OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
- HEALTH CARE LEGISLATION BOONDOGGLE & CONSTITUTIONAL POWER GRAB ATTEMPT
by Rowan Scarborough
09/21/2009
The House Democrats' huge health care bill bestows immense powers on one Washington bureaucrat who it authorizes to regulate every step of insurance buying and to collect any data on the American people the czar deems necessary to do the job.
The position is called the Health Choices Commissioner. The post will be filled by the president and confirmed by the Senate to oversee a brand new government agency whose health industry powers seem boundless under the bill. This person, and this person alone, will decide whether a health coverage plan is acceptable to Washington or not.
"He will rigidly and vigorously defined the choices that are available to you," said Robert E. Moffit, a health policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
It is a massive shift in state's rights, moving decisions made by legislatures, governors and local insurance commissioners from the people to one desk in Washington.
"The big story in the House bill is that what you're looking at is a massive transfer of regulatory authority from the states to the federal government over health insurance," Moffit said. "This basically will undermine state independence, innovation in the provision of health insurance, the writing of health insurance and regulation. States vary from state to state on the kind of rules governing health insurance. What this does, it federalizes the entire process."
The choices commissioner will create a single, national insurance exchange -- a place to shop for private insurance or the federal government option favored by liberals -- and decide which companies can participate.
Because of the way the bill is written, almost certainly all private insurers will want to join the exchange and compete with the feds. Regardless of whether a company joins, the commissioner will rule on the acceptability of its plan, too. And by 2013, all individuals seeking insurance must apply through the exchange.
The commissioner will create the standards for all plans, meaning an insurer must meet his dictates on benefits or get out of the business. He can decide where companies can put their profits and tell them how to write brochures and other marketing tools.
The bill's section on Medicaid, a health care program for the poor, reads, "The commissioner shall establish effective methods for communicating in plain language and a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner."
In other words, languages other than English.
The commissioner also has free rein to audit any health plan and charge the company for costs. Moreover, Democrats have given the commissioner control over provider networks, meaning in theory he can decree the number of doctors or nurses or beds in a particular region.
"By concentrating so much authority into this one agency governed by a health choice commissioner and allowing the commissioner to have such vast discretion over what qualifies as health insurance, you're vesting an unelected bureaucracy with a tremendous amount of power," said Greg Conko, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "Certainly unprecedented. And then he has the authority to punish plans for breaching what he decides is the right way to provide insurance."
Perhaps the most disturbing power is an blank check to collect data -- a power that in the past has rankled liberals and the mainstream press. But in this case, with a Democrat bill backed by liberals, the prospect of unchecked "data mining" has stirred no leftist protest.
Under section 142, which details the commissioner's authority, the bill states:
"The Commissioner shall collect data for purposes of carrying out the Commissioner’s duties, including for purposes of promoting quality and value, protecting consumers, and addressing disparities in health and health care and may share such data with the Secretary of Health and Human Services."
That's it. No qualifiers. No limits. Analysts told HUMAN EVENTS under such broad language the commissioner's bureaucrats can obtained people's tax records, credit reports, employment history. They could argue the data is needed to understand the region's demographics, patient requirements and income trends.
Another section specifically gives the commissioner authority to read tax returns.
"It gives him basically a blank check to go after all kinds of stuff," Moffit told HUMAN EVENTS. "Whatever he decides he needs. It's at his discretion. One of the things that is outstanding about the health choices commissioner is that as a public official he has enormous discretion in the exercise of his duties. Certainly I've never seen anything like this in my experience."
Then there is the section letting the commissioner oversee private insurance company finances.
"It's basically saying how much you can spend on benefits and how much you can retain for administrative costs or profits," Moffit said. "The health choices commissioner is an enforcer."
To Moffit and other conservatives, the ultimate purpose of the national health exchange is to put private insurers out of business. Afterall, when one government bureaucrat, the commissioner, is writing the rules for everyone, who is he going to favor: private industry or the government?
Afterall, one section allows the commissioner to automatically enroll individuals in a health care plan. "Such process may involve a random assignment," the bill says. To conservatives, "random" means the commissioner will shoe-horn them into the federal government plan.
Mr. Scarborough is a national security writer who has written books on Donald Rumsfeld and the CIA, including the New York Times bestseller Rumsfeld's War.
Showing posts with label Socialized Health Care Unconstitutional. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socialized Health Care Unconstitutional. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Where's the health in health care reform?
By Mike Adams, Health Ranger
Natural News Editor
In the months and years ahead, you're going to hear a whole lot of talk about health care reform, but most of what you're going to hear is about reform, not health. You see, there's this great lie out there, this huge misconception, this big shell game, where all these politicians and power-hungry people think they can convince the public that health care reform is just about shifting paper around and deciding who pays.
But I say that you cannot talk about health care reform with any degree of honesty or credibility until you talk about health. None of the discussion I have seen from anybody out there – not the press, not the health care authorities, not the American Medical Association, not the politicians who are going to ride this issue all the way into public office – covers substantial ideas about actually making people healthier. So I ask: Where's the health in health care reform?
You can't reform your way out of chronic disease by changing who pays for it. You can't take away a nation of degenerative brain disorder sufferers and a whole generation of children who have been born with malfunctioning nervous systems because of the malnutrition the mothers have been experiencing. You can't take that away by changing who's writing the check. You can't solve obesity and diabetes by insuring all the uninsured. This is not a paperwork problem, yet that's the solution we hear out there. It's all about paperwork.
It's all trending towards a national system – a government-sponsored health care system, just like they have in Canada. Now, personally, I'm not necessarily for or against the government-sponsored system. I've seen countries do it very well; I've seen countries do it poorly, too. It's not the system that's good or bad; it's the idea that you can wiggle your way out of the health care crisis just by shuffling paperwork around and changing who's writing the checks to cover the costs.
Health care reform: Money vs. people
Now, let's get serious about this: If you want to reform health care, what are you really talking about here? You're talking about two things: Cost and people. And that's the order that most people think of them in, by the way. It's the money first. Why? As a nation, we're going bankrupt. We're already bankrupt, actually, but we're just making it even worse with these sky-high health care costs.
Our employers are going bankrupt trying to fund the health insurance of their employees. It makes U.S. workers unable to compete in the global marketplace. This is one of the reasons jobs are increasingly shifting overseas. It's because U.S. workers are just too expensive to insure due to our health care system (if you can call it that). I say you can't solve this problem by subsidizing insurance or by forcing employers to cover everybody. You can only solve the problem by making people healthier. You've got to address the health.
Now, secondly, it comes down to the people because now we have a whole nation of unprecedented illness and chronic disease. Anywhere from 25 to 46 percent of our nation is suffering from mental illness, depending on whom you ask. We have 40 percent of our people on prescription drugs – drugs that take away mental clarity and quality of life. These drugs are killing people at a rate that's approaching the Holocaust.
At the same time, we've got a nation with a public school system that continues to feed our children junk food, soft drinks and candy bars. The school lunch programs are a nutritional disaster. We've got hospitals serving hamburgers and fries. We've got hospitals where we can buy a pizza. "Come out of heart surgery and get yourself some extra cheese!"
Health reform starts with food reform
You see, all this talk about covering the uninsured and saving people money and all these ridiculous distractions like the Medicare drug discount card are all a shell game. It's all a show; it's just theater designed to keep people occupied so that nobody has to talk about the real issues.
The real issues start with the foods – that's right, the foods. These products are manufactured by big businesses that have a whole lot of influence in Washington, and they don't want anybody talking about them because their foods are causing these diseases. It's all that added sugar and white flour, and all those refined carbohydrates. You've got hydrogenated oils that function as brain poison and heart poison in the human body. You've got sodium nitrate that causes cancer. That's why people who consume processed meats have a risk of pancreatic cancer that is 67% percent higher than everybody else. You've got added salts, artificial colors, all kinds of preservatives and monosodium glutamate (MSG) hidden in foods. It all starts with the foods, so all this talk about who's going to pay for the disease is all just a distraction so no one has to talk about the foods and the beverages that are causing these diseases in the first place.
The food and beverage companies, of course, would love to keep it that way. They would love for everybody to just keep arguing over who's paying these sky-high prescription drug prices while ignoring the simple fact that prevention programs and junk food advertising bans could make prescription drugs practically irrelevant. Of course, all these drug companies say they need the money to "find a cure for cancer." What a brilliant con!
You don't need to find a cure for cancer if you stop poisoning the public with the national food supply. You don't need a cure for cancer if nobody has cancer. The way you have a population that's cancer-free is to teach people about the healing power of sunlight – about getting some sunlight and some vitamin D. You teach people to avoid these dangerous ingredients and you ban them from the food supply: You outlaw hydrogenated oils. You outlaw refined sugar. You outlaw sodium nitrate. That's what you do if you want to reform health care.
It's the only approach that makes any sense. It's the only sane approach. That's exactly why no one's talking about it. No, we can't have anything that actually works in this country because the pharmaceutical industry would lose money. What would all those people who work for the hospitals do and what would the drug companies and all those drug reps and doctors do? Gee, what would people do for jobs if so many people weren't so sick?
Big Business makes big bucks off a nation of diseased people
Health care and all the discussion about health care reform is really a discussion about managing a nation of diseased people. It's not about ending disease. It's not about curing cancer. It's not about preventing heart disease. It's about managing these illnesses. The question essentially becomes: "How are we going to keep people on just enough prescription drugs so we make a lot of money from them, but not so many that it kills them?" That's basically the strategy of Big Pharma. "How are we going to extract a whole lot of profits out of the general public and call it science-based medicine?"
