Remembering The Constitution In The Health Care Debate

I’ve been thinking, lately, about the constitutional basis (or lack thereof) for the health care reform proposals making their way through Congress, trying to understand how people could believe that a massive federal government intrusion into such a significant part of the private sector and of citizens’ private lives could possibly be justifiable. The other day, I came across an article addressing just that, and saying, basically, that there’s no worry about constitutional issues, because of the Commerce Clause, which gives the federal gov’t the power to “regulate” interstate commerce, and the fed’s power to levy taxes.  The former gives the gov’t the power to mandate the kinds of health services that must be made available in each state, and who must purchase insurance, because health care activity in one state can create economic effects that cross state lines (hence impacting “interstate commerce”), and the latter provides a second justification for the so-called individual mandate (forcing people to buy insurance) because the penalty for not buying will actually take the form of a tax:  if you have approved insurance, you don’t pay the tax, if not, you pay.

On the other side, I read this article, arguing that the federal government has little constitutional justification for most of the spending it does.  The article has its flaws, such as the fact that the author says that the first 9 Amendments in the Bill of Rights define the rights/powers of the federal government (more of an oversight, I think, as it is pretty apparent that he meant what the 10th Amendment says: that the federal government cannot assume powers not specifically given to it in the Constitution, itself).  But the point is clear… and accurate.  The role and powers of the federal government were intentionally limited by the framers of the Constitution, and so twisting its meaning to justify any and all spending and expansion of government authority violates its fundamental principle, and essentially renders the document meaningless.

Look at the justifications in the first article.  The Commerce Clause has been used (Wickard v. Filburn, 1942) to tell a farmer in one state how much wheat he could grow for his own personal use (to feed his own chickens), because growing his own wheat would affect a wheat farmer in another state (presumably by reducing demand — his — and hence the price other farmers could command).  The extension of this, with respect to health care, is that an individual’s use of health services impacts the broader economy, rippling along across all state lines — the ultimate interstate commerce!  Except it’s not.  Because, if you accept this premise, then practically every consumer choice we make could fall under the umbrella of interstate commerce.  If I decide to drink only tap water, then I’m decreasing the demand for bottled water or water filters, potentially bottled or manufactured in another state.  There is no way to argue that people electing to not drink bottled water would not ripple through the entire economy.  So, should drinking bottled water be mandated?  Of course not.  The “economic ripple” argument is ridiculous.  And the fact that it’s being used to apply the Commerce Clause to justify a federal takeover of health care demonstrates just how stretched and tortured the Commerce Clause has become.  The clause was meant to address issues arising from direct commercial dealings across borders, where problems caused by different currencies, tariffs, and regulations affected the ability to conduct commerce.  One effect was that no single state could exercise too much power over another by controlling the rules of commerce.  This did not and should not mean that the people within one state should be required to be any more or less productive — or any more or less wasteful.  The Commerce Clause gives the federal government power to set the framework for commercial dealings “with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” –  it does not give the government the power to control the behavior of individuals within any of these entities, and such power cannot be assumed.  So, while the government may have a role in breaking down regulatory barriers to allow health insurers to operate more effectively (or, in some cases, operate at all) across the several states, it does not have a right to tell the businesses or the citizens how to conduct business within a state.

The individual-mandate-via-tax-penalty argument is ridiculous, as well.  It is a circular argument, which says that because the federal gov’t wants to involve itself in something it should not be involved in (mitigating the economic impact of you not having insurance), it therefore has an interest (mitigating the economic impact of you not having insurance) that justifies its involvement (penalizing you through the tax code).  In other words, the federal government can tax you into buying health insurance because the government wants you to buy health insurance.  That’s nice.  Extending that logic a bit, then the government can use the tax code to purposefully push you into living in a smaller house, living in a different location, working in a different profession, having a certain number of children, and so on.  Yeah, sure there are those who actually believe these things are good and correct uses of government power.  But such influence, without question, goes against the principles of liberty that the Constitution was created to protect.

Article 1, Section 8:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Reading this language in a way that justifies taxation to control behavior goes way beyond practical interpretation of general principles.  There is no justification for behavioral penalties (or exemptions, for that matter).  The only justification given is to pay for things, not to manipulate the behavior of individual citizens.

