There is still time...but not much... to remind key Senate Democrats that the will of the People should trump the corruption and deal making that history will characterize this awful bill.
Please take 10 minutes and contact these key Senators. Do not provide your consent by remaining silent. Let the John Galt within all of us find his voice.
Saturday December 19th, 2009 could someday be regarded as one of the most profound inflection points in American history. Against a back-drop of an equally larger-than-life blizzard, the Senate Liberals basked in the hubris of the moment as the risk of a filibuster against the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA) evaporated with the purchase of Senator Ben Nelson's consent.
The Rushmorian cabal of Reid, Dodd, Baucus and Harkins took to the microphone and started telling the history that they have so craved to read. The comments by Christopher Dodd were particularly illustrative: "Today, we stand ready to pass into law a bill that finally makes access to quality health care a right for every American, not a privilege for the fortunate few."
Senator Dodd has redefined the definition of a "right".
Thomas Jefferson and our Founders recognized rights as "unalienable". Rights can not be taken away or given away by the possessor of those rights. Rights are NOT privileges that the government bestows upon the People. However, Senator Dodd states that the health care legislation that the Senate is cramming down the throats of Americans, against the will of most Americans, bestows a "right" upon Americans that were not there before.
Senator Dodd believes that he and his Senate colleagues have created "rights" for Americans. Given that our Declaration of Independence stated that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.", how does Senator Dodd reconcile his belief as to the origin of rights with that of our Founders?
In his 1954 book, The Income Tax: The Root of all Evil, Frank Chodorov wrote, "The axiom of socialism is that the individual has no inherent rights. The privileges and prerogatives that the individual enjoys are grants from society, acting through its management committee, the government. That is the condition the individual must accept for the benefit of being a member of society. Hence, the socialists (including many who do not so name themselves) reject the statement of rights in the Declaration of Independence, calling it a fiction of the eighteenth century"
Given that the Liberal Senator from Connecticut presumes to be providing Americans a new "right" and that a "right", according to Jefferson, is endowed by one's Creator, what conclusion might one reasonably reach regarding Senator Dodd's opinion of himself? Correct! He and his colleagues are on the same plane as our Creator... or that "rights" are to be bestowed by government upon the people (and not the other way around, as the Founders intended).
The madness of Dodd's assertion that the cost to recover one's health is to be borne by another is a "right" is furthered by an understanding as to why our Founders documented the Bill of Rights. Every right listed in the Bill of Rights was a defense of individual freedom against the abuse of power by the government. Senator Dodd would have us believe that rogue health insurers are the villains in this story - a classic example of cynical projection. The only risk to any person's freedom is the government. Our Founders had a much healthier fear of the risk to our freedoms by government than do Americans of the 21st century. This is unfortunate and dangerous.
A "right" is not and never has been a legal claim on another person...until Senator Dodd so ordained it. Senator Dodd says, "This bill frees Americans from the fear that if they lose their job, they’ll never find insurance coverage again. This bill frees Americans from the fear that if they get sick they won’t be able to afford the treatment they need. This bill frees Americans from the fear that one illness, one accident, could cost them everything – their home, their life savings, everything."
What he means is, Americans now have a right to claim the product / service produced by other Americans ...as much as often as one wants...regardless of the decisions that one makes that influence the cost of that product / service...and to have somebody else pay for it. Dodd has redefined a "right" as a claim on another human being.
In this Dodd model, two people have their inalienable right to their pursuit of happiness impaired - the health care provider who will be paid less for his / her services than a free market would allow and the taxpayer who will now need to pay not for not only his / her own health insurance but for the health insurance of someone who now has a "right" to it. Upon what moral principle does Dodd make this unconscionable assertion?
None. There is no moral principle underpinning the assertion by Senator Dodd that any human being has a right, enforceable by the unrestrained power of the government, to put a claim on the services of another. Such a condition is rightfully to be regarded as the 21st century version of slavery. Already, those of us who actually pay Federal Income taxes (a shrinking minority) labor until April - May of each year just in order to pay the menu of taxes thrust upon us. With this new "right" we will work longer and longer into the year before we can claim that which we have earned.
It is illustrative to re-read the short essay by William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man, which was the basis of Amity Shales' best seller of the same name.
