Health Care: The Democrats’ Death Wish Or Holy Grail?
Over the past year, we’ve seen hundreds of thousands of people reject the Democrats’ health care legislation. In August, we saw citizens attending townhall meetings schooling Democrat politicians on the contents of the House and Senate bills. We’ve seen TEA parties throughout the summer telling government to keep their hands off America’s health care.
Still, Democrats persist in pushing their ideological goal of controlling, then taking over, America’s health care system. Yuval Levin and James Capretta’s Weekly Standard article outlines the different arguments why Obamacare must be defeated. Here’s a great summary of their arguments against Obamacare:
With their plans to press ahead now clear, the Democrats have given Republicans little choice but to restate the full indictment of Obamacare at the summit and beyond. They might start with the Democratic push to cut Medicare Advantage benefits, forcing millions of seniors out of the coverage they enjoy today as early as this fall. They could follow that up by highlighting the deal to exempt union workers’ health plans from the “Cadillac tax” through 2017, which is said to be crucial to House liberal support. This giveaway is worth $60 billion over a decade to the Democrats’ big labor benefactors and will be rightly viewed as outrageous by the vast majority of Americans who are not in union plans. Of course, there’s also the job-killing employer mandate, the regressive requirement to buy insurance, the regulations that will drive up premiums for the insured, and on and on. There is certainly no shortage of material to make the case—and contrast it with the conservative health agenda.
These are the policies that I’ve highlighted throughout the summer, fall and early winter. I’ve said that the employer mandates would kill job growth and economic growth because entrepreneurs won’t hire additional employees because the health care expenses are too high. They’re better off having their workers work more overtime than hiring additional people.
The Democrats are foolish if they think that rounding up the required votes is their only challenge. Bob Cuccinelli, Virginia’s newly minted Attorney General, wrote about Virginia passing a law that would command state residents to ignore all federal mandates, both in the Democrats’ health care legislation and in other bills, in this op-ed:
It reminds me of an exchange between a reporter and one of the several Democratic committee chairmen in the House that are addressing the health care bill: The reporter asked the chairman “where in the Constitution does it say the federal government can mandate citizens to buy health insurance?”
The chairman snapped back: “Where does it say we can’t?!”
Sadly, like many of his cohorts, this chairman was blissfully unaware that if the Constitution doesn’t say the federal government can do something, then it can’t do it. And nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the authority to mandate citizens to purchase anything.
The bigger-government approach to the healthcare issue is clear cause to reexamine some fundamentals of how our government should operate. Our system of government is a republic. Before the Revolution, the sovereign was England. Following the Revolution, the power of the sovereign devolved to the people of the states, as explicitly noted in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself.
Cuccinelli will have lots of support, with 12 other states questioning whether the federal government’s health care legislation isn’t a violation of the Tenth Amendment. That’s before talking about the constitutionally suspect carve-out for the unions on Cadillac plans. That’s before talking about the special tax treatment that Blue Cross in Nebraska and Michigan are getting.
By the time the Democrats’ legislation’s constitutionality is decided, Democrats will be in the minority and President Obama will be headed for being a one-term wonder. President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid will have led the Democratic Party into a political wilderness that they won’t soon escape. It’s one thing when voters disagree with a political party’s policies. It’s worse when voters think that a political party has become corrupt. What’s worst is when voters know that a political party essentially tells them to sit down, shut up and mind their own business.
Things are so bad for Democrats with regards to health care that Charlie Cook has written that health care will be President Obama’s Iraq:
Cook: I sort of reject the notion that there is a communications problem with President Obama. I think it’s just fundamental, total miscalculations from the very, very beginning. Of proportions comparable to President George W. Bush’s decision to go into Iraq.
That isn’t the only thing Cook said that’s worth reading. Here’s something else worth pondering:
Cook: Well when a Democratic Senate candidates loses Barney Frank’s district and loses Massachusetts, I think it raises a legitimate question of what is safe, not what’s in danger, but what is safe.
After Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, Michael Barone wrote that there was a 31 point swing from President Obama’s 26 point win in 2008 to Sen. Brown’s 5 point win in January’s special election. Mr. Barone then said that only 103 Democratic seats would be safe if this pattern would be applied nationwide.
First, I’m not suggesting that this pattern is applicable nationwide. I’m, at minimum, skeptical of that being the case. Still, I find it more than curious when a Charlie Cook, certainly someone who still sees things through the Left’s perspective, says that he’s considering the possibility that it’s more a case of what’s safe rather than what’s in play.
I found this interesting, too:
Cook: I’ve spent the last couple of days talking to some of the brightest Democrats in the party that are not in the White House. And it’s very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don’t lose the House. It’s very hard. Are the seats there right this second? No. But we’re on a trajectory on the House turning over….
I agree that we don’t know that there’s 40+ Democratic House seats that will flip this November. That said, with the TEA Party movement gaining steam with every Democratic attempt to shove their radical, big-spending agenda down our throats, the chances are people in every section of the United States will reject the Democrats’ candidates.
The DCCC and the DSCC will undoubtedly brag about their candidates being better funded. There’s no arguing that they’re right about that. That said, there’s no question that that isn’t helping them this year. There are eight Senate seats that the Democrats are either trailing or trailing badly in in which they have more CoH than their GOP opponent. CoH doesn’t help if the candidate doesn’t have an appealing message.
The Democrats might get their radical legislation passed but I’m not certain of that. If it’s passed with the individual mandates and with the special treatment for the unions, I’m pretty certain that those provisions will be struck down by the Supreme Court. Once those things are struck down, the bill will be fairly gutted.
The bad news for Democrats is that, by using reconciliation, those provisions sunset after 10 years. The worst news for Democrats is that, by using reconciliation, it’ll only take 51 votes and a Republican president’s signature to eliminate the departments created by the Democrats’ health care bill.
Technorati Tags: Obamacare, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Harry Reid, Reconciliation, Unions, Unemployment, Blue Cross, Special Interests, Democrats, Charlie Cook, Michael Barone, Pundits, Scott Brown, Bob Cuccinelli, Tenth Amendment, Equal Protection, Constitution, Conservatives, Republicans, Election 2010
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
February 21st, 2010 at 4:59 pm
All that said Gary, once this toothpaste is out of the tube, its going to be awfully hard to squeeze it back in.
True, there are several state Attorney Generals probably writing thier legal challenges as we speak, but unless they act swiftly, and unless every new Congressional challenger this fall pledges to repeal and follows through. We are screwed, if this thing passes.
Then there will be the nasty fights to defund it, and the legal fights in court as the fed challenges those states that have already voted to ignore it.
Bottom line if they pass it anyway, this could be a years long battle to undo the damage that will have done. In the mean time what happens to the changes that are truly needed; tort reform, open competition, dealing with the sweetheart deals that have been already made to the friends of Obama.
February 21st, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Two comments. First, it isn’t a problem of not communicating with the nation enough - Lord knows Duh-1 is on the tube more than Alex Trebeck - but that he considers everyone else a child to be led, with sub-par intelligence and no capabilities of figuring out they’re getting screwed. HE THINKS WE’RE STUPID!
Second, even if the elephants take over both the House and Senate this year, they won’t have their 60-vote majority in the Senate, and they most certainly won’t be veto-proof! USN is too correct: once this Pandora’s box is opened there’ll be hell to pay closing it up again, especially with a social democrat at the helm of state.
February 21st, 2010 at 9:46 pm
And sending faxes and letters and melting the switchboard wont do squat!
Their arrogance is so overwhelming, they think they are right and we are too dumb for our own good. They are betting they’ll all be back after November.
The way I see it, our only hope now is making making life hell for those will have foisted this on the country, and work to modify it piece by piece.
April 7th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Economic crisis is not finished, you are better What? I was unemployed for one year so far have not found work, I’m not contented in this life, I want to be successful. Who is feasible or success guide?