Justifying a federal takeover of health care by further twisting and stretching the meaning of the Constitution, with the reasoning being that it’s been stretched before, is outrageous.  Courts make mistakes, and although we must abide by the standing rulings, that does not mean that we should not seek to push the government, including the Court, back to the Constitution when they stray too far.  The purpose of the Constitution was to help to guarantee freedom from the tyranny of the few over the many.  Using the Constitution to justify the continued expansion of federal power, totally misses the point of the document, and spits in the face of the liberty it is meant to protect.

Olympic Follies

News just came down about how Chicago, and thus the United States, lost out on its bid to host the 2016 Olympics — in spite of the lobbying of heavyweights such as Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and the US president, himself.  I couldn’t have cared much less either way, but I do find the outcome kind of amusing.  I never knew that US presidents got directly involved in lobbying for the Olympics to come to a US city.  So, to me, it seemed kind of beneath the president to fly to Copenhagen to make a case for Chicago, directly.

Now, I’m not one of those who has ever thought much of the “there are more important things to be doing” argument.  Just because the president is on a plane to Europe, or taking a “vacation”, or attending a ballgame, or whatever, that doesn’t mean he is neglecting his other responsibilities.  The president never has a day off.  He is always connected, always being briefed, and always engaged.  That is true of this president as well as any other (I thought the ire directed at GW Bush, for his August “vacations” at his ranch, was completely ridiculous).  So, I think it’s a shame that Republicans chose to make so much noise about the president’s priorities being out of order.

Still, it did seem odd to me that the President would be involved (directly) in lobbying for the Olympics.  The fact that it was for his own city made it even more unseemly, for me.  Which is one reason why I chuckle at the rejection.  I also think it’s funny that the president would get involved without being pretty certain of the outcome.  Seems like a bit of a (worthless) risk for the president to take.  Now, perhaps this president believes too much in his own myth.  Maybe he thought that, because the whole world obviously loves him so much (in his mind), there was no way they’d say no to a direct plea from him.  That also makes the result kind of funny.

But the biggest factor that makes this whole thing amusing to me is the way in which President Obama and his people tried to sell Chicago as the obvious choice for the Olympics.  Here’s what Rahm Emanuel had to say:

There’s no better city in the United States or the world to host the international community than Chicago — because of the diversity.

The world will feel comfortable given the diversity of Chicago all the different ethnic communities are there.

So, let me get this straight, diversity is what makes a city a good place to hold the Olympic games?  Diversity is what’s going to make the world “feel comfortable?”  Seriously?  That’s the case you guys are making?  No wonder you lost.  The world doesn’t need to be coddled.  “Hey guys.  Look, Chicago is just like all of you.  See?  There’s nothing to be scared of.  (Eh-hem, nevermind the beatings in the streets based on skin color.)”  Isn’t the diversity of the host city beside the point?  Isn’t the point to help to introduce the host city/country to the diversity of the rest of the world, under peaceful circumstances, and to help to introduce the visiting countries to the culture of the host city/country, regardless of what that may be?  China just hosted the Olympics in Beijing.  I can’t imagine that anyone would call Beijing an exceptionally diverse city.  And yet, it was a great place to host the games, as one of the goals of the games is to help break down barriers between peoples/nations.

In the grand scheme of things, this whole episode is pretty meaningless.  However, it does seem to highlight how self-important, naive, and silly this crew can be, bolstering the case that Obama is truly “The Adolescent President.”

So That’s Where I Left My Racism!

Things aren’t looking so great for our president.  His approval rating is just above 50%, in some polls.  American citizens are rallying against his spending, energy, and health care plans, with many expressing anger and frustration to their representatives at town hall meetings, and with phone calls and emails.  Some politicians have taken the gloves off, with one congressman even daring to shout, “You lie!” at the president, during his health care sales pitch to Congress.  What is going on?  Thankfully, we have brilliant and dedicated servants of the public like Maureen Dowd and former president Jimmy Carter to solve the mystery for us:  Racism!  All of us who are opposed to the presidents actions and proposals?  Well, we’re just racists.  At least that’s most of the issue (the “overwhelming part” of it, according to President Carter).

The funny thing is, I was under the (apparently false) impression that racists are racists — not part-time, but all the time.  Wasn’t it less than a year ago that Barack Obama was elected president with more votes than any president had ever received?  Didn’t he receive support from across the political and societal spectrum — even from “disillusioned conservatives?”  Wasn’t it less than 8 months ago that the president’s approval rating was around 70%?  So, did millions of racists just forget their hate, for a while?  Does that make any sense at all?  Apparently, it makes perfect sense to Carter and Dowd.  President Obama still hasn’t sunk to the approval depths that Bill Clinton reached or at which George W. Bush spent most of his 2nd term.  He still doesn’t suffer the same kinds of vitriolic attacks on who he is as a human being that either of those previous two presidents did.  Heck, his personal favorability rating is still in the 60s.  But he’s the poor victim of cruel, despicable racism.

