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A retired Constitutional lawyer has read the entire proposed healthcare bill. Read his conclusions. This is stunning!Submitted by Quest-News-Serv... on Wed, 01/13/2010 - 19:23.
The Truth About the Health Care Bills
Posted August 12, 2009 Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.
However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn’t stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” The 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation” to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
And another to the Bill of Rights: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.
Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton, Texas
mrobertc [at] hotmail [dot] com
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Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected. 
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those teaparty folks
Those teaparty folks sure get their propoganda out pretty darn well, don't they?
teapartypatriots.ning.com/forum/topics/obamacare-violating
Commerce Clause Jurisprudence
It would interesting to see how Connelly reconciles much of his analysis with post-1936 Supreme Court Commerce Clause rulings. In Wickard v. Filburn, the Supreme Court ruled that an Ohio farmer could be penalized for growing wheat on his own land to feed his own chickens without government permission. Does anyone seriously believe the Supreme Court would find that the federal government can not extensively regulate health insurance, medical care, and interactions between doctors and patients? (I think many Commerce Clause rulings are completely wrong-headed, but that isn't really going to affect much of anything.)
jurisprudence
Not at all. Let's leave the doctor-patient, medical care and interactions as they are now: in the hands of the profit making, patient killing health insurance industry. After all, they dictate which doctor you can go to, decide how much that visit is worth, pay when they get around to it, limit the provider patient interaction, requires pre-authorizations on things like a breast ultrasound after a woman has an abnormal mammogram, or set the limits on how many tablets that can be bought at a pharmacy. Regulations? Hell, who needs them? things are just peachy the way they are now! You know what, it was only 10 years ago that the government required the health insurance industry to pay for a mammogram. Imagine that. But I am sure that they would have gotten around to it at some point........
re: jurisprudence
I assume you're responding to the question embedded in my posting. If not, feel free to stop reading.
First, I'm not suggesting that we leave things as they now are. However, as I've said elsewhere, I think the system being proposed by the Democratic Congress will be intrusive, inefficient and expensive, and will ultimately degrade health care quality and individual liberty. There are alternatives, e.g., the Patient Choice Act, that may be superior.
Second, when someone else pays, the payer gets to dictate much of what happens. While it's often private insurance doing the dictating now, an increasingly large government system would increasingly do the dictating. For those who believe the government will necessarily be more generous than private insurance, I'll note a study (see metric 13) that found the claims rejection rate by Medicare is higher than that of the private plans with which it was compared.
Third, one of the best ways to get insurance companies out of health care decision-making is to reduce the number of decisions in which insurers have a reason to be involved. A way to accomplish that is through the increased use of catastrophe insurance. Patients would then pay for routine visits, procedures and treatments. When patients are making the decisions and payments, the insurance company is out of the loop. (Yes, I know some patients don't have the wherewithal to pay for routine care, so provisions would have to be made for them.)
Now, I don't think what I've just written will change any minds. That's OK. I'm just noting that I don't think everything is "peachy."
sorry, differentpointofview
I am a little salty at the moment and did not mean to take you out of context. I think that the solution is to nationalize health care coverage.
I believe that the Patient Choice Act, (www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/20/an_alternative_to_obamacare_96575.htmlwith tax credits, was a thought up public relations gambit of the industry and spins off on things that sound good but aren't realistic.
The jury is still out on if the government will be more generous than the private industry. It depends on how the House and Senate swing the next few years. The regulation on Medicare came about to stem the fraudulent overspending of providers who scam the system. I would hope that the government would be more thoughtful in how many times they will shell out $1,500 for an MRI plus fees to read it. How many times does that fee have to be charged before the unit is paid for?
Health care should not be under the auspices of a private industry, and the consumers need to learn the limits of consumption and not use that MRI for a headache when an asprin will do.
Nationalize healthcare.
BTW, differentpointofview
If you want to come out at some point, that would be nice. While I do not agree with all of your points, you do a good job (better than I) at pulling your arguments together in a very readable posting in a respectful manner. Republicans can be out of the closet at realneo, not saying that you have to, just think about it.
re: BTW, differentpointofview
To tell the truth, I don't see any upside to attaching a name to my posts. With the existence of Google, anything I post under my name--whether brilliant or stupid, whether I change my mind or not--would be forever attached to me, for good or ill. (To put it another way, "Anything you post on the Internet can and will be used against you.") Because I don't know what I'll be doing in the future, using my name here just seems ill-advised. (I might add that my name wouldn't mean anything to nearly all realneo posters anyway.)
re: sorry, differentpointofview
I am a little salty at the moment and did not mean to take you out of context. I think that the solution is to nationalize health care coverage.
No need for an apology.
As to the rest of your post, I'm short on time, so just a few words. With respect to health care coverage nationalization (a.k.a. single payer), we have a fundamental disagreement. That disagreement may come down to differing views of the proper role of government.
I believe that people should be responsible for their own needs to the greatest feasible extent. The federal government's role, in my opinion, is not to take care of the country's population, but to provide an environment that encourages people to take care of themselves. Of course I don't expect everyone to be able to take care of himself in every circumstance, but I'd like to see government intervention as an exception rather the rule. (I will agree that there are some areas--such a national defense--in which there is little alternative to the federal government.)
Why do I feel as I do? In general, I see inefficiency, waste, corruption, and poor performance at all levels of government. I believe private decisions, privately made, will often lead to better outcomes. Overly large government is also inimical to individual choice and liberty, on which I place a high value.
In the specific case of single payer, the government would, in my opinion, restrict individual choice, distort the medical system, provide inferior (and ultimately rationed) care, and increase medical expenditures. Single payer also provides entree for the government to interfere in every aspect of an individual's life. (Because the government would be paying for everyone's health care, it would thereby acquire a "right" to dictate how people live their lives.) I might add that the expense of single payer would very likely make something like a regressive value-added tax a necessity.
I could expand on the above, but it provides the flavor of where I'm coming from.
newt
Newt Gringich has announced for 2012. Sarah Palin is now a commentator. Speculation abounds that a 3rd party will arise as the teabaggers split off from the Republican party and run their own platform and candidates.
I forgot to be careful what
I forgot to be careful what I wished for...I was hoping for a third party...but not a teabagger one...oh, boy. This might be like jumping from a frying pan into the fire.