President Obama has applied his rhetorical skills to support the health care reform law, and in so doing he criticizes the free enterprise system. He chastises businesses for making money. He blames greedy American capitalists for the recession. He refuses to acknowledge that bad laws and excessive regulation are primary causes of the credit collapse. Neither does he acknowledge that the trillions of dollars of new national debt will exacerbate the economic crisis more than help it. Perhaps the theme of President Obama’s administration is best typified by his adeptness in speaking out of both sides of his mouth. The very day when he announced his proposed budget—which would increase the national debt ceiling to $14 Trillion—he also called for the government to live within its means, beginning late next year. Even a fifth grader can see through this.
But the new law is 2,000 pages long—that’s a lot of pages—that’s five, 400-page books. Who can possibly speak authoritatively on the 2,000-page health care reform law? Even if someone read it once, he or she would have difficulty mastering what was contained in all those pages. There can be no doubt that most of the Senators and Congressmen do not comprehend the law that they just passed; even if they were to trim it down to 1,000 pages, or to even 500 pages. Does this legislative process bother anyone besides me?
When I represent someone in a trial, I try to limit what my client says, because whatever the client says can come back to haunt him or her. The more words there are, the more likely it is that there will be contradictions, confusion and ambiguity. Legislation is no different: The more lengthy the law, the more likely it is to have problems. Conversely, a short and concise law is less prone to have problems.
With this backdrop, I fully expect the new health care reform law to have multiple problems.
Based upon my observation, here are some of the troubling aspects of the health reform law (HB3200) that have been brought to my attention1:
- The law will provide insurance to all non-U.S. residents, whether or not they are here legally. (See Page 50 – section 152)
- The government will have access to our bank accounts, with authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts. (See Pages 58-59.)
- The federal government will hire150,000 new employees to administer the new health care law. (I understand most of these will be with the IRS, who will be using the tax enforcement laws to collect from the taxpayers the funds required to provide universal health care.)
- The government will set doctor fees, and doctors will be paid the same, regardless of any specialty. (See pages 241 and 253.)
- Cancer hospitals will ration care according to the patient’s age. (See page 272 – section 1145.)
- The law does not apply to members of Congress, who can have different coverage.
I have heard of so many problems with this law, and the law is so long, that it is almost impossible to discuss it properly. I heard Senator Harry Reid today proudly claim that the law not only provides health care, but that it will also help the economy and reduce the national debt. Everything I have learned about the law contradicts this, and I’m not prepared to suspend my common sense and drink the Obama/Reid/Pelosi cool aid.
I take seriously the need to understand both history and economics. And my study of them causes me to have grave concerns about the health care reform law. It has too many bad parts; it repudiates and attacks the free enterprise system; it attacks capitalism; it embraces socialism.
And now that President Obama has signed the law, he needs desperately to move on to other issues—hoping that the nation will forget about the health care reform law fiasco. Desperate for diversion, on March 26th, President Obama announced that he has reached a nuclear arms reduction agreement with Russia. There is no urgency for this—except for the diversion it might supply.
But we cannot forget the health care reform law CATASTROPHY. Because of the grievousness of the flaws in the health care reform law, it must be challenged, exposed, contested, defeated and repealed. It under-mines the last vestiges of a free enterprise system in America. It is currently the crowning jewel of the socialists, who in the last 14 months have taken over the automo-bile, banking, insurance and health care industries in America. This is one law that must not be allowed to stand.
Constitutional Challenges to Obamacare
Within hours after President Obama signed the health care reform law, fourteen states filed law suits seeking to stop the law.2 Wholly apart from the socialism aspect of the new, health care reform law, the law may be unconstitutional for three reasons: First, the procedure that Congress employed to pass the law (“deeming” the bill passed), may violate Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution. Second, the substance of the law may exceed the powers of Congress, as set forth in the “Commerce” Clause (Article I, Section ![](http://www.cpaulsmith.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_cool.gif" alt=){kind=icon}
of the Constitution. Because the health care reform law takes over the insurance industry—which has historically been a matter of private contracts and state domain—the law may be an improper regulation of state commerce. Congress may only regulate “interstate” commerce. The new law proposes to transform state-regulated health care and insurance into federally-regulated health care and insurance. Third, because this law impairs private contracts and takes private property without due process (a violation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution), the law may be fatally flawed.3
The Supreme Court has previously upheld both Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, but those laws were not nearly so far-reaching in attempting to interfere with private industry and private contracts. It is true that the Supremacy Clause (Article VI) makes the Constitution controlling in areas where both the federal government and the States have concurrent jurisdiction. But the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment limit the scope of federal legislation, and the current Supreme Court has previously shown its recognition and support of this restrictive interpretation of Congressional power. Accordingly, in my judgment, at this point there is a good chance that the Supreme Court could invalidate some or all of the new health care reform law.
Stay tuned for the development of these cases that are being filed, some of which will eventually make their way to the Supreme Court.
1 The following comments are taken from the comments of Judge Kithil, from Marble Falls, Texas.
2 States suing the federal government to stop the health care reform law include: Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
3 Virginia has an additional basis for challenging the new health care reform law; Virginia has a state law that prohibits federal, unfunded mandates.