Obama ran as something new, an agent of “hope” and “change” that would rise above the petty partisanship of the past, respect the ideas and concerns of people across the political spectrum, and be cautious, pragmatic, and above all else “serious,” in tackling the nation’s problems.  He has not followed through.  He has farmed out the writing of his big, important policies to the more radical members of his party.  He has cut the Republican Party out at nearly every turn, and accuses them of partisanship and bad faith whenever they express their opposition to his plans.  He has expanded the role of government, dramatically, and plans to do so even more.  And he expects all of his plans to be past hastily, regardless of how radical they may be.  He has misinterpreted the public hunger for a change in how political business is conducted as a desire for fundamental change in the foundations of our country.  This is why public opinion has started to swing against him.  This is why the frustration of his political opponents has begun to bubble over.  Not because of some rediscovered racism.

I even held out slight hope that President Obama would really be something different.  That he’d be able to inspire the nation to have a respectful, serious discussion about how to address some of the big problems we face.  I didn’t really believe it, based on the positions he’d taken in the past, and the outrageous (and uncritically reported) promises he made during the campaign.  But I did believe that he was a decent man, and that he just might be able to change our politics for the better, even though I might not agree with his political philosophy.  I know now that I was wrong to hope.  Either that… or maybe I’m just a racist.

The President Thinks You’re An Idiot

Imagine:  It’s 5 AM.  You’re tied up and stuck on some railroad tracks, certain to die, if no one comes along to free you before the 4 PM train comes through.  From somewhere over on your left, a man claiming to be your hero appears, telling you he can burn the ropes off of you and pull you from the tracks, but he thinks your shoes are stuck, so he says he’ll have to cut off your feet.  Oh, and he’s going to blow up the tracks, too — just to be safe.  You’re not too excited about his solution.  Then, from somewhere to your right another person appears.  He tells you there’s no need for fire or hacksaws, he can just untie the rope (and your shoes, if they’re really stuck) and you can walk away.  Hero-man on your left shouts at you that his way is better, and that he must do it NOW!  The other guy repeats that such drastic measures are not necessary, but hero-man presses on.  “Some people say we should do nothing!  But doing nothing will be much worse than my plan,” he assures you.

This is what our president is doing.  He’s proposing fire and hacksaws and demolition crews to avert the imminent disaster that our health care system will lead us to, and equating anyone advocating a less drastic alternative with someone wanting to do nothing.  He did the same exact thing with the stimulus bill, claiming a $750B mess of Democrat pet projects — a bill he did not write and probably did not read — was absolutely necessary to rescue the economy, and had to be passed immediately.  Anyone who disagreed was said to prefer to “do nothing,” the implication being that they did not care about suffering Americans.  Now, he wants to completely overhaul the US health care system, using new powers and hundreds of pages of new rules and regulations, involving the government deeply in an area in which it is at least questionable (to any reasonable person) for it to be involved.  And he wants his plan approved before people have time to really understand it.  Those who believe that he is going too far?  According to him, they just want to do nothing.  This has been his m.o. all along: promote his plans by attacking straw men.

Can this strategy work?  Only on idiots.  Yet the president uses it, repeatedly.  You decide what that means.

A Horrible Tragedy Turns Disgusting

Today we learned that the woman who drove her minivan the wrong way on a local New York highway, killing 5 children, 3 men, and herself, when she collided head-on with an SUV, was drunk and high.  According to the toxicology report, her BAL was .19, and had enough THC in her system to indicate that she had smoked pot as recently as 15 minutes before the accident.  Since she was near the end of a 4-hour trip, that means she had been drinking and smoking while the kids were in the car.

When I first heard about the accident, in which the driver, her 2-year-old daughter and 3 nieces were killed, along with the 3 men in the SUV, I was sickened by the tragedy of it all.  Four young lives ended.  (Miraculously, the woman’s 5-year-old son survived the crash.)  The driver’s brother, father of the 3 girls, had spoken to her (and to one of his daughters) while they were on the road, and told her to wait, and that he would come and pick them up.  Now his girls are gone.  His babies.  Gone.  Her husband lost his baby girl.  And the families of the 3 men lost loved ones.  For nothing.