There are all sorts of people – most of them in Washington D.C. – who are scheming about how to make this happen. And sitting to the right of them is, of course, the food industry – the Big Sugar people, the oil processors and the grain processors – the big food companies. They're all saying, "Hey, don't mention the foods. Don't talk about us. Make sure you frame this whole discussion of health care reform in terms of who pays for it and who gets coverage." That's because if they can keep you in that little box of thought, then you won't talk about the causes of these diseases, which are largely found in foods.
Then over on the left side of these decision makers, you've got reps from the pharmaceutical industry, and they're saying, "Make sure our drugs are covered because we want to keep selling drugs and have the government pay for them. That way we'll shift money from the pockets of taxpayers to ourselves and our investors and we'll call it public health."
Wow, what a great scheme, and if the FDA is protecting the U.S. drug market, they can set any price they want because the FDA will say the drugs from overseas are dangerous. The drugs you buy in the United States are perfectly safe, but if you buy the exact same chemical compound from Canada, "No, no, those are dangerous. You're unpatriotic. How dare you buy them from overseas? You must buy them here in America where we set the prices." It's called a monopoly. It's called protectionism. It's called screwing the U.S. consumer and it's what's going on right now, every single day in America.
Everyone's out to make a buck
Unless we see a radical shift towards disease prevention rather than disease treatment in this country, what we're really going to end up with is a health care system that is ultimately designed to do two things. Number one: Extract as much money as possible from the taxpayers and shift it into the pockets of drug companies. Number two: Distract people from the real causes of disease so that everyone continues to believe that disease is just a matter of bad luck or bad genes, and that only drugs can treat or cure any disease.
It seems that everybody out there is greedy and wants to make more money. And most don't really care who suffers in order to make that money. The politicians, they want to get in power. How do you get in power? You keep big, rich companies happy. That's how you get in power, and that's how you stay in power. And once you're in power, you thank them by passing new legislation that makes sure there is a windfall of public money headed in their direction.
And how do you do that? You announce the Medicare drug discount card and make it illegal for the government to negotiate volume discounts with drug companies. You mandate mental health screening for the entire population. You make sure that health insurance has to cover Viagra even if it's being prescribed to sex offenders, which is exactly what's going on in this country. That's a good example of how insane our health insurance industry and health care coverage really is. We're using taxpayer dollars to pay for Viagra for people who have been convicted of sex crimes.
Health care reform goes far beyond crunching numbers
Now, I repeat my first statement here, which is that you can't have an honest debate about health care reform unless you address the issue of health. Yet in the months and years ahead, you're going to see a whole lot of people out there with all kinds of credentials, degrees and positions of authority, who are going to try to convince you, the consumer, that health care reform has nothing to do with heath. It only has to do with promoting a financial shell game by pushing nonsensical ideas like "the government here to rescue you." We're going to mandate coverage for all drugs and it's going to be paid for by the government.
They don't talk about who funds the government: The taxpayers. It's your money. It's just a matter of how you wish to redistribute it. And frankly, if our nation continues to be so diseased (cancer, obesity and diabetes are all at record heights), then we're going to basically drive ourselves into extreme poverty because you cannot afford to keep funding chronic disease and the treatment of symptoms through prescription drugs and expensive medical procedures. You can't keep doing that over and over, with the same patients, generation after generation, if you want your nation to be financially solvent. You just can't keep doing that. You can't spend 25 percent of the GDP on health care and be the world economic leader. Do the math.
You've got other nations spending a fraction of that on health care. They manage to cover everybody. Most nations will spend at least one or ten percent of their health care budget on prevention. But here in the U.S., we don't spend anything on prevention. Nothing. In this country, we think prevention should almost be outlawed. "How dare you teach people about nutrition? It's unproven," say these doctors, medical researchers, medical journals and corrupt health authorities. "How dare you teach people to heal themselves with foods?" They want to outlaw healing. They want to outlaw nutrition. They want to make sure people only choose drugs. Choose drugs: that's what makes money for the people in power.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
The bottom line is that if you have a nation of people who are healthy, your health care costs plummet. Do you know what my own personal health care expenses are? Zero. I spend nothing on over-the-counter or prescription drugs and nothing on doctors; nothing whatsoever.
I do spend some of my money on prevention, of course. How do I do that? I visit natural health care practitioners and naturopaths to keep me healthy – not because something hurts or is falling off, not because I'm having a heart attack, or I'm going blind or I'm having seizures and my leg went numb because I'm diabetic and I'm still drinking soft drinks by the gallon. I'm going to my health practitioners because I want to stay healthy. It's all about prevention, people. Prevention is dirt cheap. So is good nutrition.
A drugged nation can't think clearly about health
Now, here's the ironic thing about all of this: No matter what health care reforms they come up with and try to pitch to the public, no matter how ludicrous and insane they may seem, most people will buy into them because half the nation is drugged. I'm not making this up. Half the nation is literally drugged up. They've lost mental clarity. They can't think straight. They can't make good decisions anymore. They've got brain fog side effects from their prescription drugs (like anti-inflammatory drugs).
So, when a politician comes along and says, "We're going to provide universal health care and cover everybody," people are going to say, "I'm voting for you!" But they don't realize what it means. What it means is financial bankruptcy because, again, if you don't address the health, there is no real solution. We are at a crossroads here in terms of the history of human civilization on this planet. What's going to happen to this particular nation, the United States of America?
I think that if we had some courage, some honesty and some people who were willing to stand up and tell the truth, we could turn this around. We could ban junk food advertising to children. We could ban dangerous ingredients. We could arrest the criminals at the drug companies and decision makers at the FDA who have deliberately put us in this mess. We could reform the USDA and break the ties between food companies and regulators. There are people in government who have been colluding with the very industries they are supposed to be regulating.
With some major changes in place, in one generation we could have a nation of really healthy and happy children who have the ability to learn well, who are emotionally balanced and who are not predisposed to diseases like schizophrenia, type 2 diabetes, heart disease or obesity. We could have a nation that could get back to doing some good things, some creative things, and a nation that could take a leadership role in the world.
But we've got to make that decision now because, if we don't make that decision, if we go the other way – that is, the way of protecting special interest groups, protecting the corrupt profits of drug companies and keeping the FDA in power so it can continue to exploit public health in order to send more profits to the drug companies – if we make this decision, we keep protecting the politicians that act on the interests of private business instead of protecting the public. If we allow junk food companies to keep marketing to children, if we allow our schools to be infiltrated by all these foods that promote disease and learning disabilities and aggressive behavior in young children, then we are doomed as a nation. We really are. We're heading down the path of self destruction and we won't be the first nation to go down in history as one that imploded.
America could fall, simply from bad health
You might recall that the Roman Empire did sort of the same thing. It's amazing what a bit of heavy metal in the plumbing will do for a city. In the case of ancient Rome, the lead poisoning drove the citizens (and their leaders) mad. But today, instead of poisoning ourselves with lead, we are poisoning ourselves with food additives. We are doing it consciously. We know it's happening. It isn't a mystery, but we are allowing it to happen because the special interest groups are running the country; they are arm-twisting these politicians who don't have the courage to stand up and do what's right for the people.
If we don't make some changes fast, we're going to get past the point of sanity. We may be past that point already. We're going to get to a point where maybe 60 or 70 percent of the people in this country are diseased and beyond the ability to think. How do you run a democracy when 60 or 70 percent of the people don't have the presence of mind to even vote rationally? How do you run a democracy like that? Well, you don't. It's gone. It's basically run by the special interest groups, just a few people in power who are acting like it's a democracy. I think that's actually where we are today.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we can turn this around, but I don't see any indication of it. I don't see any honest discussion of health care reform, do you? Look around out there! We don't see people talking about health care reform and saying, "We need to address the health: We need to ban dangerous food ingredients. We need to teach people about sunlight and water. We need to educate mothers on how to have good nutrition for their children." Have you seen any of that going on out there? I haven't and I've been paying attention. I review hundreds of news articles every single week and I haven't seen a word about this. It's all about who pays for the drugs.
A nation invested in disease must change from the top down
We are a nation invested in disease. There are so many vested interests in chronic disease that it's almost impossible to change the system incrementally. You have to really reform this system from the top down. You have to overhaul it; you have to unleash a health care revolution.
All the top Fortune 500 companies out there (and a lot of people's egos, careers and positions of power) are all invested in disease. Did you know the top ten drug companies in America make more money than the other 490 companies on the Fortune 500 list?
On top of that, you've got the American Cancer Society, which is based on cancer. You've got the American Diabetes Association, which is based on diabetes. You've got drug companies that are counting on the next wave of Alzheimer's patients and counting on another generation of obese children growing up and consuming these foods so that they're obese just like their parents are today. They are counting on all of this. They've mapped this out and they're rolling out new, patented drugs to cash in!
So, what happens if you try to challenge this system? Oh boy, you're in for a ride! You're going to be discredited. You're going to be censored. You're going to be attacked because there's simply too much money at stake here. Politicians and power brokers are counting on this disease to pay some salaries, make some profit, pocket some cash and to keep them in office because when there's a health care crisis going on, somebody can always get elected by promising a solution, regardless of whether or not that solution makes any sense.
