Three Questions for Health Care Reform
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}When it comes to health care, let me ask you three questions:
First, what are the progressives getting? What are those in Washington gaining by passing this health care bill by any means necessary? Bribery, coercion, lies and deception have all been employed — so what is it that this health care bill is really all about?
Second: They say that health care is in trouble; what is the best way to save it?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Third: Is this anything that can be found in the Constitution. Would our Founders have done this?
Let's start with question No. 1:
After vowing not to vote for this health care reform debacle, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., lasted nearly all morning — but not quite — before caving in completely. Here's his statement:
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SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN, I-CONN: I'm getting toward that position where I can say what I've wanted to say all along, that I'm ready to vote for health care reform.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Huh? By the way, that's entirely consistent with what he's said "all along:"
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LIEBERMAN: Though I was against the public option, I was not against health care reform. And of course, I did that before the finance committee bill came out with this very large and again, I'd say generous, but I supported, system of subsidies to bring basically lower and middle-income people into the health insurance system.
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Is there anybody — one American patriot — who will stand for the republic?
To be fair, I'm know that enormous pressure was brought to bear on Lieberman — look what they did to his wife. They are so desperate to pass their "reform" that liberal groups went after Hadassah Lieberman, who is global ambassador for the Susan B. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research, demanding that her salary not be paid or that she be fired outright.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}If they can't bribe you, they'll try to destroy you. Which one happened here? I don't know. Was Lieberman promised something or did he cave in to their intimidation tactics?
Remember what they gave Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.?
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}SEN. MARY LANDRIEU, D-LA.: I am not going to be defensive about asking for help in this situation. And it's not a $100 million fix, it's a $300 million fix.
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According to the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, once fully implemented, the true cost of this program is $2.5 trillion, it will raise taxes by almost half a trillion dollars and by 2019 it still leaves 24 million people uninsured.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}You tell me, what's even left in this bill? Why is it so imperative that it pass? Supposedly, there's no public option left and now there's no Medicare expansion? I maintain that it's all about the structure being built, as I've said in the past, it's all about control:
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BECK: The Democrats' latest health care plan has nothing to do with "health" or "caring" and everything to do with power and control.
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I told you in July this was about command and control. They don't care what's in the bill. This bill doesn't do what this president said what he wanted it to do, so why bribe, control and coerce?
It's about control.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Second question: Is our health care system in crisis even though 80 percent of Americans are happy with their health care? Robert Creamer, the convicted felon, wrote in his "blueprint" that progressives needed to create an atmosphere of crisis. We don't believe there's a crisis, but they keep pounding that message.
The best way to fix health care is to fix it the same way you fix the economy: Get the government out of it; stop protecting people from their own mistakes.
The Democrats are pursuing this bill with absolute reckless abandon. But as usual, as the government tries to protect everyone from harm, they're actually making it more likely we'll be injured.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Does that sound crazy? Let's look at the NFL's efforts to protect their players from head injuries. NFL players wear the most protective helmets modern technology can provide. Yet, nearly every week, another player winds up with a concussion or worse. In the Australian Football League —what we call rugby — players don't wear a helmet at all. Yet, head injuries in that league are 25 percent lower than in the NFL.
How can that be?
In the NFL, the players know they have the best equipment in the world protecting them and it causes them to be more reckless in their behavior on the field. Players are much more likely to lead with their head and engage in head-to-head contact.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Aussie rules players know they have to be more careful. So, which is more compassionate: Providing the high-tech helmets or no helmet at all?
Look at the systemic failure here: The more protection large entities provide, the riskier the behavior. You've seen it in the financial institutions: The more they performed collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps, the worse things got. And why? Because the "helmet" of Fannie and Freddie had been put in place; you couldn't fail.
The way to fix health care is to get the government and insurance companies out of the way. The closer the decision and consequences are to you, the closer you'll be to a system that works. A system that will work is a system that says, "I have to run four tests on you" and your response is "How much do they cost and are they necessary?" A system where the doctor can write a script for a generic or name brand without asking, "Is insurance paying for this?" is a system that will control costs. A system that will work is a system where the attorneys won't be rewarded for pursuing a case where a doctor gets sued for not running a test for toe fungus.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The third question is: What would our Founders do?
Ben Franklin was considered perhaps the most important man of his day. He was obviously revered in the Colonies, but he was also so respected around the world, that there was hardly a house in France that didn't have his portrait in it. France had yet to become the "surrender monkeys" and non-deodorant America-haters we now know they are.
Franklin was a man with tremendous influence in society. He was so beloved, that during the Constitutional Convention, prisoners carried him back and forth from the Convention everyday on a padded chair, because the pain he was in from kidney stones, made walking on the cobblestone streets too painful. He hated opium — the only serious pain reliever of the time — because he didn't like the effect it had on his mind.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So, this was a man who understood the need for health care and had a vested interest in it. He'd already known about the need for health care in America, for decades. Back in 1751, Franklin and like-minded citizens saw a need and put their money and resources together — yes, private funds — to open America's first public hospital: Pennsylvania Hospital. It's still in operation today.
Franklin saw that there really were, at that time, sick people wandering the streets of Philadelphia without anywhere to go. But he didn't expect the government to fix the problem. In fact, he refused money from the politicians and instead went to friends to secure the funding.
So the answer to question No. 3 is no. The Founders could have written it in the original Constitution — they had health care problems back then too — but they knew the answer was private, not the government.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So why are we traveling down this road? Ask yourself three questions:
One: If this plan is not going to cover everyone (as they said it would and must and I've shown you the statistics from the Senate Budget Committee that it doesn't) and there's no public option (as they said it should and must) and it won't move people to Medicare/Medicaid — you're not even fixing those programs, just taking money from them — then what is it doing for us?
If they're dropping everything they've been asking for, why is the president putting all his eggs into this one basket and bringing the political pressure, bribery and blackmail to bear on this issue? What does he get out of it?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Two: Why are they strapping helmets on us? Tell the government to stop putting helmets on us; let us feel the small bumps — the pain helps us avoid more serious contact. Yes, we need some protection, but we don't need this. We don't need to recklessly ram our heads, headlong into socialism and have our free market paralyzed and strapped down.
Three: Show me specifically where in the Constitution the Congress is empowered to compel an individual to buy something in order to be a citizen in good standing. Where is that?
These members of Congress are now saying: I don't know where it is in the Constitution, we'll have the legal scholars work that out. No, you won't! You've taken an oath of office. You have it backward: Congress is saying we want to do this and we'll have the weasel lawyers find a way in the Constitution to make it happen. The Constitution should shape the legislation you write, not the other way around!
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}You don't vote on something and then say we'll have the constitutional lawyers work it out later. You determine whether it's constitutional before you vote on it.
We must demand that they answer to us — we the people. We must demand that they answer to the Constitution!
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