It was vary sad.  At first, reports said she had called her bother to tell him she wasn’t feeling well, which is why he offered to pick everyone up.  So, even from the start, it did seem that poor judgment had caused the tragedy.  But still, it was just a very sad story.  Now, with the news of the woman being drunk and stoned, the story has turned disgusting.  As a father, I cannot help but be furious at this woman, who’s husband and brother trusted her with their children, and who then made the selfish decision to drive on, even though she knew (enough to call her brother) that she should not be behind the wheel.  It makes me feel physically sick to think about it.

Perhaps there’s more to this story.  The details are still sketchy.  How did she start out on a 4-hour trip, at 9:30 in the morning, “fine,” as witnesses have reported, and wind up drunk and stoned 4 hours later?  She would have had to guzzle vodka (a bottle of Absolut was found in the car) and smoke up in the middle of the trip.  Why would she do that?  Regardless of the reasons, it’s hard not to judge the woman as selfish and irresponsible beyond belief.  I’m sad for the children.  I’m sad for the parents who’ve lost them.  I’m sad for the families of the other men.  And I’m angry at this woman.

***

Note:  I had originally linked to a NY Post article for this story, but decided to use a different source because of the Post’s inappropriate use of wordplay in their title: “CRASH MOM WAS FULLY ‘LOADED’”  Great time to make puns.  How embarassing.

‘Health Care Mythology’ Meets Reality

Just read an excellent breakdown of the flawed thinking behind many of the justifications for the radical restructuring of the US health care system being pushed by the Obama Administration.  It’s somewhat long (though not a dry read), so I won’t rehash the arguments here.  But I did want to highlight something that I think was expressed beautifully, and does a better job of getting across a point I tried to make, in a previous post, about access to health care not being a right:

Listing rights generally involves enumerating things you may do without interference (the right to free speech) or may not be done to you without your permission (illegal search and seizure, loud boy-band music in public spaces). They are protections, not gifts of material goods. Material goods and services must be taken from others, or provided by their labor, so if you believe you have an absolute right to them, and others don’t choose to provide it to you, you then have a “right” to steal from them.

Exactly.

Come On, Krugman, Aren’t You Smarter Than That?

Paul Krugman gets a lot of respect, and perhaps deservedly so.  In 2008, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics (a fact used to sell papers, I guess, like “Academy Award Winner” is used to sell movies).  So, he’s “influential,” as they say, and, one would guess, intelligent.  His Nobel was given for his work regarding international trade — but, apparently, that means he’s an expert on “economics.”  However, I happen to think he’s wrong about economic policy, pretty much all of the time.  I read his work because, being an influential lefty economist, he lends intellectual heft to the left’s economic policy agenda.  But I often find myself shaking my head at many of the things he says as they seem unbelievable, coming from someone who’s supposed to “get” economics.  Normally, I just let it go, but I couldn’t, this time.

In an op-ed in the NY Times about how the “Blue Dogs” aren’t making sense, Krugman drops these gems:

This would stop insurers from gaming the system by covering only healthy people.

On the other side, individuals would also be prevented from gaming the system: Americans would be required to buy insurance even if they’re currently healthy, rather than signing up only when they need care.

“Gaming the system?”  It’s “gaming the system” to not want to insure people against the chance of illness when they already have it?  It’s “gaming the system” to not want to buy something you do not want or need until you decide that you want or may need it?  So, is it “gaming the system” to not buy shoes every time you go shopping, and to only buy them when yours are wearing out?  Is that “gaming the system?”  Spending your money in the way you see fit is somehow cheating?  Providing a service in a way that allows you to sustain a business is somehow unethical?

Apply this “thinking” to housing and mortgages.  Are lenders “gaming the system” by lending in such a way that they can profit from the money they lend?  Should they not be allowed to consider risk?  Should everyone, regardless of whether they plan to buy a home this year or in 10 years (or never), be required to take out and start paying for a mortgage now, so that they’ll have it, should they ever need it, or so that lenders will make enough money to overcome losses from risky lending?  Or is it “gaming the system” to wait and take out a loan when they need one?

Come on, Mr. Krugman.  You’re smart, right?  How about applying some of your understanding of scale and consumer behavior toward making the economics of the free market health care system work?  Describe some models under which insurers can leverage scale and the power of open competition to continue to make money while expanding access to care.  Show consumers how they can pool their resources and use scale, choice, and competition to their advantage.  That’s what you should be doing, instead of criticizing people for not wanting to be forced to provide services to support a system that will destroy their incentive to continue to do so, or to hand over money to support a system that will likely wind up limiting their freedom.