Any real solution to health care must involve addressing health; any solution that addresses health must challenge the status quo; any solution that challenges the status quo will be viciously attacked by the interests that already hold positions of power and profit in our nation. So, you see how this system is very difficult to change. In fact, if I was a betting man – and I'm not – I would bet that this system's going to implode. I don't think we're going to turn this around.
I think only a few individuals are going to emerge from this with any degree of sanity or health, and those will be the individuals who take charge of their own health, who work outside the system, who find a naturopath, who say no to prescription drugs and who start feeding themselves healing foods and outstanding nutrition. They'll be parents who take charge of the health of their children and don't feed them soft drinks and candy bars and who don't allow them to eat those nutritionally depleted school lunches. These are the people who are going to emerge from this system as being sane, healthy and emotionally balanced.
But the masses will probably never come around to the power of nutrition. If you have a nation of people who are mad (who don't have fully functioning nervous systems), I don't think you can last very long in the competitive global marketplace. You've got people in India who make top U.S. students seem retarded. You've got people in China who work for a fraction of what we work for. You've got schools with real quality standards all around the world; meanwhile, in America, we have daycare that we call public education. We're stuffing our children full of these toxic foods, just to make sure they don't "misbehave." You can't compete like that anymore.
No health discussion = No health care solution
Unless we make some changes and really start talking about the health in health care reform, nothing's going to change. It will just be the status quo applied to another generation of sorry, suckered Americans who are now chronically diseased just like their parents. To drive this point home, America used to be number one in a lot of things: We used to be number one in information technology and computer programming. We used to be number one in science and math. You know what we're number one in today? Mental illness. We are the best in the world at driving our population mad. That's right, mental illness – number one in the world; no one comes close to us. We're also number one in obesity.
Here in the U.S., we poisoned an entire generation with fast food, sugars and hydrogenated oils. We made sure they never got good nutrition. We drove them mad with violent television programming, violent video games and insane public school systems. We did a good number on those kids, didn't we? What are we going to do when those kids grow up and they have diseases? What are we going to do then? There's an estimate out there that says that 100 percent of the population will be diabetic if the current trends continue – just in the next decade or so, 100 percent. Think about that and then think about the real conversation out there about health care reform. Remember, if you don't address health, any discussion is essentially pointless.
It's like the captain of a sinking ship arguing about the color of the deck paint.
Now frankly, if the mentally unstable people who run this country were crazy enough to put me in charge of the national health system, oh my, we would have this thing licked in a couple of years. Every pharmaceutical company out there would hate me and the food companies would hate me because I'd make them use nutritious ingredients. I would outlaw those toxic substances that are now added to the food supply (like MSG, aspartame, yeast extract, etc.).
I would make school lunch programs actually serve nutritious food to children. I would ban junk food vending machines. I would have the taxpayers pay for nutritional supplements for all pregnant women because we would save billions of dollars in long-term health care costs by spending PENNIES on nutrition for each expectant mother. I would have some pretty radical ideas that would definitely disturb the status quo. Not surprisingly, we'd end up with a generation of people who are actually healthy.
Wow, imagine that for a change. Drug companies would go out of business. And that's why they can't let it happen. That's why they would never let a guy like me, or even someone with a lot of public health credentials who shared my beliefs, call the shots. It's just too good. It solves so many problems. It eliminates all these jobs in the health care and disease management industries. It would shrink the pharmaceutical industry. It would shrink the sick care system out there. Hospital beds would go empty.
People would live longer and start collecting more social security because now they'd be living longer. The government would have to pay more money because these people wouldn't be dying off as they are today. It would cost the government and the pharmaceutical companies money. Gee, the only people that would be better off would be... well... real people! The public would experience happier people, longer lives, greater cognitive function, greater clarity of mind and healthier, happier children. There would be far less disease, more stable mental states and enhanced learning abilities. These are the benefits that would occur.
So, call me a pessimist if you like, but I think I'm actually a realist and an optimist on a personal level. I'm an optimist in my own health and the health of everybody who wants to take responsibility for their own health. And there are many, many people like that. Just don't expect to hear anything sane or useful from our public health officials or politicians who claim to be solving this health crisis with their ridiculous proposals for health care reform. This is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, for Truth Publishing.
Buzz up!
Natural News Editor
In the months and years ahead, you're going to hear a whole lot of talk about health care reform, but most of what you're going to hear is about reform, not health. You see, there's this great lie out there, this huge misconception, this big shell game, where all these politicians and power-hungry people think they can convince the public that health care reform is just about shifting paper around and deciding who pays.
But I say that you cannot talk about health care reform with any degree of honesty or credibility until you talk about health. None of the discussion I have seen from anybody out there – not the press, not the health care authorities, not the American Medical Association, not the politicians who are going to ride this issue all the way into public office – covers substantial ideas about actually making people healthier. So I ask: Where's the health in health care reform?
You can't reform your way out of chronic disease by changing who pays for it. You can't take away a nation of degenerative brain disorder sufferers and a whole generation of children who have been born with malfunctioning nervous systems because of the malnutrition the mothers have been experiencing. You can't take that away by changing who's writing the check. You can't solve obesity and diabetes by insuring all the uninsured. This is not a paperwork problem, yet that's the solution we hear out there. It's all about paperwork.
It's all trending towards a national system – a government-sponsored health care system, just like they have in Canada. Now, personally, I'm not necessarily for or against the government-sponsored system. I've seen countries do it very well; I've seen countries do it poorly, too. It's not the system that's good or bad; it's the idea that you can wiggle your way out of the health care crisis just by shuffling paperwork around and changing who's writing the checks to cover the costs.
Health care reform: Money vs. people
Now, let's get serious about this: If you want to reform health care, what are you really talking about here? You're talking about two things: Cost and people. And that's the order that most people think of them in, by the way. It's the money first. Why? As a nation, we're going bankrupt. We're already bankrupt, actually, but we're just making it even worse with these sky-high health care costs.
Our employers are going bankrupt trying to fund the health insurance of their employees. It makes U.S. workers unable to compete in the global marketplace. This is one of the reasons jobs are increasingly shifting overseas. It's because U.S. workers are just too expensive to insure due to our health care system (if you can call it that). I say you can't solve this problem by subsidizing insurance or by forcing employers to cover everybody. You can only solve the problem by making people healthier. You've got to address the health.
Now, secondly, it comes down to the people because now we have a whole nation of unprecedented illness and chronic disease. Anywhere from 25 to 46 percent of our nation is suffering from mental illness, depending on whom you ask. We have 40 percent of our people on prescription drugs – drugs that take away mental clarity and quality of life. These drugs are killing people at a rate that's approaching the Holocaust.
At the same time, we've got a nation with a public school system that continues to feed our children junk food, soft drinks and candy bars. The school lunch programs are a nutritional disaster. We've got hospitals serving hamburgers and fries. We've got hospitals where we can buy a pizza. "Come out of heart surgery and get yourself some extra cheese!"
Health reform starts with food reform
You see, all this talk about covering the uninsured and saving people money and all these ridiculous distractions like the Medicare drug discount card are all a shell game. It's all a show; it's just theater designed to keep people occupied so that nobody has to talk about the real issues.
The real issues start with the foods – that's right, the foods. These products are manufactured by big businesses that have a whole lot of influence in Washington, and they don't want anybody talking about them because their foods are causing these diseases. It's all that added sugar and white flour, and all those refined carbohydrates. You've got hydrogenated oils that function as brain poison and heart poison in the human body. You've got sodium nitrate that causes cancer. That's why people who consume processed meats have a risk of pancreatic cancer that is 67% percent higher than everybody else. You've got added salts, artificial colors, all kinds of preservatives and monosodium glutamate (MSG) hidden in foods. It all starts with the foods, so all this talk about who's going to pay for the disease is all just a distraction so no one has to talk about the foods and the beverages that are causing these diseases in the first place.
The food and beverage companies, of course, would love to keep it that way. They would love for everybody to just keep arguing over who's paying these sky-high prescription drug prices while ignoring the simple fact that prevention programs and junk food advertising bans could make prescription drugs practically irrelevant. Of course, all these drug companies say they need the money to "find a cure for cancer." What a brilliant con!
You don't need to find a cure for cancer if you stop poisoning the public with the national food supply. You don't need a cure for cancer if nobody has cancer. The way you have a population that's cancer-free is to teach people about the healing power of sunlight – about getting some sunlight and some vitamin D. You teach people to avoid these dangerous ingredients and you ban them from the food supply: You outlaw hydrogenated oils. You outlaw refined sugar. You outlaw sodium nitrate. That's what you do if you want to reform health care.
It's the only approach that makes any sense. It's the only sane approach. That's exactly why no one's talking about it. No, we can't have anything that actually works in this country because the pharmaceutical industry would lose money. What would all those people who work for the hospitals do and what would the drug companies and all those drug reps and doctors do? Gee, what would people do for jobs if so many people weren't so sick?
Big Business makes big bucks off a nation of diseased people
Health care and all the discussion about health care reform is really a discussion about managing a nation of diseased people. It's not about ending disease. It's not about curing cancer. It's not about preventing heart disease. It's about managing these illnesses. The question essentially becomes: "How are we going to keep people on just enough prescription drugs so we make a lot of money from them, but not so many that it kills them?" That's basically the strategy of Big Pharma. "How are we going to extract a whole lot of profits out of the general public and call it science-based medicine?"
