11-22-2009
Permalink
Health Care:
It's a Gift
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Subject: Why The Republicans Are No Ally In The Fight Against
Health Care Legislation
[This is a slightly modified version of an article originally published
on November 10, 2009]
After the disastrous vote on the health care bill in the House, I
received an email from my Republican, Washington State Representative,
Dave Reichert, in which he indicated that he had voted against the bill.
He then included the following attachment to his message as his
antidote to what the Democrats were offering. This one page synopsis
is similar to other Republican proposals I have seen. Here it is:
Commonsense Reform to Protect and Strengthen Health
Care
by Republican, WA State Representative, Dave Reichert
I believe we must reform our healthcare system now. Today,
millions of Americans realize that health care costs are
becoming too expensive. They worry that they will lose their
health care coverage or already lack the coverage they need.
We must lower costs, reduce the number of uninsured, and
increase access and quality at a price our country can afford.
MAKING HEALTH CARE MORE AFFORDABLE FOR ALL AMERICANS:
- Implement comprehensive medical liability reform that
will reduce costly, unnecessary defensive medicine
practiced by doctors trying to protect themselves from
overzealous trial lawyers.
- Provide Medicare and Medicaid with additional authority
and resources to stop waste, fraud, and abuse that
costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year.
- Provide immediate substantial financial assistance,
through new refundable and advanceable tax credits,
to low-and modest-income Americans.
- Increase support for pre-and early-retirees, those
aged 55 to 64, with low-and modest-incomes.
- Bring greater fairness to the tax code by extending
tax benefits and savings to those who currently do
not have employer-provided insurance but purchase
health insurance on their own.
MAKING HEALTH CARE MORE AVAILABLE & ACCESSIBLE FOR ALL
AMERICANS:
- Focus on individuals and families so Americans can
keep health insurance regardless of a change in or
loss of a job.
- Encourages states to use new and existing programs to
guarantee all Americans, regardless of pre-existing
conditions or past illnesses, have access to
affordable coverage.
- Help employers offer insurance to their workers by
reducing their administrative costs through a new
small business tax credit.
- Recognize that not all high school and college
graduates are able to find a job that offers health
insurance after graduation. By allowing dependents
to remain on their parents' health policies up to the
age of 25, we stand to reduce the number of uninsured
Americans by up to 7 million.
- Take significant steps to enroll the 13 to 16 million
American children and adults who are currently eligible
for Medicaid and CHIP but who are not enrolled to
ensure these programs serve the populations they were
created to help.
PROMOTING HEALTHY LIVING FOR ALL AMERICANS NOW AND
TOMORROW:
- Promote prevention and wellness by giving employers
and insurers greater flexibility to financially reward
employees who seek to achieve or maintain a healthy
weight, quit smoking, and manage chronic illnesses like
diabetes.
- Develop interoperability standards for health
information technology to better coordinate care,
reduce medical errors, and reduce health care costs.
- Reward high-quality care, instead of encouraging
health care providers to order more and unnecessary
services.
- Use new and innovative treatment programs to better
coordinate care between health care providers,
ensuring that those with chronic disease receive the
care they need and do not continue to fall through
the cracks.
- Make health care more convenient by eliminating
bureaucratic red tape to expand access to Community
Health Centers that are so critical to underserved
areas, both in large cities and in rural America.
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This demonstrates why many, if not most Republicans are not friends of
liberty. The ideas being promoted in this document are not a clear
alternative to the Democratic proposals, but merely a watered down
"me-tooism", which cede every important principle to the
Democrats while, for the most part, asserting exactly the same
interventionist role for government in the lives of US citizens.
In the loose language presented here — which is typical
politician-speak so that the author cannot actually be pinned down
to any specific action or outcome — it might be possible to
charitably interpret the first point as a plan to rationalize medical
malpractice, making the rules more objective, which could have
favorable consequences to medical costs. Also, the idea of
eliminating the tax laws that preclude individuals from receiving
the same benefits for investing in their own health care is a worthy
goal. Both ideas are obvious and matters of simple justice. However,
beyond that, these proposals are all draconian.