The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man.
For once let us look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is, that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble; they do not understand that all the parts of society hold together, and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism, until an equilibrium is produced by a re-adjustment of all interests and rights.
They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view.
They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and, forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion - that the State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.
It is tragic that bad things happen to good people every single day in the world. People lose their job, then their health insurance, then a medical calamity befalls them and they are ruined. What heartless villian would stand in the way of remedying such a condition?
The fact is, at its root, this scenario is possible only because of the over-reach of government into our lives. Rationale people, operating in a free market, would never face the kind of disasters highlighted by the Democrats as the reason for further over-reach of the government. The intentions of government officials are often good, but government is utterly incapable of righting the ills of the world without creating greater ills by so doing. Government has never understood the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Why is health insurance tied to one's job? Government policy dating back to WWII.
Why are health insurance premiums so expensive? Because the government forbids the sale of health insurance across state lines and demands "cadillac" plans regardless of what the insured wishes to buy.
Why do doctors run so many tests that are now vilified by the Left as 'wasteful'? Because doctors are afraid of being sued, due to inadequate tort laws.
The root of our health care problems in this nation IS the government.
Once we accept that "rights" are privileges to be bestowed by our public servants upon those whom our servants favor, then there is no limit to the risk to our freedom.
Just when Americans thought the political corruption attending the power grab by radical liberals, enabled by their useful idiots, could not become more blatant and offensive to our Founding principles following the Louisiana Purchase of Senator Mary Landrieu, Senator Harry Reid showed yesterday that there is no limit to the fraud that liberals will perpetrate to seize and hold power.
Reid bought off Senator Landrieu with a $300 million bribe on November 20th, enabling the Senate health care bill to stay alive. Yesterday, he bought off, writ large, Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska), in, perhaps, the most blatant and transparent display of public bribery.
Senator Nelson had made a presumably principled-stand against the liberal bill by refusing to provide his consent to a bill that provided federal funding for abortion. Given his previous position in the highly-charged abortion issue, on the surface, this push-back appeared reasonable. Unless the language in the bill was strengthened to prohibit federal funding for abortion, Senator Reid would not get the 60th vote he needed for cloture from Senator Nelson. Or so the narrative read...
In reality, what was really happening was classic back-room corruption but on a level never seen before. Harry Reid bought off Senator Nelson’s vote, not with the stronger language against federal funding of abortion that Senator Nelson claimed as the foundation of his principled opposition, but with a Medicaid bribe for the state of Nebraska that makes the $300 million bribery of Senator Landrieu look small-time. In return for his nod, Senator Nelson will have taxpayers in every other state pay Nebraska's share of Medicaid expenses... forever.
What makes the bribery of Senator Nelson so transparent is that the language regarding federal funding in the most recent bill is weaker than before Nelson made his “principled” stand. The hypocrisy and vile corruption is so utterly transparent.
As House Minority Leader Boehner writes in a 12/19 posting, "...the Senate democrats' health care bill would require a monthly abortion fee paid by all tax-paying Americans. "... there is no prohibition on abortion coverage in federally subsidized plans participating in the Exchange. Instead the amendment includes layers of accounting gimmicks that demand that plans participating in the Exchange or the new government-run plan that will be managed by the Office of Personnel Management must establish “allocation accounts” when elective abortion is a covered benefit (p. 41). Everyone enrolled in these plans must pay a monthly abortion premium (p. 41, lines 5-8), and these funds will be used to pay for the elective abortion services. The Reid amendment directs insurance companies to assess the cost of elective abortion coverage (p. 43), and charge a minimum of $1 per enrollee per month (p. 43, lines 20-22). In short, the Reid bill continues to defy the will of the American people and contradict longstanding federal policy by providing federal subsidies to private health plans that cover elective abortions. The new language does include a “state opt-out” provision if a state passes a law to prohibit insurance coverage of abortion, but it’s a sham because it does nothing to prevent one state’s tax dollars from paying for elective abortions in other states.
President Obama has promised transparency. We have it. President Obama has promised that the Health Care reform he has pushed will not raise taxes on the middle class or increase the deficit by "one dime". He is correct, It will raise taxes on the middle class and increase the deficit by a gazillion dimes.
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