There are all sorts of people – most of them in Washington D.C. – who are scheming about how to make this happen. And sitting to the right of them is, of course, the food industry – the Big Sugar people, the oil processors and the grain processors – the big food companies. They're all saying, "Hey, don't mention the foods. Don't talk about us. Make sure you frame this whole discussion of health care reform in terms of who pays for it and who gets coverage." That's because if they can keep you in that little box of thought, then you won't talk about the causes of these diseases, which are largely found in foods.
Then over on the left side of these decision makers, you've got reps from the pharmaceutical industry, and they're saying, "Make sure our drugs are covered because we want to keep selling drugs and have the government pay for them. That way we'll shift money from the pockets of taxpayers to ourselves and our investors and we'll call it public health."
Wow, what a great scheme, and if the FDA is protecting the U.S. drug market, they can set any price they want because the FDA will say the drugs from overseas are dangerous. The drugs you buy in the United States are perfectly safe, but if you buy the exact same chemical compound from Canada, "No, no, those are dangerous. You're unpatriotic. How dare you buy them from overseas? You must buy them here in America where we set the prices." It's called a monopoly. It's called protectionism. It's called screwing the U.S. consumer and it's what's going on right now, every single day in America.
Everyone's out to make a buck
Unless we see a radical shift towards disease prevention rather than disease treatment in this country, what we're really going to end up with is a health care system that is ultimately designed to do two things. Number one: Extract as much money as possible from the taxpayers and shift it into the pockets of drug companies. Number two: Distract people from the real causes of disease so that everyone continues to believe that disease is just a matter of bad luck or bad genes, and that only drugs can treat or cure any disease.
It seems that everybody out there is greedy and wants to make more money. And most don't really care who suffers in order to make that money. The politicians, they want to get in power. How do you get in power? You keep big, rich companies happy. That's how you get in power, and that's how you stay in power. And once you're in power, you thank them by passing new legislation that makes sure there is a windfall of public money headed in their direction.
And how do you do that? You announce the Medicare drug discount card and make it illegal for the government to negotiate volume discounts with drug companies. You mandate mental health screening for the entire population. You make sure that health insurance has to cover Viagra even if it's being prescribed to sex offenders, which is exactly what's going on in this country. That's a good example of how insane our health insurance industry and health care coverage really is. We're using taxpayer dollars to pay for Viagra for people who have been convicted of sex crimes.
Health care reform goes far beyond crunching numbers
Now, I repeat my first statement here, which is that you can't have an honest debate about health care reform unless you address the issue of health. Yet in the months and years ahead, you're going to see a whole lot of people out there with all kinds of credentials, degrees and positions of authority, who are going to try to convince you, the consumer, that health care reform has nothing to do with heath. It only has to do with promoting a financial shell game by pushing nonsensical ideas like "the government here to rescue you." We're going to mandate coverage for all drugs and it's going to be paid for by the government.
They don't talk about who funds the government: The taxpayers. It's your money. It's just a matter of how you wish to redistribute it. And frankly, if our nation continues to be so diseased (cancer, obesity and diabetes are all at record heights), then we're going to basically drive ourselves into extreme poverty because you cannot afford to keep funding chronic disease and the treatment of symptoms through prescription drugs and expensive medical procedures. You can't keep doing that over and over, with the same patients, generation after generation, if you want your nation to be financially solvent. You just can't keep doing that. You can't spend 25 percent of the GDP on health care and be the world economic leader. Do the math.
You've got other nations spending a fraction of that on health care. They manage to cover everybody. Most nations will spend at least one or ten percent of their health care budget on prevention. But here in the U.S., we don't spend anything on prevention. Nothing. In this country, we think prevention should almost be outlawed. "How dare you teach people about nutrition? It's unproven," say these doctors, medical researchers, medical journals and corrupt health authorities. "How dare you teach people to heal themselves with foods?" They want to outlaw healing. They want to outlaw nutrition. They want to make sure people only choose drugs. Choose drugs: that's what makes money for the people in power.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
The bottom line is that if you have a nation of people who are healthy, your health care costs plummet. Do you know what my own personal health care expenses are? Zero. I spend nothing on over-the-counter or prescription drugs and nothing on doctors; nothing whatsoever.
I do spend some of my money on prevention, of course. How do I do that? I visit natural health care practitioners and naturopaths to keep me healthy – not because something hurts or is falling off, not because I'm having a heart attack, or I'm going blind or I'm having seizures and my leg went numb because I'm diabetic and I'm still drinking soft drinks by the gallon. I'm going to my health practitioners because I want to stay healthy. It's all about prevention, people. Prevention is dirt cheap. So is good nutrition.
A drugged nation can't think clearly about health
Now, here's the ironic thing about all of this: No matter what health care reforms they come up with and try to pitch to the public, no matter how ludicrous and insane they may seem, most people will buy into them because half the nation is drugged. I'm not making this up. Half the nation is literally drugged up. They've lost mental clarity. They can't think straight. They can't make good decisions anymore. They've got brain fog side effects from their prescription drugs (like anti-inflammatory drugs).
So, when a politician comes along and says, "We're going to provide universal health care and cover everybody," people are going to say, "I'm voting for you!" But they don't realize what it means. What it means is financial bankruptcy because, again, if you don't address the health, there is no real solution. We are at a crossroads here in terms of the history of human civilization on this planet. What's going to happen to this particular nation, the United States of America?
I think that if we had some courage, some honesty and some people who were willing to stand up and tell the truth, we could turn this around. We could ban junk food advertising to children. We could ban dangerous ingredients. We could arrest the criminals at the drug companies and decision makers at the FDA who have deliberately put us in this mess. We could reform the USDA and break the ties between food companies and regulators. There are people in government who have been colluding with the very industries they are supposed to be regulating.
With some major changes in place, in one generation we could have a nation of really healthy and happy children who have the ability to learn well, who are emotionally balanced and who are not predisposed to diseases like schizophrenia, type 2 diabetes, heart disease or obesity. We could have a nation that could get back to doing some good things, some creative things, and a nation that could take a leadership role in the world.
But we've got to make that decision now because, if we don't make that decision, if we go the other way – that is, the way of protecting special interest groups, protecting the corrupt profits of drug companies and keeping the FDA in power so it can continue to exploit public health in order to send more profits to the drug companies – if we make this decision, we keep protecting the politicians that act on the interests of private business instead of protecting the public. If we allow junk food companies to keep marketing to children, if we allow our schools to be infiltrated by all these foods that promote disease and learning disabilities and aggressive behavior in young children, then we are doomed as a nation. We really are. We're heading down the path of self destruction and we won't be the first nation to go down in history as one that imploded.
America could fall, simply from bad health
You might recall that the Roman Empire did sort of the same thing. It's amazing what a bit of heavy metal in the plumbing will do for a city. In the case of ancient Rome, the lead poisoning drove the citizens (and their leaders) mad. But today, instead of poisoning ourselves with lead, we are poisoning ourselves with food additives. We are doing it consciously. We know it's happening. It isn't a mystery, but we are allowing it to happen because the special interest groups are running the country; they are arm-twisting these politicians who don't have the courage to stand up and do what's right for the people.
If we don't make some changes fast, we're going to get past the point of sanity. We may be past that point already. We're going to get to a point where maybe 60 or 70 percent of the people in this country are diseased and beyond the ability to think. How do you run a democracy when 60 or 70 percent of the people don't have the presence of mind to even vote rationally? How do you run a democracy like that? Well, you don't. It's gone. It's basically run by the special interest groups, just a few people in power who are acting like it's a democracy. I think that's actually where we are today.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we can turn this around, but I don't see any indication of it. I don't see any honest discussion of health care reform, do you? Look around out there! We don't see people talking about health care reform and saying, "We need to address the health: We need to ban dangerous food ingredients. We need to teach people about sunlight and water. We need to educate mothers on how to have good nutrition for their children." Have you seen any of that going on out there? I haven't and I've been paying attention. I review hundreds of news articles every single week and I haven't seen a word about this. It's all about who pays for the drugs.
A nation invested in disease must change from the top down
We are a nation invested in disease. There are so many vested interests in chronic disease that it's almost impossible to change the system incrementally. You have to really reform this system from the top down. You have to overhaul it; you have to unleash a health care revolution.
All the top Fortune 500 companies out there (and a lot of people's egos, careers and positions of power) are all invested in disease. Did you know the top ten drug companies in America make more money than the other 490 companies on the Fortune 500 list?
On top of that, you've got the American Cancer Society, which is based on cancer. You've got the American Diabetes Association, which is based on diabetes. You've got drug companies that are counting on the next wave of Alzheimer's patients and counting on another generation of obese children growing up and consuming these foods so that they're obese just like their parents are today. They are counting on all of this. They've mapped this out and they're rolling out new, patented drugs to cash in!
So, what happens if you try to challenge this system? Oh boy, you're in for a ride! You're going to be discredited. You're going to be censored. You're going to be attacked because there's simply too much money at stake here. Politicians and power brokers are counting on this disease to pay some salaries, make some profit, pocket some cash and to keep them in office because when there's a health care crisis going on, somebody can always get elected by promising a solution, regardless of whether or not that solution makes any sense.
Any real solution to health care must involve addressing health; any solution that addresses health must challenge the status quo; any solution that challenges the status quo will be viciously attacked by the interests that already hold positions of power and profit in our nation. So, you see how this system is very difficult to change. In fact, if I was a betting man – and I'm not – I would bet that this system's going to implode. I don't think we're going to turn this around.
