Snowe bails on “compromise” ObamaCare bill; Update: Baucus plan cuts Medicare

The entire healthcare/health insurance debacle is one I personally refute.

Unless someone can show me where in the Enumerated Powers of our Constitution the Govenment is empowered to dictate health insurance, or nationalizing car companies,etc, then you can park this misbegotten pile of bullcrap.

The only further involvment on my part is going to be a vehement NO vote on any aspect that promulgates government interference in what is the private sectors sphere.

irongrampa on September 16, 2009 at 2:46 PM

I actually argue the other direction myself. I appologize for the wall of text ahead of time :) I’ll copy from my own blog, rather than linking to it. And no, I’ve not written any other aspects of the series yet, plan do another one soon though.

Let us discuss 111 HR 3200, otherwise known as “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009” in this update. I am going to start a series on this bill that covers numerous issues that have been raised with the bill itself.

The first thing we need to discuss is the right of congress to actually have this bill. I cannot find any reference to the federal government having the right to create such a system. I’ve heard Article 1, Section 8 used as justification, so we will address that passage. I am sure this is the section of that passage that they are considering to be the qualifying entry, as no other power within that section even mentions such an event. I want you to take note of the punctuation at the end, it is significant to the discussion.

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”

But what does this passage mean and how was it used by those who wrote and argued for our constitution. Fortunate for us, we have the Federalist Papers to help in that regard. In The Federalist Papers, number 41, Madison himself explains how this was to be interpreted, even references the aforementioned punctuation mark.

Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.

Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms “to raise money for the general welfare”.

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.

In short, the general welfare is those things that are enumerated following the section’s general statement. Things like borrowing money, regulating foreign trade, the printing and regulation of money, and those so described in section 8. Nowhere in this section is the regulation of health care and/or health insurance listed.
In The Federalist Papers, number 30, we have a different statement, but it must be applied to the one above, which is indeed the clarifier.

How is it possible that a government half supplied and always necessitous, can fulfill the purposes of its institution, can provide for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of the commonwealth? How can it ever possess either energy or stability, dignity or credit, confidence at home or respectability abroad? How can its administration be anything else than a succession of expedients temporizing, impotent, disgraceful? How will it be able to avoid a frequent sacrifice of its engagements to immediate necessity? How can it undertake or execute any liberal or enlarged plans of public good?

Remember above where it discusses that those items of general welfare are in fact those items thus enumerated in Article 1, Section 8? How can these two statements be reconciled? It is really far simpler than it appears. When you look at what they were referencing as general welfare, you can find that in some cases those can be concluded to be liberal and/or enlarged plans of public good. The post office is an example of this, it is definitely an enlarged plan of public good, but it is also an enumerated power from the constitution. The establishment of post roads is another, we would be more likely to call this our interstate system, which is highly supported by the government, but is also enumerated as an power of congress. But these are things that must continue to be provided even in times of war and/or a shortage of funds, thus the authority to tax in their regard. In short, the constitution is a list of things the government is allowed to do and it is an all inclusive list, if it is not listed, they do not have the authority to pass it into law. As I see it, 111 HR 3200 is not a valid bill, as congress does not have the authority to regulate our liberty beyond their enumerated powers.

This does not mean that the system is we have now is good, but 111 HR 3200 isn’t the answer and no amount of patching will fix that the bill is completely unconstitutional, even at its root idea. It may not even be a problem that can be fixed at the federal level and would need to be fixed on a state by state basis.

TKSnider on September 16, 2009 at 3:00 PM