Well, Something Sure Was ‘Ill Chosen’

“I could’ve calibrated those words differently.”

This is how President Obama hopes to defuse the the controversy he created, when he decided to basically tag some cops in Massachusetts as at least stupid, if not racist.  Yes, I know he didn’t exactly call the cops racist, but he did link their “stupid” behavior with the “long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”  How did brilliant Mr. Obama expect people to take his statement?  He was saying that either the cops were stupid for arresting Gates knowing how it would look, or that the arrest itself was stupid (i.e., wrong) and they only did it because they must be racist.  Either way, it was a ridiculous thing for him to say without (as he admitted) having all the facts.

Obama conceded his words had been ill-chosen, but he stopped short of a public apology.

In typical spin-it-as-somebody-else’s-problem form, the White House has said the president “would regret distracting [the media] with obsessions,” when asked about his comments.  Right, that’s the problem with what he said, that it’s going to cause the obsessive media to be distracted.  It’s not that he unjustifiably labeled some cops as racist (whether intentionally or not) and stupid.  It’s not that he stoked racial tensions, without even knowing what the heck he was talking about.  It’s not that he, the leader of our government, reactively called into question the integrity of law enforcement in America.  No.  It’s that he drew some attention away from the disaster that his health care reform proposal is becoming.  I’m sure he really regrets that.

“Could’ve calibrated those words differently,” comes up way short of what is required here to make this right.  How about that fresh candidness that you were supposed to be bringing to politics, Mr. President?  “I’m the one who acted stupidly, by stoking racial tensions unnecessarily.”  That would be more like it.

One by one, this president is destroying every reason that a large number of moderate Democrats, independents, and even some Republicans were able to support him, or at least hope that he would be something different.  Great work.

Good for the Goose…?

The other day, I saw an article about how President Obama is opposed to the move by congress to restore some of the dealerships cut in the restructuring plans of GM and Chrysler.  While I happen to agree with the president, 100%, that the dealers should not be reinstated, it still struck me as funny that the president is essentially telling congress not to do what the president himself has done:  intervene in what should be a matter handled by the bankruptcy courts and the parties involved in the business relationships impacted by the bankruptcy.  Just as the president stepped in to “save” the automakers, with “saving jobs” as the stated rationale and rewarding political supporters as the practical effect, the various representatives simply want to do the same thing.  This is yet another example of why it is stupid to get the government involved in running businesses.  Congress has just as much of a legitimate claim — as representatives of the taxpayer owners of these companies — as the administration does for making business decisions (good, bad or terrible).

Meanwhile, I heard President Obama on the radio today, dismissing critics of the ridiculous monstrosity of a health care reform bill working its way through congress as simply trying to “score political points.”  Right.  Couldn’t be that anyone who doesn’t like the bill might have any legitimate concerns about handing over so much more power and responsibility to the federal government, or about the price tag, or the possible effects on the quality of care.  No.  They just want to stop these thousand plus pages of complex legislation from flying through congress, before anyone can even truly understand what they say, for political gain.  I see.  So, when your were on the campaign trail, Mr. President, and you criticized anything your opponent said, or the previous administration did, or when you were a Senator (all those long 3+ years) and you spoke out against or voted to block legislation you did not agree with, was that simply to “score political points?”  How absurd.  Oh yeah, I forgot — change, right?

Sotomayor Should Be Approved – That’s How It Works

I have no idea how “liberal” or “moderate” or “activist” or “restrained” Judge Sotomayor really is.  But it doesn’t really matter.  The people of the United States elected a liberal Democrat as president, and gave him a large, sympathetic majority in the US Senate.  That means that, barring the discovery of any truly disqualifying behavior (abuse of her position on the bench, illegal activity), the president should get his choice.  Every Republican in the Senate should vote to approve the appointment.  Their job is “advice and consent” — that’s all.  While I’m sure the president didn’t seek much advice from Republicans, and probably disregarded any he received, it is still not the responsibility of the Senate to make the appointment.  That is the sole responsibility of the president, whether a Republican or Democrat.  The Senate’s role is basically to guard against an outrageous appointment.   So, approver her, Republicans, and don’t make a silly show of the hearings. And next election cycle, try making a better case for your point of view about the role of government, the importance of the Constitution, and how the Supreme Court fits into that picture.