I think only a few individuals are going to emerge from this with any degree of sanity or health, and those will be the individuals who take charge of their own health, who work outside the system, who find a naturopath, who say no to prescription drugs and who start feeding themselves healing foods and outstanding nutrition. They'll be parents who take charge of the health of their children and don't feed them soft drinks and candy bars and who don't allow them to eat those nutritionally depleted school lunches. These are the people who are going to emerge from this system as being sane, healthy and emotionally balanced.
But the masses will probably never come around to the power of nutrition. If you have a nation of people who are mad (who don't have fully functioning nervous systems), I don't think you can last very long in the competitive global marketplace. You've got people in India who make top U.S. students seem retarded. You've got people in China who work for a fraction of what we work for. You've got schools with real quality standards all around the world; meanwhile, in America, we have daycare that we call public education. We're stuffing our children full of these toxic foods, just to make sure they don't "misbehave." You can't compete like that anymore.
No health discussion = No health care solution
Unless we make some changes and really start talking about the health in health care reform, nothing's going to change. It will just be the status quo applied to another generation of sorry, suckered Americans who are now chronically diseased just like their parents. To drive this point home, America used to be number one in a lot of things: We used to be number one in information technology and computer programming. We used to be number one in science and math. You know what we're number one in today? Mental illness. We are the best in the world at driving our population mad. That's right, mental illness – number one in the world; no one comes close to us. We're also number one in obesity.
Here in the U.S., we poisoned an entire generation with fast food, sugars and hydrogenated oils. We made sure they never got good nutrition. We drove them mad with violent television programming, violent video games and insane public school systems. We did a good number on those kids, didn't we? What are we going to do when those kids grow up and they have diseases? What are we going to do then? There's an estimate out there that says that 100 percent of the population will be diabetic if the current trends continue – just in the next decade or so, 100 percent. Think about that and then think about the real conversation out there about health care reform. Remember, if you don't address health, any discussion is essentially pointless.
It's like the captain of a sinking ship arguing about the color of the deck paint.
Now frankly, if the mentally unstable people who run this country were crazy enough to put me in charge of the national health system, oh my, we would have this thing licked in a couple of years. Every pharmaceutical company out there would hate me and the food companies would hate me because I'd make them use nutritious ingredients. I would outlaw those toxic substances that are now added to the food supply (like MSG, aspartame, yeast extract, etc.).
I would make school lunch programs actually serve nutritious food to children. I would ban junk food vending machines. I would have the taxpayers pay for nutritional supplements for all pregnant women because we would save billions of dollars in long-term health care costs by spending PENNIES on nutrition for each expectant mother. I would have some pretty radical ideas that would definitely disturb the status quo. Not surprisingly, we'd end up with a generation of people who are actually healthy.
Wow, imagine that for a change. Drug companies would go out of business. And that's why they can't let it happen. That's why they would never let a guy like me, or even someone with a lot of public health credentials who shared my beliefs, call the shots. It's just too good. It solves so many problems. It eliminates all these jobs in the health care and disease management industries. It would shrink the pharmaceutical industry. It would shrink the sick care system out there. Hospital beds would go empty.
People would live longer and start collecting more social security because now they'd be living longer. The government would have to pay more money because these people wouldn't be dying off as they are today. It would cost the government and the pharmaceutical companies money. Gee, the only people that would be better off would be... well... real people! The public would experience happier people, longer lives, greater cognitive function, greater clarity of mind and healthier, happier children. There would be far less disease, more stable mental states and enhanced learning abilities. These are the benefits that would occur.
So, call me a pessimist if you like, but I think I'm actually a realist and an optimist on a personal level. I'm an optimist in my own health and the health of everybody who wants to take responsibility for their own health. And there are many, many people like that. Just don't expect to hear anything sane or useful from our public health officials or politicians who claim to be solving this health crisis with their ridiculous proposals for health care reform. This is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, for Truth Publishing.
Buzz up!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Dirty Secret No. 2 in Obamacare
By Chuck Norris
I've read on several blogs that if Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer, he should take care of universal health care. Cute.
The real fact is that neither I nor Obamacare (in its present form in any of the 1,000+ page versions like H.R. 3200) can provide the remedy.
In my last column I explained that dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is that the House bill grants government the authority to come into homes and usurp parental rights over child care development.
I have a few more secrets to share over these hot August political nights.
Dirty secret No. 2 in Obamacare is that Obama is not the leader of Obamacare. And neither is Congress. The one who has been spearheading the initiative behind the scenes is one who goes under the misnomer "adviser" to the Obama administration, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and breast oncologist and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. And "his bible" for health care reform is his book, "Healthcare Guaranteed."
Dr. Emanuel has served as special adviser to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget for health policy as far back as February, when he confessed to the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times that he was "working on (the) health care reform effort." The first draft of Obamacare?
If you want to know the future of America's universal health care, then you must understand the health care principles and plans of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. I find it far more than coincidence how much Dr. Emanuel's book parallels Obamacare's philosophy, strategy and legislation.
First, Dr. Emanuel rejects any attempts at incremental change or reform to our health care system (Page 185). What's needed, he concludes in his book (p. 171), is an immediate and totally comprehensive reconstruction of health care as we know it. That of course describes the vision of Obamacare to a tee.
Second, in the chapter "Opening the door to comprehensive change" starting on p. 171 (which reads more like a political and mass-manipulating strategy than a health care manual), Emanuel drives home "a key political lesson: the need to rush the legislation through." (Seen this methodology being used lately?!)
He then cites historical proof: "Within a few months, President Johnson rammed the four central elements of his Great Society program through," and Medicare and Medicaid were born. Emanuel says that the reason the Clinton administration couldn't pass a health care bill was because it waited too long (after his inauguration – the political honeymoon period) and it "established a large task force that worked in secret. … The delay and the secrecy were deadly" (p. 181). Sounds to me that Dr. Emanuel is as much a political strategist as he is a doctor.
You are bearing witness to these political principles at work at this very moment in Washington and across this nation with Obamacare. President Obama and Dr. Emanuel both know that if too much time elapses their legislation is likely to die (and their preferences with it) because Americans will actually have time to examine it and come up with better alternatives.
Third, as Obama crusades around the country pitching Obamacare, he continues to avoid giving virtually any specific details of the program. That too is a strategy of Dr. Emanuel: "Americans need to avoid the policy weeds. Focusing on details will only distract and create tangles and traps" (p. 183). So "details" of health care reform are "weeds"? That is why we continue to hear only warm-and-fuzzy generalities from Obama like,"If you've got health care, the only thing we're going to do is we're going to reform the insurance companies so that they can't cheat you."
Fourth, Dr. Emanuel describes a comprehensive government health care program that is completely run by a national health board with 12 regional health boards ("modeled on the Federal Reserve system" – p. 83).
Imagine a national health board with the power of the Federal Reserve?! Imagine them doing with medicine and health what the Fed does with interest rates and the financial system. An apolitical board like that sounds appealing at first, until it is immune in ways (like the Federal Reserve) to congressional protocol and oversight. Once these boards are in place, like the Federal Reserve system over our financial system, they will have absolute power over the ebbs and flows of the medical world.
Critics would say, "But that is not the national board as described in Obamacare or H.R. 3200." Not yet anyway. Of course, Obamacare uses much softer language for describing a national board – they call it the "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" (there's that "advisory" word again!), which would be under the executive branch (like the Federal Reserve).
Does anyone doubt that the duties and power of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee will morph and grow over time? And what liberties and controls will they have 10 years from now? I have a hunch they will be very reflective of the power of the Federal Reserve – I'll let you guess why.
Fifth, Dr. Emanuel believes in the "phasing out of Medicare and Medicaid" (Pages 88-89, 94-95). Of course, no proposed legislative wording by the current administration is going to describe the eventual elimination of these programs, at least in these incipient stages – remember, this bill is a sales pitch, too. But what stops the "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" care from "phasing them out" down the road? Could their eventual termination be the reason this administration won't merely reform those programs to accommodate their universal health care desires? But then again, maybe you believe Obama when he "avoids the policy weeds" by saying, "Nobody is talking about trying to change Medicare benefits. What we want to do is to eliminate some of the waste that is being paid for out of the Medicare trust fund."
Sixth, Dr. Emanuel believes in ending employer-based health care (Pages 109-112). President Obama knows that to propose such a restriction on American freedoms and choice would mean certain death to this legislation, let alone likely his popularity as president. However, throughout all Obama's rhetoric about how Americans will have the choice of health care insurance, they will have little choice in the matter, especially when employers are footing the bill. As any businessman knows, why would a company pay the exorbitant costs for employees' private health care insurance when they can benefit big time from a free ticket for government health care coverage? Some have even proposed that provisions in the House's health care legislation, under the titles "Limitation of New Enrollment" and "Limitation on Changes in Terms or Conditions" (p. 16), could essentially make individual private medical insurance illegal.
Seventh, Dr. Emanuel believes a universal health care program could be paid for by phasing out Medicare and Medicaid, adopting a value-added tax of at least 10 percent, etc., and then allowing Americans themselves to "pay extra with after-tax dollars" (p. 100) for additional medical benefits (beyond the norm of the government program). Ironically, Obamacare proposes cutting $500 billion from Medicare and proposing taxes upon the wealthy, as just a couple ways to pay for the $1 trillion it will cost to run the new national health care program over 10 years. But even the Congressional Budget Office says that won't be near enough.
