The recently passed health care bill is getting pressure from 15 state attorney generals questioning its constitutionality.
Florida Attorney General, Bill McCollum, is leading the charge to sue the government. He claims: “It is about law not politics.” The main concern is the mandate for every individual to purchase health insurance.
“This is a tax or a penalty on just living, and that’s unconstitutional,” he said. “There’s no provision in the Constitution of the United States giving Congress the power to do that.”
Are these attorney generals pushing a political agenda or are they honest defenders of our countries founders?
The Constitution was written and argued over to limit federal powers. Today, advocates of laws that expand government intervention in American life point to the General Welfare or Interstate Commerce Clause (GWICC).
According to James Madison, this understanding of GWICC is erroneous to the original meaning of the powers enumerated to the congress.
He wrote in the Federalist 45, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined and will be principally executed on external objects such as war, peace, and negotiations in foreign affairs. Federal tax collectors will be principally on the seacoast and not very numerous.”
Those that believe GWICC grants the federal government limitless power fail to understand the reasoning for Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. In fact there would be no reason for these enumerated powers if Congress had such broad powers under the GWICC.
General Welfare was originally intended to give the same constitutional laws to all states with no special favors to a few that were not given to the whole. Interstate Commerce was included to regulate what states could do to states.
When interpreting the law of the land it’s safe to say we should go to the original source and not believe the interpretation from those getting special favors from big business for passing laws.
Remember Democrats collected twice as much in campaign donations from insurance and drug companies than Republicans, according to Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner. With top democrat leadership receiving the most money including: Max Baucus, Charlie Rangel and Harry Reid. Also, Barack Obama accepted the most campaign donations ever from these companies.
Promoters of health care reform sold this bill claiming to control the health insurance companies and open opportunities for low income individuals to get coverage while it cuts the deficit.
First, the over utilization of insurance has led to out of control cost. When price competition is taken out by insurance companies; or the government prices rise dramatically. Forcefully mandating people to own insurance will make the problem worse.
Also, the health care bill expands entitlements while current entitlements are failing. Medicaid, Medicare and SSI are insolvent and have $59 trillion in unfunded liabilities, according to USA Today.
Most importantly, the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates are historically wrong. Medicare was passed in the ’60s by 1990 the program cost 10 times more adjusted for inflation to what the CBO estimated the price would be.
Our economy and our income earners are already burdened with to many taxes and regulations. Any more will lead to future economic devastation.
Until the endless spending is stopped across the board, I see no real change.
