Three measures that demonstrate that the health care bills are unworthy of implementation.

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The recent passage within the House and Senate of markedly different versions of comprehensive health care legislation should not be viewed (despite what nearly all Democrats and the President are quick to claim) as historic, landmark, or positive in any productive way. Theses bills are not defensible by reasonable people.

These proposals are the most expensive and affect more citizens than ANYTHING ever before considered in the US Congress. Think about that. Therefore you might think that such bills would reflect an appropriate level of thoroughness, professionalism and deliberation in their consideration and passage. You would be wrong. Based on three measures: historic comparison to actual "Landmark Votes", quality of the legislation, and manner in which the bills were passed it is obvious that these fail to measure up to anything that can be considered responsible legislation. They should therefore not be sent to the President or imposed upon the people in anything close to their current forms.

Let's review the health care legislation in the context of each of these measures and see that these bills are not anything to be proud of:

Historic comparison of Health Care to Real "Landmark Votes"

Recall there was a requirement for 9 of 13 states to vote in order to ratify the Constitution. This reflected the profound impact and scope of that fundamental change in governance and the need to gain the acceptance of the public. A simple majority would not do. Viewed in these terms the ability to pass legislation of profound cost and which impacts the entire populace with just the narrowest of mathematical margins loses it's steam. While it is necessary to have a majority in order to pass legislation, the presence of a mere majority is not sufficient to pass groundbreaking legislation that will, both immediately and over the long term, sit well with the people, be effective, and not be prone to massive and/or convulsive modification or repeal. The implementation of such legislation requires stronger and more consistent agreement both among the legislators and the people.

Thus as legislation grows in scope, impact, and importance, the requirement for larger majorities in favor of it's passage grows as well. We see this reflected in the Constitution and Congressional rules with simple majorities for most things, some 3/5 majorities for stopping Senate debate etc., 2/3 majorities for accepting treaties, and majorities for state ratification of Constitutional amendments for example. This parallel between size and scope of legislation and the need for a bigger majority to accompany it's passage is at the heart of good government. Historically this principle of gaining bipartisan support has been at work in the larger legislative actions undertaken by Congress. We see this is Charts 1 and 2.

As we see, comparing the passage of Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights, and the Use of force in Iraq all reveal substantially more support than was just seen in the passage of health care legislation. The only legislative action that is similar to health care is the 2002 Prescription drug plan (although it enjoyed substantially higher minority support than does health care).

The Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights, and Iraq force votes all exceed the 2/3 majority in both Houses of Congress. This is a significant milestone toward promoting good government and one where to date the health care legislative actions falls woefully short.

The poor attitudes of the public toward the Congress, It's leadership, and the President demonstrated in Chart 1 are warning signs that the willingness of the people to accept mere mathematically permissible margins on this historically largest of legislative actions is not great. Good government and respect for past decisions demands more bipartisanship.

An example of how support impacts acceptance is that Ted Kennedy, 'Mr. Health Care for the Democrats' who did not support the 2003 Prescription Drug plan was prompted to basically state that the plan should essentially be repealed and replaced with a real prescription drug policy. This statement grew no doubt because the drug package lacked fundamental and widespread support.

"The test of every great civilization is how it cares for its elderly," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., one of the staunchest foes of the measure. "I am absolutely convinced that at the end of the day we will preserve the Medicare system, which is threatened, threatened seriously by this proposal, and we will get the day when we have a real prescription drug program, which our seniors deserve and which this nation owes to those individuals." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,104004,00.html

Quality of the legislation

These bills (including Manager's amendments) are currently in the range of 2000 to 2500 pages of legislation depending on which version you see. Such a massive and intricately worded set of new rules, taxes, and policies deserve a serious, not cursory, review.

The primary mechanisms (public option or regulated "exchange") are totally unproven concepts that have had no demonstration of success in the real world. No example of actual and fair competition between a public (government) entity and private interests has been identified by the supporters of the public option. No discussion of possible unintended consequences or other difficult to foresee effects has occurred. No measurement parameters, milestones, or criteria for success has been identified to insure that these huge programs are accomplishing their goals.

Neither of the stated goals of the legislation (coverage and costs) are effectively addressed by either House or Senate bill. Approximate 20 million remain uninsured and while costs are shifted (due to taxes) little is done to actually reduce long term health care costs. CBO estimates admit premiums will increase (and probably understate the extent to which they will).

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.

In conclusion, any one of the above issues should be sufficient to table this legislation, they all taken together on such a massive and chaotic bill surely should. If there is anyone who supports dubious health care proposals, let him/her defend them with regard to the above facts. I expect the silence will be deafening.

Links to data found in the above graphs are below:

Social Security vote http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/tally.html

Medicare vote http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/tally65.html

Civil Rights vote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

Constitution http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html

Resolution for the use of force in Iraqhttp://Thomas.loc.gov/ search for HJ00114

Healthcare vote http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/07/health.care/

2003 Prescription Drug plan http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2003/roll332.xml

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,104031,00.html

Presidential approval
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_history

Congressional approval http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html

Health Care polling

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/polls-majority-disapproves-of-health-care-legislation/

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform

Pelosi Approval

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/december_2009/pelosi_negatives_go_up_when_she_s_identified_as_house_speaker

Reid Approval

http://campaigndiaries.com/2009/12/13/rasmussen-showers-senate-democrats-with-troubling-polls/

Congress political division data

http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electioninfo/index.html

Authors Website: kensc.gather.com

Authors Bio:
Ken Scott is a self-employed engineer (nuclear and computer) and patriot living in North Carolina.
I also publish and comment at kensc.gather.com