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Effectively no discussion or amendments exploring other market-based, incremental, or other more economical steps were encouraged or accepted by the Democratic leadership in either the House or the Senate. Their excuse that "long ago Republicans decided not to play" DOES NOT relieve them from evaluating openly all responsible alternatives. Instead they jump immediately to the government-control option.
Legislation includes approximately $500 Billion in new taxes over ten years (in opposition to another Obama campaign pledge).
Legislation includes a costly and little discussed long-term care provision (essentially another entitlement) at a time when the US fiscal house can hardly absorb such luxuries.
Bribery examples are rampant in these bills. Such behavior if undertaken privately would warrant and deserve criminal prosecution. The use of taxpayer funds for these bribes should indict rather than inoculate Congress from responsibility for their unsavory actions.
No rationale or explanation (in fact no substantive discussion) was held about why health care should not be more appropriately a state issue than a federal one. The willingness of health care supporters to dismiss and ignore Constitutional and state-rights history and arguments is disturbing and not supportive of their goals.
The Senate bill contains measures that would not be reviewable or changeable by subsequent Congresses. Such handcuffing of future congressional action is unprecedented and unlawful.
Unconstitutional measures abound like a mandatory insurance requirement, and special deals for certain states at the expense of others. Again, no substantive discussion or even the admittance of the possible issue has been heard from the Congressional leadership.
The proposals allow for 10 years of taxes and only 6 years of costs. No wonder the CBO estimates are rosy.
Congress and staffs are exempted from participating and apparently unions will be exempt from extra taxes on high value "Cadillac" health care plans.
Manner in which it was passed
The authoring of the bills was conducted privately in a totally partisan fashion by unnamed individuals. Essentially all strategy meetings were conducted behind closed doors usually attendance limited to partisan Democratic supporters. Numerous meetings between Congressional Leaders and White House personnel (including the president) effectively brings into question whether the appropriate respect the separation of powers between the Legislative and Executive branches was exercised. President Obama campaigned on a promise of bipartisan, open, and televised development and debate of the Health Care legislation. No such transparency was seen.
Essentially all major votes in both Houses of Congress were scheduled and conducted on a weekend or during off-normal hours or holiday hours. An alternative House replacement offered by House Minority leader John Boehner was given just one hour of debate. The House final vote (H.R.3962) occurred on a Saturday Night 11/08/2009 at 11:15 PM. The Senate Manager amendment was released on a Saturday morning with a Monday 1 AM cloture vote (barely 30 hrs later) with NO intervening regular business days! The Senate Bill passed cloture on Monday morning 12/21/2009 at 1 AM followed by passage (H.R.3590) a few days later on Christmas Eve. An unprecedented 25 consecutive business days were necessary for in the Senate (in order to meet the arbitrary Christmas Eve deadline). Why was the passage of this legislation prior to the Christmas break so important? See legislative details and vote tallies at http://thomas.loc.gov/.
The Congressional
Budget Office was manipulated into providing falsely inexpensive cost
estimates. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35001
The
months of discussion about health care that have occurred do not
effectively substitute for a careful and through evaluation of actual
legislative proposals and wording. Such evaluations were virtually
impossible given the extremely short time that actual bill language
were available before votes were scheduled.
Communications were widely distributed after the Senate vote touting supposed "benefits" when these were untruthful at best. This process is normally called propaganda and should not be part of official communications from Senators to their constituents. Keep in mind that Medicare and Social Security cost estimates both greatly understated what their actual costs came to be. Is there anyone that doesn't think the same dramatic overruns will happen with the costs associated with this new health care program?
It might be true that from time-to-time some of the above strategies have been used previously on smaller bills of less impact (as will surely be claimed by the health care supporters). This does not and should not mean that similar nefarious tactics should be allowed to be used on a measure as large as this that changes 1/6 of the US economy and impacts essentially everyone. Two (or even numerous) wrongs do not make a right. We should do this one correctly (ie "by the book"). An earmark or other small expenditure here-or-there is equally misguided, Un-Constitutional, and corrupt but it won't break the country. If we get health care wrong (and we have so far certainly gotten it wrong historically, logically, economically, and wrong via process) it WILL break the country. We can and should for the sake of our children do much better.
As an aside, before you listen to any Democrats try to dispute or dismiss the above points recall that it was some of these same Democratic administration officials who recently allowed that the attempted bomber on the Christmas Day international flight to Detroit who injured himself trying to detonate a concealed explosive was only an "alleged" terrorist (Robert Gibbs) or that during this same incident the system "worked" (Secretary of Homeland Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano). With a grasp of reality like that who needs deception? If that's not enough to convince you to exercise caution before turning over control to the government realize that this same terrorist apparently paid with cash, boarded with no luggage (despite telling airline personnel he was traveling on a two week trip), and was on at least one watch list.