Just last week at a Montana town hall meeting, the president continued to struggle to explain how he would pay for Obamacare without taxing the middle class. Of course, three of his top advisers (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and White House senior adviser David Axlrod) have already gone on the record saying they will not rule out the need for a middle-class tax hike to pay for Obamacare.
The truth is, whether the money comes from higher corporate taxes, taxing employer-provided health insurance, eliminating health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts, limiting the deductibility of medical expenses, increasing taxes on selective consumptives, etc., or all the above, trust me, sooner or later, we all will pay.
Eighth, speaking of ethics, enough has been written lately about Dr. Emanuel's end-of-life counsel and consultation, including his advice from The Hastings Center Report (1996) that medical care should be withheld from those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. ... An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
I find it striking that Obama's ethics have similarly allowed him already to pass more laws increasing the terminations of life in the womb than any administration since Roe v. Wade. To add insult to injury, Congress has repeatedly rejected amendments to this universal health care bill that would prevent federal funds to be used for abortions.
Friends, if you don't think Dr. Emanuel's and President Obama's "life ethics" will bear out in the practice of the policies within their future universal health care program, I have a London bridge to sell you in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Obama was telling the truth about this campaign promise: His presidency would provide "the most sweeping ethics reform in history." I guess more Americans should have been watching which way he was sweeping.
In short, whether in title or not, Dr. Emanuel is Obama's health care czar. Obamacare is a junior version of Emanuel-care, or should I say the beginning stage of Emanuel-care. What's almost eerie is how they both could be juxtaposed to intersect in full bloom sometime in America's future.
One last thing: Someone once said to me, "If two people think so much alike, you can bet that one person is not thinking." Think about it.
I've read on several blogs that if Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer, he should take care of universal health care. Cute.
The real fact is that neither I nor Obamacare (in its present form in any of the 1,000+ page versions like H.R. 3200) can provide the remedy.
In my last column I explained that dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is that the House bill grants government the authority to come into homes and usurp parental rights over child care development.
I have a few more secrets to share over these hot August political nights.
Dirty secret No. 2 in Obamacare is that Obama is not the leader of Obamacare. And neither is Congress. The one who has been spearheading the initiative behind the scenes is one who goes under the misnomer "adviser" to the Obama administration, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and breast oncologist and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. And "his bible" for health care reform is his book, "Healthcare Guaranteed."
Dr. Emanuel has served as special adviser to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget for health policy as far back as February, when he confessed to the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times that he was "working on (the) health care reform effort." The first draft of Obamacare?
If you want to know the future of America's universal health care, then you must understand the health care principles and plans of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. I find it far more than coincidence how much Dr. Emanuel's book parallels Obamacare's philosophy, strategy and legislation.
First, Dr. Emanuel rejects any attempts at incremental change or reform to our health care system (Page 185). What's needed, he concludes in his book (p. 171), is an immediate and totally comprehensive reconstruction of health care as we know it. That of course describes the vision of Obamacare to a tee.
Second, in the chapter "Opening the door to comprehensive change" starting on p. 171 (which reads more like a political and mass-manipulating strategy than a health care manual), Emanuel drives home "a key political lesson: the need to rush the legislation through." (Seen this methodology being used lately?!)
He then cites historical proof: "Within a few months, President Johnson rammed the four central elements of his Great Society program through," and Medicare and Medicaid were born. Emanuel says that the reason the Clinton administration couldn't pass a health care bill was because it waited too long (after his inauguration – the political honeymoon period) and it "established a large task force that worked in secret. … The delay and the secrecy were deadly" (p. 181). Sounds to me that Dr. Emanuel is as much a political strategist as he is a doctor.
You are bearing witness to these political principles at work at this very moment in Washington and across this nation with Obamacare. President Obama and Dr. Emanuel both know that if too much time elapses their legislation is likely to die (and their preferences with it) because Americans will actually have time to examine it and come up with better alternatives.
Third, as Obama crusades around the country pitching Obamacare, he continues to avoid giving virtually any specific details of the program. That too is a strategy of Dr. Emanuel: "Americans need to avoid the policy weeds. Focusing on details will only distract and create tangles and traps" (p. 183). So "details" of health care reform are "weeds"? That is why we continue to hear only warm-and-fuzzy generalities from Obama like,"If you've got health care, the only thing we're going to do is we're going to reform the insurance companies so that they can't cheat you."
Fourth, Dr. Emanuel describes a comprehensive government health care program that is completely run by a national health board with 12 regional health boards ("modeled on the Federal Reserve system" – p. 83).
Imagine a national health board with the power of the Federal Reserve?! Imagine them doing with medicine and health what the Fed does with interest rates and the financial system. An apolitical board like that sounds appealing at first, until it is immune in ways (like the Federal Reserve) to congressional protocol and oversight. Once these boards are in place, like the Federal Reserve system over our financial system, they will have absolute power over the ebbs and flows of the medical world.
Critics would say, "But that is not the national board as described in Obamacare or H.R. 3200." Not yet anyway. Of course, Obamacare uses much softer language for describing a national board – they call it the "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" (there's that "advisory" word again!), which would be under the executive branch (like the Federal Reserve).
Does anyone doubt that the duties and power of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee will morph and grow over time? And what liberties and controls will they have 10 years from now? I have a hunch they will be very reflective of the power of the Federal Reserve – I'll let you guess why.
Fifth, Dr. Emanuel believes in the "phasing out of Medicare and Medicaid" (Pages 88-89, 94-95). Of course, no proposed legislative wording by the current administration is going to describe the eventual elimination of these programs, at least in these incipient stages – remember, this bill is a sales pitch, too. But what stops the "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" care from "phasing them out" down the road? Could their eventual termination be the reason this administration won't merely reform those programs to accommodate their universal health care desires? But then again, maybe you believe Obama when he "avoids the policy weeds" by saying, "Nobody is talking about trying to change Medicare benefits. What we want to do is to eliminate some of the waste that is being paid for out of the Medicare trust fund."
Sixth, Dr. Emanuel believes in ending employer-based health care (Pages 109-112). President Obama knows that to propose such a restriction on American freedoms and choice would mean certain death to this legislation, let alone likely his popularity as president. However, throughout all Obama's rhetoric about how Americans will have the choice of health care insurance, they will have little choice in the matter, especially when employers are footing the bill. As any businessman knows, why would a company pay the exorbitant costs for employees' private health care insurance when they can benefit big time from a free ticket for government health care coverage? Some have even proposed that provisions in the House's health care legislation, under the titles "Limitation of New Enrollment" and "Limitation on Changes in Terms or Conditions" (p. 16), could essentially make individual private medical insurance illegal.
Seventh, Dr. Emanuel believes a universal health care program could be paid for by phasing out Medicare and Medicaid, adopting a value-added tax of at least 10 percent, etc., and then allowing Americans themselves to "pay extra with after-tax dollars" (p. 100) for additional medical benefits (beyond the norm of the government program). Ironically, Obamacare proposes cutting $500 billion from Medicare and proposing taxes upon the wealthy, as just a couple ways to pay for the $1 trillion it will cost to run the new national health care program over 10 years. But even the Congressional Budget Office says that won't be near enough.
Just last week at a Montana town hall meeting, the president continued to struggle to explain how he would pay for Obamacare without taxing the middle class. Of course, three of his top advisers (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and White House senior adviser David Axlrod) have already gone on the record saying they will not rule out the need for a middle-class tax hike to pay for Obamacare.
The truth is, whether the money comes from higher corporate taxes, taxing employer-provided health insurance, eliminating health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts, limiting the deductibility of medical expenses, increasing taxes on selective consumptives, etc., or all the above, trust me, sooner or later, we all will pay.
Eighth, speaking of ethics, enough has been written lately about Dr. Emanuel's end-of-life counsel and consultation, including his advice from The Hastings Center Report (1996) that medical care should be withheld from those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. ... An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
I find it striking that Obama's ethics have similarly allowed him already to pass more laws increasing the terminations of life in the womb than any administration since Roe v. Wade. To add insult to injury, Congress has repeatedly rejected amendments to this universal health care bill that would prevent federal funds to be used for abortions.
Friends, if you don't think Dr. Emanuel's and President Obama's "life ethics" will bear out in the practice of the policies within their future universal health care program, I have a London bridge to sell you in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Obama was telling the truth about this campaign promise: His presidency would provide "the most sweeping ethics reform in history." I guess more Americans should have been watching which way he was sweeping.
In short, whether in title or not, Dr. Emanuel is Obama's health care czar. Obamacare is a junior version of Emanuel-care, or should I say the beginning stage of Emanuel-care. What's almost eerie is how they both could be juxtaposed to intersect in full bloom sometime in America's future.
One last thing: Someone once said to me, "If two people think so much alike, you can bet that one person is not thinking." Think about it.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
'Obamacare:' What does the Constitution have to say?
'This is an issue federal government shouldn't be touching at all'
By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
No powers can be exercised by the Congress which are prohibited by the Constitution or which are contrary to its spirit.
– Justice John McLean, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857
Is a federal government takeover of the health care system constitutional?
Some argue that under the Constitution, Congress is not authorized to regulate or subsidize health care.
Michael Boldin, founder of The Tenth Amendment Center, told WND that if citizens want to understand whether health care is constitutional, they must first understand the function of the Constitution.
"The best way to look at it is that it doesn't apply to you," he said. "It doesn't apply to me. It doesn't apply to any person at all. It applies to the government, and it sets the boundaries of what government is supposed to do."
