Congress’ Method Of Passing ObamaCare Better, But Not Good Enough
By Wes Keene | March 22, 2010 | In Category: Health Care
When Steny Hoyer and other House Democrats emerged from one of their many backroom meetings Saturday, they had surprising news. To the pleasure of some Democrats (and even some Republicans) they were dropping the usage of the much maligned “Slaughter Solution”. Of course, we now know why: They already had the votes, and didn’t want this blemish on their otherwise perfect legislation. Conservatives were not so much pleased that Democrats were going to obey the Constitution as they were falsely led to believe that this meant the coalition was crumbling.
Mounting pressure from protesters, other politicians, and Constitutional lawyers were bound to create some apprehension about the controversial legislative approach. However, it wasn’t this pressure that led Congress to drop the “deem and pass” technique in favor a straight vote on the two separate pieces of legislation. No, the real reason this Constitutional “slaughtering” never saw the light of day was that Democrats simply didn’t need it.
Concerned Americans learned the truth on Sunday as their stomachs tied into knots and their hearts hung low when they heard Bart Stupack (D-MI) announce he had made an unholy alliance to sell his vote. The 30 pieces of silver? Handouts to airports in Stupak’s home district and an ineffective Executive Order banning public funds for abortion. As has been widely publicized, the order isn’t worth much more than the ink used to sign it. Since courts have repeatedly ruled that abortion will be legal and eligible for funding by the Federal government, the only legal way to prevent the funding is with real, old fashioned laws. The Hyde Amendment language, in place since the 70′s, provided that. At least until yesterday it did.
Beyond the typical horse-trading and vote purchases we’ve come to expect to secure passage of unpopular legislation, the bill is flatly dangerous on its face. To make this argument acceptable to people of all political persuasions, the remainder of this article will assume the left is correct and that insurance companies are evil villians who need to be eliminated. With that assumption in mind, we’d have to examine what makes health costs so darn high. For example, let’s say you have a “bad” insurance policy so you end up paying many costs out of pocket. Would it enrage you to learn that a doctor’s office visit has a real cost of $300 or more? Or that a simple preventative blood test could cost more than $200? Putting aside the issue of whether or not insurance companies are to be trusted (as this article has promised to do), we could all agree that these prices are insane.
Obama has repeatedly submitted the idea that the current health care legislation will reduce these costs, but there is no evidence of it. In the bill we find laws requiring more people to purchase insurance. We find punishments for business with employees that don’t provide insurance, and we find laws that target insurance companies themselves. The bill is 50% insurance company give away (which is ironiuc on its face), and 25% new taxes and laws on you the taxpayer, and 25% retribution on insurance companies. Which component of the multi-thousand page bill asks hospitals to charge less than $2000 for the privledge of sleeping in their bed one night? Which part causes drug makers to make their products available in generic form or at reduced rates?
No conservative could support those measures either, but at least one could truthfully say that they would actually lower health care costs. At least they would in the short term. Instead, the bill focuses only on these evil, hateful insurance companies. Remembering that for the remainder of this article we all agree that insurance companies are dubious at best, how much of the increased premiums and higher co-pays are simply insurance companies passing along the real cost of health care? Based on the prices above, it’s starting to look like we’ll have to get angry at some new industries.
For these reasons, and for the simple incremental loss of freedom Americans suffered yesterday; Congress’ new way of passing bills is still just a little better than the old way. It certainly didn’t make the bill a good one, and it doesn’t make it any more likely to survive more than a couple years before its repeal.
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