Instead of recognizing that government shouldn't be in the health care
business at all, Reichert supports Medicare and CHIP programs and
actually wants to expand them. Thus, he fails to comprehend that it
is these very programs that are substantially responsible for
distorting or destroying the proper functioning of the health care
market and creating the very mess that we now find ourselves facing.
His solution to the problem is to make the problem worse. He proposes
to add 20-23 million additional children to the health care rolls,
with no discussion of who is to bear these massive costs. He will
increase medical coverage for an unspecified number of "pre- and
early-retirees", again with no apparent regard for who will
shoulder this burden.
As I mentioned above, while one point seems to imply a loosening of
restrictive tax laws in order to make health care fairer for all,
there are other sections here where Reichert proposes to wield the
tax code as the tool of choice to effect the types of results he
wishes to see. How is this any different from what the progressive
Democrats are doing? Like a parent attempting to "influence" their
child to make a proper choice, he wields the tax code like a carrot
and stick, in order to force citizens to take actions that they
apparently would otherwise not choose to do of their own free will.
Many of the proposals are simple forms of wealth redistribution, with
one group of taxpayers being required to pay for the health care of
another group. The numbers do not matter, theft is theft, and
Reichert is prepared to engage in it just as readily as his
counterparts. He demonstrates that he has no awareness or regard for
the constitutionally guaranteed right to our own property. As with
the Democrats, he sees us citizens as a "natural resource" to be
mined or milked to whatever degree he deems necessary in order to
support the goals he has decided are best.
As a Republican, is Reichert sympathetic to business interests and
does he support a free-market capitalistic economy? Absolutely not!
He has no hesitation in proposing to tell insurance companies how
they must conduct their business. He will write the terms of the
contracts, specifying the age dependents must be covered under their
parent's policy; forcing companies to accept all pre-existing medical
conditions; detailing how coverage must be allowed to travel with the
individual regardless of whether it was being provided contractually
through an employer; and so on. He will intervene in some unspecified
manner, to impose "interoperability standards" on the industry
and "coordinate care between health care providers". He will
"reward high-quality care". I'll leave it to your imagination
what it means when the government — the repository of force
— uses a word like "reward". This is Fascism, with the
government making the business decisions while the owners are left to
implement the policies and bear the risks associated with running those
businesses.
Reichert wants the government to "promote prevention and
wellness". But where does he find the constitutional mandate for
congress to engage in any such activity? The question is irrelevant
because, just like the Democrats, he does not recognize the plain
language of the US Constitution, and does not see his actions as a
government representative being bound in any significant way by that
document. He sees himself free to engage in any activity that he
judges to be of interest. He has elevated himself from a defender
of the constitutional rights of American citizens, to the role of
dictator, making whatever decisions he desires, and then willingly
imposing them upon his subjects.
Reichert is not an exception. He is a very typical Republican
congressman, and like most others, he is clearly not an ally in the
fight to restore our vanishing liberty and individual rights. Just
the opposite - he is numbered among the enemy.
It is time to change the nature of the political conversation. In
addition to all the other work being done to battle issues such as
mandatory national
service, government run health care, or cap-and-trade legislation,
we must attack the government at its constitutional roots, making it
clear to the wider public that congress has 1) no constitutional
authority to engage in most of these areas, and 2) our representatives,
who are pledged to uphold the constitution and defend the rights of
the citizens, are doing just the opposite, and in so doing, deserve
to be immediately removed from office.
Challenge your Senators and Representatives on these constitutional
matters and determine where they stand. If they are unwilling to act
in service of the oath they have taken, then mount a campaign against
them on constitutional grounds. I think you will be surprised to
discover just how vulnerable they are in this area. It is a flank
that they have not had to defend during their careers, and they are
unprepared for an assault from this direction.
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