Enumerated powers
In debating whether health care is constitutional, Boldin said citizens must look to the founding document to 1) determine whether the power is specifically listed there, or 2) if there isn't a specific power listed, look to the "Necessary and Proper Clause," or Article I, Section 8, clause 18.
Article I, Section 8, specifically lists the following powers granted to Congress:
* 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;
* To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
* To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Get "Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws" now!
* To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
* To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
* To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
* To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
* To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
* To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
* To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
* To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
* To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
* To provide and maintain a Navy;
* To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
* To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
* To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
* To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
* To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof
'Necessary and proper'
Boldin said the last power, dubbed the "Necessary and Proper Clause," does not grant the federal government unlimited authority, but gives it some leeway for certain things – only as long as those actions apply directly to the Constitution's specifically enumerated powers.
He said a good example of a necessary and proper power in action is the authority to establish post offices listed in Clause 7.
"Article I Section 8 gives the federal government the power to build post offices," he said. "But it doesn't specifically state that it can go out and buy land to build post offices or hire labor to build post offices. Those actions would be necessary and proper and, more importantly, lesser than the main power. So, if they were only able to create a post office, but they couldn't buy the land or the tools or the labor to do it, they'd never get the post office built."
Boldin continued, "When you think of what is necessary and proper to carry out a specifically listed or enumerated power, it has to meet two criteria: It has to be directly applicable, and it also has to be lesser than the enumerated power."
'General welfare'
James Madison
Some critics point to the "general welfare" stipulation in Clause 1 as a key provision granting the federal government the authority to regulate health care. However, in The Federalist No. 41, James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," argued that "general welfare" in Clause 1 does not give the federal government unlimited power, rendering each of the following clauses redundant.
Madison asked rhetorically, "For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?
He continued, "Nothing is more natural nor more common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars."
Madison sought to address concerns of critics who warned that the "general welfare" clause opened the door to unlimited abuse.
"The Federalist Papers were public arguments to try to convince people to ratify the Constitution," Boldin said. "They weren't just writing about the general welfare clause for the hell of it. There was a real concern by people who were opposed to the Constitution that the general welfare clause would give this unlimited power to the federal government to do whatever it claimed would 'support the general welfare.'"
Referencing the "general welfare" concerns, Madison even accused critics of "labour[ing] for objections" by "stooping to such a misconstruction."
"It wasn't just the opponents of the Constitution saying there had to be limits to this," Boldin noted. "It was the proponents of the Constitution who were saying, in order for it to be general welfare, it must apply to one of the enumerated powers."
No federal authority
Because the power to regulate each citizen's medical care is not included among enumerated powers, he said, the federal government does not have the authority to impose a single-payer system.
"You have to look to the Constitution and ask, 'Is health care listed?'" Boldin said. "No. It's not."
"Is health care directly necessary and proper to carrying out any of the listed powers such as creating post offices and national defense?"
He said critics might argue that to have a good national defense, the United States must make sure that everyone is healthy.
"But that would not fall under any definition of what's considered necessary and proper," he said.
Furthermore, he cited the 10th Amendment, which states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
He said that while the government has overstepped its bounds in many cases and used the federal government in violation of the 10th Amendment, that provision must not be ignored.
"No one has ever repealed the 10th Amendment," he said. "They do it by judicial fiat, but it still exists."
'Equal Protection Clause' of 14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Some proponents of federal health care have argued that every citizen must be treated equally, and the current health care system is an example of gross inequality that runs contrary to principles of the 14th Amendment. They say wealthy people are able to afford and obtain medical treatment while the less fortunate are left to suffer when they are unable to pay for an operation or treatment.
"That argument would lead to a crazy slope where you could say everyone should have the exact same car," Boldin said. "Then we should have the same guarantee of transportation to get to work, the same guarantee of food and shelter. Should we all have equal homes? I mean, if someone wants to make that argument, they have to make some serious changes to the Constitution to authorize it."
He said regardless of their political affiliation or position on health care, citizens must ask themselves whether they truly want a government that has no limits.
"No matter what side you are on, you don't want a government that can do whatever it wants whenever it wants because it becomes dangerous," Boldin said. "This is what the Founding Fathers and the entire founding generation had to fight against – a king who could set his own rules and make them up as he goes. Rules may not be a wonderful thing, but when you allow government to do whatever it wants, you are guaranteeing tyranny."
Amending the Constitution
Some critics say the Constitution was meant to be a "living document" that would adapt to changing times, and since health care is a modern-day issue the Founding Fathers could not have foreseen, they argue, the federal government must step in and provide a single-payer system.
With regard to the "living document" argument, Boldin said that is what the amendment process is for. However, he said, lawmakers won't propose a health care amendment because they know it will not pass.
"They just don't propose it because, if they did, that would make it a much more serious discussion," he said. "The discussion wouldn't just be about helping the poor people – which is obviously a good motive for the people who really believe that."
He continued, "Instead, the discussion would be about the proper role of the government. Should it be involved in this at all?"
States move to nullify federal health care
Activists and state legislators are now focusing their efforts on state governments as a way to resist federal health care "reform" and stop federal usurpation of state rights, according to the Tenth Amendment Center. Lawmakers in as many as 10 states are considering or seeking to propose bills and resolutions to nullify federal health care in their states.
The Tenth Amendment Center explains nullification:
When a state "nullifies" a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or "non-effective," within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned.
Florida state Sen. Carey Baker
"Nullification goes all the way back to fighting for free speech in 1798 when the federal government passed the Alien and Sedition Acts," Boldin said. "Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions saying, you can't do this; we're not going to abide by this in our states. Jefferson specifically said the people in our country are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government. The same holds true today. We're not subjects."
Recently, the issue of nullification re-emerged when nearly two dozen states mounted a resistance to the 2005 Real ID Act. Maine and Utah led the way by passing resolutions to refuse incorporation of federal security features into state driver's licenses and identification cards. After meeting fierce state resistance to its plans, the federal government delayed implementation twice and later announced it would "repeal and replace" the controversial law.
"The federal government wasn't able to do anything," Boldin said. "It wasn't able to threaten – nothing. It had to back off, and now it's getting rid of it."
Florida state Rep. Scott Plakon
Now states have turned their attention toward nullification of federal health care "reform" should it pass Congress this year.
On July 27, Florida State Sen. Carey Baker and State Rep. Scott Plakon filed H.J.R. 37, a proposed state constitutional amendment that would prevent Florida citizens from being affected by federal health "reform."
The proposed amendment prohibits "laws or rules from compelling any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system" and permits "a health care provider to accept direct payment from a person or employer for lawful health care services."
It also exempts "persons, employers, and health care providers from penalties and fines for paying or accepting direct payment for lawful health care services" and permits the "purchase or sale of health insurance in private health care systems. …"
If approved by the state legislature, Florida residents may vote on the amendment in 2010.
Likewise, the state of Arizona has joined the growing resistance to federal health "reform."
Arizona state Rep Nancy Barto
On June 22, the Arizona state Senate voted 18-11 to concur with the House and approve H.C.R. 2014, known as the Health Care Freedom Act. Arizona residents will vote on the amendment sponsored by Arizona Rep. Nancy Barto in 2010.
This week, Louisiana state Rep. Kirk Talbot announced he will propose a constitutional amendment to shield state residents from federal health "reform."
Louisiana's health chief, Alan Levine, told The Advocate that the legal debate should get interesting.
"The 10th amendment to the Constitution ensures states have the right to conduct their affairs except for those things specifically ascribed to the federal government," he said. "Health care is not one of those things the federal government has the 'right' to impose on states."
Louisiana state Rep. Kirk Talbot
Boldin confirmed that The Tenth Amendment Center has been in contact with sources in seven other states that have indicated their legislatures will see similar health care nullifications as early as 2010.
In a July interview with the Mark Davis Show, Texas Gov. Rick Perry indicated that his state may join the showdown with the White House over federal health care.
"I think you'll hear states and governors standing up and saying 'no' to this type of encroachment on the states with their health care," Perry said. "My hope is that we never have to have that stand-up. But I'm certainly willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats."
Boldin said he expects the movement to grow as people realize they can take their concerns to their own state governments
"Once the ball gets rolling, I think people will recognize that you can bang your head on the federal doorstep year in and year out and fail because they don't listen to us in D.C.," he said.
"This is what Jefferson, Madison and most of the founders recommended – this idea that there's a balance of government. When the federal government gets out of control, you have to look to your state governments to protect you against it."
He referenced the recent surge in protests at health care town hall meetings across the nation.
"If these were all focused on state governments, we would probably see 10 or 20 nullification bills in states already," he said. "And the health care program would be dead in the water."
Ultimately, Boldin said, it's not up to the federal government to provide health care for the nation.
"This is an issue that the federal government shouldn't be touching at all."
Bookmark and Share
Related offers:
Get your own copy of the U.S. Constitution at the WND Superstore today!
"The Federalist Papers in Modern Language"
"Who Killed the Constitution?"
"Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws"
What ever happened to our inalienable rights? Read "The Constitution in Exile"
Legalize the Constitution!
Reclaim your health! Read "What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You"
Will the elites control life itself?
By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
No powers can be exercised by the Congress which are prohibited by the Constitution or which are contrary to its spirit.
– Justice John McLean, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857
Is a federal government takeover of the health care system constitutional?
Some argue that under the Constitution, Congress is not authorized to regulate or subsidize health care.
