Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Are Republicans This Stupid?

And so it begins:The GOP sellout
Critic condemns compromise on Obamacare: 'Tea party, it's time to arise again'

Republicans couldn't really be this stupid, could they?
Unless House Majority Leader-designate Eric Cantor was thoroughly misquoted by Politico, which is entirely possible, the Republican sellout has already begun.
Just four weeks after the American people gave Republicans their biggest sweep of the House in modern history, the new House leadership is not only planning compromise with the hated Obamacare law, they are announcing it publicly!
Instead of scrapping the entire abomination because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive for Washington to attempt to manage individual health-care decisions or make policy for 300 million of us, Cantor, who presumably speaks for GOP leadership in the House, says he wants to keep the "good" provisions of Obamacare.
Like what?
Barring insurance companies from refusing coverage to patients with a pre-existing condition;
Allowing young people to stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26.
Now, I know there were Republicans pushing these ideas before Obamacare was enacted. The question now is why?
Where in the Constitution does it suggest Congress has the power to bar companies from offering certain kinds of services?
Where in the Constitution does it suggest sick people have a right to buy health insurance without regard to their condition?
Where in the Constitution does it suggest Congress has the power to decide arbitrarily how long parents can insure their adult children?

If all this is constitutional, so is Obamacare. There is little moral or legal distinction. And that's the can of worms Cantor and company opened. The new Congress should get its own fiscal house in order before even thinking about making policy for America's private insurance industry and for individual Americans' health-care needs.
It's just that simple.
Republicans haven't learned the real lesson of the last election.
We don't want socialism-lite.
We want American government to get back to the constitutional covenant it has with the people and the states.
Get it?
I don't think they do.
Remember, this is the same Republican leadership that pledged to examine the constitutional legitimacy of every piece of legislation it considered. So how about these ideas? Why put them on the table without considering the constitutionality? If Republicans have already determined it is constitutionally acceptable to place mandates on private health-care companies, they should immediately announce how they arrived at that conclusion.
I, for one, would be very interested in the methodology used in that analysis.
Now let's examine the practicality of this proposed bailout of Obamacare.
We all know what Barack Obama sought to achieve with his health-care initiatives. As he announced to us, he wanted to bankrupt the insurance industry to arrive at the panacea of a single-payer system in which government is the single payer.
I had assumed all along that Republicans opposed Obamacare not only because it was unconstitutional but because it ultimately led to socialism and tyranny.
(Column continues below)
But apparently, Republicans don't mind bankrupting the private insurance industry by placing unworkable mandates on them.
Think about this. Why doesn't the federal government mandate that homeowner's insurance cover destruction of the home before the policy goes into effect?
They don't do it for two reasons:
It's unconstitutional and the Congress has no power to do it;
because it makes no sense and would quickly bankrupt the insurers.
So why don't Cantor and company see the illogic and illegitimacy of what they are proposing? Could they be that blind? Or are they that disingenuous?
Do they really think this is what we voted for last month? Do they really think we want halfway measures and compromise from them?
Tea party, it's time to arise again.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

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