred cows: free enteprise.

What Noah has apparently chosen to ignore is that if government muscle, in the form of fines, and even prison time, is to be used to enforce the mandate that all citizens must acquire health insurance, then any obstacles to gun ownership (by virtue of denial of coverage, higher premiums, etc.), whether imposed directly by the government or by private insurance companies, are forcible citizen disarmament.  In short, Noah, what we're required by law to buy ain't free enterprise.

The Senate's adoption of that amendment has also prompted the Brady Campaign itself to weigh in on the issue, with Brady President Paul Helmke's "Gun Lobbyists Against 'Wellness and Health.'"

One would think that the massive health care reform package hammered out in the back offices of the Capitol over recent weeks would have kept Senators busy with issues focused on better health, but they still found time to bend over backwards for a non-healthy conspiracy theory from the Gun Owners of America (a gun lobby organization even more extreme than the National Rifle Association).

"Conspiracy theory," Helmke?  It's not conceivable that insurance companies, who would now have the government enforcing a requirement to buy their service, would use that power to steer their customers away from behaviors they deem risky?

Methinks they doth protest too much.

More tomorrow.