Michael Boldin, founder of The Tenth Amendment Center, told WND that if citizens want to understand whether health care is constitutional, they must first understand the function of the Constitution.
"The best way to look at it is that it doesn't apply to you," he said. "It doesn't apply to me. It doesn't apply to any person at all. It applies to the government, and it sets the boundaries of what government is supposed to do."
Enumerated powers
In debating whether health care is constitutional, Boldin said citizens must look to the founding document to 1) determine whether the power is specifically listed there, or 2) if there isn't a specific power listed, look to the "Necessary and Proper Clause," or Article I, Section 8, clause 18.
Article I, Section 8, specifically lists the following powers granted to Congress:
* 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;
* To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
* To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Get "Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws" now!
* To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
* To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
* To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
* To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
* To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
* To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
* To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
* To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
* To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
* To provide and maintain a Navy;
* To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
* To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
* To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
* To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
* To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof
'Necessary and proper'
Boldin said the last power, dubbed the "Necessary and Proper Clause," does not grant the federal government unlimited authority, but gives it some leeway for certain things – only as long as those actions apply directly to the Constitution's specifically enumerated powers.
He said a good example of a necessary and proper power in action is the authority to establish post offices listed in Clause 7.
"Article I Section 8 gives the federal government the power to build post offices," he said. "But it doesn't specifically state that it can go out and buy land to build post offices or hire labor to build post offices. Those actions would be necessary and proper and, more importantly, lesser than the main power. So, if they were only able to create a post office, but they couldn't buy the land or the tools or the labor to do it, they'd never get the post office built."
Boldin continued, "When you think of what is necessary and proper to carry out a specifically listed or enumerated power, it has to meet two criteria: It has to be directly applicable, and it also has to be lesser than the enumerated power."
'General welfare'
James Madison
Some critics point to the "general welfare" stipulation in Clause 1 as a key provision granting the federal government the authority to regulate health care. However, in The Federalist No. 41, James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," argued that "general welfare" in Clause 1 does not give the federal government unlimited power, rendering each of the following clauses redundant.
Madison asked rhetorically, "For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?
He continued, "Nothing is more natural nor more common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars."
Madison sought to address concerns of critics who warned that the "general welfare" clause opened the door to unlimited abuse.
"The Federalist Papers were public arguments to try to convince people to ratify the Constitution," Boldin said. "They weren't just writing about the general welfare clause for the hell of it. There was a real concern by people who were opposed to the Constitution that the general welfare clause would give this unlimited power to the federal government to do whatever it claimed would 'support the general welfare.'"
Referencing the "general welfare" concerns, Madison even accused critics of "labour[ing] for objections" by "stooping to such a misconstruction."
"It wasn't just the opponents of the Constitution saying there had to be limits to this," Boldin noted. "It was the proponents of the Constitution who were saying, in order for it to be general welfare, it must apply to one of the enumerated powers."
No federal authority
Because the power to regulate each citizen's medical care is not included among enumerated powers, he said, the federal government does not have the authority to impose a single-payer system.
"You have to look to the Constitution and ask, 'Is health care listed?'" Boldin said. "No. It's not."
"Is health care directly necessary and proper to carrying out any of the listed powers such as creating post offices and national defense?"
He said critics might argue that to have a good national defense, the United States must make sure that everyone is healthy.
"But that would not fall under any definition of what's considered necessary and proper," he said.
Furthermore, he cited the 10th Amendment, which states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
He said that while the government has overstepped its bounds in many cases and used the federal government in violation of the 10th Amendment, that provision must not be ignored.
"No one has ever repealed the 10th Amendment," he said. "They do it by judicial fiat, but it still exists."
'Equal Protection Clause' of 14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Some proponents of federal health care have argued that every citizen must be treated equally, and the current health care system is an example of gross inequality that runs contrary to principles of the 14th Amendment. They say wealthy people are able to afford and obtain medical treatment while the less fortunate are left to suffer when they are unable to pay for an operation or treatment.
"That argument would lead to a crazy slope where you could say everyone should have the exact same car," Boldin said. "Then we should have the same guarantee of transportation to get to work, the same guarantee of food and shelter. Should we all have equal homes? I mean, if someone wants to make that argument, they have to make some serious changes to the Constitution to authorize it."
He said regardless of their political affiliation or position on health care, citizens must ask themselves whether they truly want a government that has no limits.
"No matter what side you are on, you don't want a government that can do whatever it wants whenever it wants because it becomes dangerous," Boldin said. "This is what the Founding Fathers and the entire founding generation had to fight against – a king who could set his own rules and make them up as he goes. Rules may not be a wonderful thing, but when you allow government to do whatever it wants, you are guaranteeing tyranny."
Amending the Constitution
Some critics say the Constitution was meant to be a "living document" that would adapt to changing times, and since health care is a modern-day issue the Founding Fathers could not have foreseen, they argue, the federal government must step in and provide a single-payer system.
With regard to the "living document" argument, Boldin said that is what the amendment process is for. However, he said, lawmakers won't propose a health care amendment because they know it will not pass.
"They just don't propose it because, if they did, that would make it a much more serious discussion," he said. "The discussion wouldn't just be about helping the poor people – which is obviously a good motive for the people who really believe that."
He continued, "Instead, the discussion would be about the proper role of the government. Should it be involved in this at all?"
States move to nullify federal health care
Activists and state legislators are now focusing their efforts on state governments as a way to resist federal health care "reform" and stop federal usurpation of state rights, according to the Tenth Amendment Center. Lawmakers in as many as 10 states are considering or seeking to propose bills and resolutions to nullify federal health care in their states.
The Tenth Amendment Center explains nullification:
When a state "nullifies" a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or "non-effective," within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned.
Florida state Sen. Carey Baker
"Nullification goes all the way back to fighting for free speech in 1798 when the federal government passed the Alien and Sedition Acts," Boldin said. "Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions saying, you can't do this; we're not going to abide by this in our states. Jefferson specifically said the people in our country are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government. The same holds true today. We're not subjects."
Recently, the issue of nullification re-emerged when nearly two dozen states mounted a resistance to the 2005 Real ID Act. Maine and Utah led the way by passing resolutions to refuse incorporation of federal security features into state driver's licenses and identification cards. After meeting fierce state resistance to its plans, the federal government delayed implementation twice and later announced it would "repeal and replace" the controversial law.
"The federal government wasn't able to do anything," Boldin said. "It wasn't able to threaten – nothing. It had to back off, and now it's getting rid of it."
Florida state Rep. Scott Plakon
Now states have turned their attention toward nullification of federal health care "reform" should it pass Congress this year.
On July 27, Florida State Sen. Carey Baker and State Rep. Scott Plakon filed H.J.R. 37, a proposed state constitutional amendment that would prevent Florida citizens from being affected by federal health "reform."
The proposed amendment prohibits "laws or rules from compelling any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system" and permits "a health care provider to accept direct payment from a person or employer for lawful health care services."
It also exempts "persons, employers, and health care providers from penalties and fines for paying or accepting direct payment for lawful health care services" and permits the "purchase or sale of health insurance in private health care systems. …"
If approved by the state legislature, Florida residents may vote on the amendment in 2010.
Likewise, the state of Arizona has joined the growing resistance to federal health "reform."
Arizona state Rep Nancy Barto
On June 22, the Arizona state Senate voted 18-11 to concur with the House and approve H.C.R. 2014, known as the Health Care Freedom Act. Arizona residents will vote on the amendment sponsored by Arizona Rep. Nancy Barto in 2010.
This week, Louisiana state Rep. Kirk Talbot announced he will propose a constitutional amendment to shield state residents from federal health "reform."
Louisiana's health chief, Alan Levine, told The Advocate that the legal debate should get interesting.
"The 10th amendment to the Constitution ensures states have the right to conduct their affairs except for those things specifically ascribed to the federal government," he said. "Health care is not one of those things the federal government has the 'right' to impose on states."
Louisiana state Rep. Kirk Talbot
Boldin confirmed that The Tenth Amendment Center has been in contact with sources in seven other states that have indicated their legislatures will see similar health care nullifications as early as 2010.
In a July interview with the Mark Davis Show, Texas Gov. Rick Perry indicated that his state may join the showdown with the White House over federal health care.
"I think you'll hear states and governors standing up and saying 'no' to this type of encroachment on the states with their health care," Perry said. "My hope is that we never have to have that stand-up. But I'm certainly willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats."
Boldin said he expects the movement to grow as people realize they can take their concerns to their own state governments
"Once the ball gets rolling, I think people will recognize that you can bang your head on the federal doorstep year in and year out and fail because they don't listen to us in D.C.," he said.
"This is what Jefferson, Madison and most of the founders recommended – this idea that there's a balance of government. When the federal government gets out of control, you have to look to your state governments to protect you against it."
He referenced the recent surge in protests at health care town hall meetings across the nation.
"If these were all focused on state governments, we would probably see 10 or 20 nullification bills in states already," he said. "And the health care program would be dead in the water."
Ultimately, Boldin said, it's not up to the federal government to provide health care for the nation.
"This is an issue that the federal government shouldn't be touching at all."
Bookmark and Share
Related offers:
Get your own copy of the U.S. Constitution at the WND Superstore today!
"The Federalist Papers in Modern Language"
"Who Killed the Constitution?"
"Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws"
What ever happened to our inalienable rights? Read "The Constitution in Exile"
Legalize the Constitution!
Reclaim your health! Read "What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You"
Will the elites control life itself?
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