OBAMACARE UPDATE
By Michael COnnelly
MichaelConnelly.Jigsy.com
The first article I wrote and posted on this blog was in August 2009 and it was titled “The Truth About the Health Care Bills.” It was based on my reading of the original 1100 pages of H.R. 3299 that was the first of the proposed bills. Based on what I read in that bill and other proposals I made a number of predictions about what would happen if the bill passed. I was immediately viscously attacked by those on the left who believe freedom of speech is only allowed if you agree with them.
I received death threats, was called every name in the book, and people claimed that I was lying about being an attorney and a Constitutional Law Instructor. The group “Media Matters” funded by George Soros went berserk as did some other left wing so called “fact check” groups that never really disputed the facts I presented, but challenged my opinions.
In any case, the law that finally passed was 2700 pages long and in most respects is worse than the original. It is now being enforced and the horror is unfolding. I have therefore reposted by original article below and made comments in red to illustrate how, unfortunately, most of the things I predicted are now reality.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HEALTHCARE BILLS
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,
(Various panels made up of bureaucrats appointed by
the Obama administration will decide health care
expenditures under Medicare, and decide what
patients will receive specific types of care. They
will also choose the doctors and hospitals that can
be used by each patient. This is a direct
interference with the doctor patient relationship
and is clearly rationing.) free health care
for illegal immigrants,
(millions of dollars have been appropriated to set
up clinics in certain states to provide free medical
treatment for immigrants. However, employees of the
clinics are prohibited from asking patients about
their legal status.)
free abortion
services, and probably forced participation in
abortions by members of the medical profession.
(Doctors and nurses are not
yet being forced to perform abortions, but religious
institutions are being forced to finance free
contraception, and abortion inducing morning after
pills, despite the fact that this violates their
religious beliefs and is a direct violation of the 1st
Amendment. The next step will certainly be mandating
that Catholic hospitals and others provide full
abortion services.)
The Bill will also eventually force private
insurance companies out of business and put everyone
into a government run system.
(Although the so called
“public option” was removed from the final version
of the health care bill it is still alive and well
in the minds of most proponents of the legislation.
Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the
mainstream news media all assured Americans that
under Obamacare health care costs and insurance
premiums would decline. The exact opposite is true.
Health care costs continue to rise and so do
insurance premiums. Small businesses can’t afford to
provide insurance for their employees and the
employees can’t afford it on their own. In addition,
insurance companies are being forced to provide
benefits that will ultimately force many of them to
price themselves out of business.)
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.
(Under the provisions of
Obamacare some 138 new Federal agencies or
committees have been established to make many of the
decisions on your health care that were previously
made by you and your physician. The most heinous of
the provisions in the law in this area places a tax
on artificial limbs including those being provided
to elderly veterans, and our troops that have
wounded fighting for our nation in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The Veterans Administration will not
pay the tax so these heroes and their families will
have to pick up the tab. The same is not true for
illegal aliens. They can get them at taxpayer
expense.)
However, as scary as all of that it, 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.
(Ironically, the U.S.
Supreme Court held that the individual mandate
portion of the law passed by Congress was not
constitutionally permissible under either the
commerce clause or the necessary and proper clause
of the Constitution. However, using some bizarre
reasoning five Justices found it Constitutional
under the taxing power of Congress. They ignored the
Constitutional requirement that all tax laws must
originate in the House of Representatives, while the
final version of Obamacare originated in the Senate.
The bottom line is that Congress passed a piece of
legislation without reading it and it gave Obama and
the Executive Branch the power to make over 4,000
decisions on every aspect of health care without any
Congressional approval or oversight.)
This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration to of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. (This is all in the process of being implemented under the rules and regulations being adopted as a result of the law.) 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. (When this original article was written the penalty for not complying with the original mandate was styled as a tax. Then to quell some of the overwhelming opposition to the proposed law, it became a penalty or a fine. Now the Supreme Court has ruled that it is in fact a tax. I personally don’t care what it is called, or what the five Justices on the Supreme Court say, it is still unconstitutional.)
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.
(The only victory in the
Obamacare court challenge for those who support the
Constitution came when the Court ruled that the
federal government could not compel the states to
put millions of people on the Medicaid rolls without
any way to finance it. This was a victory for the 10th
Amendment, but what about we the people and our
rights under the 9th and 10th
Amendments? Apparently those don’t exist any
longer.)
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. (This paragraph
is self explanatory and I stand by it.)
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.
mrobertc@hotmail.com
www.michaelconnelly.jigsy.com
www.constitution.jigsy.com