RSS
Home
House passes Pelosicare by 220-215
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
If you felt sick Saturday night, don’t worry; it was just the House of Representatives passing a massive healthcare reform bill. Despite strong bipartisan opposition with 39 Democrats voting with all but one of the 177 Republicans, enough votes were garnered to pass the proposed bill to the Senate. One Republican from Louisiana, Joseph Cao, voted with the Democrats to help them secure victory. Remember his name, and come time for his re-election donate heavily to his opponent in the primary.
So what does the Pelosi proposed healthcare bill look like? It is unclear for sure. Certainly not because people don’t care to read it, but because it is a 1,990 page bill that creates 111 new federal bureaucracies and is estimated to cost approximately $1.2 trillion. (Would now be an appropriate time to mention the Federal government rarely comes in at or under budget?) Among many of the provisions in the monstrosity of government-growth-that-is the Pelosi bill are such things as Medicare budget cuts, draconian penalties for failure to obtain insurance coverage, and heavy regulation of the insurance industry. The democrats have reported that the bill will create a “Federal marketplace” where consumers can shop for insurance. Of course the bill does not seem to relax any restrictions in an effort to allow insurance providers to sell coverage outside of their state. (A proposal from the Republican side of the aisle included such provisions in an effort to drive down cost through competition. But apparently the Liberals are not as concerned about competitive pricing as they are about government’s intrusion into the private sector.) The AARP recently expressed some support for the bill; but a conflict of interest may be prominent as one of the Medicare cuts would put more money into the hand’s of the AARP at the expense of Seniors.
Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the government provided alternative to private insurance would most likely be more costly than the insurance coverage American’s currently enjoy. But understand this, with the Federal government as the executer of this “alternative,” the price tag of this legislation will sky rocket in future years as subsidies grow to make the government option more “affordable.”
According to the bill, Insurance Companies will no longer be able to charge higher premiums to consumers based on such factors as gender or medical history. While this sounds pleasant and rosy, the consequences will be higher premiums for everybody. Why do Insurance companies charge higher premiums for people with certain medical histories? Is it because they are mean, heartless and vindictive toward the sick? No. It is because people with a higher statistical likely hood of sickness are more costly to insure. So how will the insurance companies recoup their profits when they are forced to lower premiums on consumers that cost more to insure? By raising everybody’s premiums. Economics, or simple business analysis, are obviously not the main concern of the Democrats that approved this bill. Again, it is about government growth.
Additionally, there will be new government mandates, according to the bill, which will require individual citizens and business to be insured. Failure to comply will result in a $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison. But it gets better. It is not just about being insured; rather individuals must be insured with “adequate” coverage. According to some sources this refers to a minimum of a $15,000 policy with specific coverage. What does the bill say exactly about “adequate” coverage? Well, it is hard to say precisely because 1,990 pages is a lot of reading material; and Pelosi broke her pledge to post the bill online for 72 hours before a final vote for review by we the people. I guess she figured you just didn’t care about what the House was going to vote on late Saturday night November 8, 2009.
Pelosi hailed the moment as equivalent to the Democrat’s passage of Social Security in the ‘30s. Incredibly, she meant this as a good thing despite the fact that Social Security is bankrupt, and many people living today may never be able to experience the safety-net it is designed to provide regardless of their requirement to pay into it their whole life. . . But I digress.
In the end, the passage of Pelosicare in the House represents one thing, and it is not the American public. It represents the willfulness with which our legislatures shred our liberty in the name of governmental expansion. What Constitutional authority does the Congress have to impose mandates requiring insurance coverage on a Federal level? I re-read my Constitution tonight and found out: None. The “welfare” clause is directed at providing and protecting the general liberty and freedom of all men and women in all corners of this country. It is not designed to allow the government full parental control of Husbands, wives, children and employees. Moreover, the overreaching arm of Pelosi’s Democrats (and that one RINO “Republican”) demonstrate a clear contempt for the American public’s outrage at their growth of government.
How representative were those 220 congressmen when they voted in strict contradiction to the 61% of Americans that suggest healthcare insurance should be left to the individual and not to government? Furthermore, and quite possibly the most important question laid to them in this article, how does their vote possibly represent the progression and preservation of individual liberty and freedom? How does the injection of government bureaucracy into the private sector, and private lives, harmonize with the fashion of Liberty that forged a ragged bunch of colonists into the greatest superpower on the face of the planet? Would Thomas Jefferson endorse the Pelosi Bill? Thomas Jefferson once said, “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.”
Another thought before closing: Gerald Ford once said that a government big enough to give you everything you want, is large enough to take everything you have. When government has the control, directly or through regulation, to “give” you absolute access to healthcare insurance; how long until they are forced to ration, directly or through regulation, you into sickness?
However, the tax increasing, deficit bulging, job-killing, bureaucracy creating, thuggish bill passed. It is now onto the Senate. And it is now time to reclaim that energy opponents to the proposal found in the month of August. There is no rest for advocates of freedom in a time of imminent tyranny. (Not to be too dramatic.)
.jpg)
To receive Michael’s articles in your email as soon as they are published, be sure to click on the “subscribe” option near the top of this article. For more information or to contact Michael, please visit Conservativeproject.com. Also, be sure to find Michael’s face book page, and become a fan.
Photo of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House, credited to: (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)
"Liberty" political Cartoon credited to: Conservativeproject.com
Related Articles:
Comments
.jpg)
