A sad day for freedom in America

[ScareCrow57]

The house has passed the legislation for health care "reform". This is outrageous. I can only hope that the Attorney Generals in each and every state will brig law suits preventing the implementation of such an awful idea. Of course all it will take is one AG to show this is a states rights issue and not a federal issue. One can only hope that justice will prevail and this bill needs up at the bottom of the Potomac.

[donethat]

Supposedly the AG’s of 37 states are going to file suit because of the Corn Husker Kick back, and the Louisiana Purchase. The Heritage Foundation is supposedly going to file suit over the requirement that everyone has to buy insurance or pay a tax.

[CaptOldTimer]

The house has passed the legislation for health care "reform". This is outrageous. I can only hope that the Attorney Generals in each and every state will brig law suits preventing the implementation of such an awful idea. Of course all it will take is one AG to show this is a states rights issue and not a federal issue. One can only hope that justice will prevail and this bill needs up at the bottom of the Potomac.

What did you expect? You voted for ones from your area in office that voted for this $h!t!!!

[scfire86]

Supposedly the AG’s of 37 states are going to file suit because of the Corn Husker Kick back, and the Louisiana Purchase. The Heritage Foundation is supposedly going to file suit over the requirement that everyone has to buy insurance or pay a tax.

Given the Supremacy of the Feds allowed by the Constitution, it should be interesting to see if those lawsuits are given any merit by the Supremes.

[BryanLoader]

Its actually quite simple you know. Expropriate the entire system. Drs, Nurses, Hospitals, clinics. One boss. The USA Health system. Set scales of pay for all, not everything paid for, patients pay some themselves. Let the howling begin.

[ScareCrow57]

What did you expect? You voted for ones from your area in office that voted for this $h!t!!!

Actually, there are three from the area that voted for it. I did not vote for any of them. I ma in the 23rd and if it hadn't been for the treasonous act of one DumbDumb Scabofozza Bill Ownes would not have been there. Sad part is a huge majority of Americans are against this bill. It passed the Congress but just 3 votes. All I can say is November is not that far away.

[ScareCrow57]

Given the Supremacy of the Feds allowed by the Constitution, it should be interesting to see if those lawsuits are given any merit by the Supremes.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

No where in the constitution does it say the Federal Government can make me buy health insurance. In fact, the constitution doesn't even say we need to supply health care to anyone.

[bobbbbbbbbbbo]

I think your title is a little misleading.

Im still as free as ever.

You may resume.

[doughesson]

Given the Supremacy of the Feds allowed by the Constitution, it should be interesting to see if those lawsuits are given any merit by the Supremes.

So where does it say that healthcare is supposed to be provided by the Federal government?
On issues where the Constitution is mute,as in it doesn't mention it,the power in question is reserved to the People to decide.
Not everyone wanted this.
I wish they could have gotten a rider in that once a member is out of Congress,they have to live with this bill providing their healthcare.

[doughesson]

What did you expect? You voted for ones from your area in office that voted for this $h!t!!!

I'm only one man and my vote against the congresscritter from my district who voted for thsi travesty was overwhelmed by other votes for him.
Oh,well.I did my part.I voted against the guy but still wrote him and told him how I felt about it.But,this is a guy who attends anti war rallies on Memorial Day and demonstrates outside the Memphis MEPS building on the anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

[scfire86]

So where does it say that healthcare is supposed to be provided by the Federal government?
On issues where the Constitution is mute,as in it doesn't mention it,the power in question is reserved to the People to decide.
Not everyone wanted this.
I wish they could have gotten a rider in that once a member is out of Congress,they have to live with this bill providing their healthcare.

The same place it states the Federal government should build the Interstate Highway System or fund the GI Bill. Or the same place that Jefferson used to fund the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

We don’t and never have sent representatives to a governmental body just to do whatever the latest poll indicates is the momentary “will of the people.” We send them as repsresentatives to be just that – representatives, listening certainly to their constituents but also bound by their own moral and intellectual codes of honor. The people, you see, can be wrong – dead, cattle herd mentality wrong. A representative doesn’t take an oath to do whatever the loudest group of his constituents tell him to do, he takes an oath to defencd and support the Constitution. And that’s very different.

As for the supposed tanking of the reform proposal in the polls (a phenomenon far more talked up than actual), I believe most of that arises from a growing disgust over the seediness of the entire process, with the tea party rallies booing people who are sick and without coverage, death panels, and all the other amazing mud that’s been thrown without any regard for truth or decent discourse. In fact, the public option – the very thing that the Right was so upset over, and which is now out of the bill – has consistently polled well over the last year. Its absence from the final package is a legitimate reason for a good percentage of the public dissatisfaction with that bill. The public, in other words, may well be far more “radical” (if you will) on this issue than the Right likes to admit. If so, conservatives should be careful what they wish for in representatives truly voting the will of their constituents.

[MarcusKspn]

The same place it states the Federal government should build the Interstate Highway System or fund the GI Bill. Or the same place that Jefferson used to fund the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

I thought it was the same place that says that the Federal Government can decide who gets to have an abortion and if gay people can get married...

Or maybe it is in the same section that allows SAFER grants, and firefighter death benefits...

[ScareCrow57]

I think your title is a little misleading.

Im still as free as ever.

You may resume.

Negative. In the future you will be required to buy health insurance. No more freedom of choice.

[ScareCrow57]

I'm only one man and my vote against the congresscritter from my district who voted for thsi travesty was overwhelmed by other votes for him.
Oh,well.I did my part.I voted against the guy but still wrote him and told him how I felt about it.But,this is a guy who attends anti war rallies on Memorial Day and demonstrates outside the Memphis MEPS building on the anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Well rest assured, come November you will have a lot of others voting right along with you.

[ScareCrow57]

I thought it was the same place that says that the Federal Government can decide who gets to have an abortion and if gay people can get married...

Or maybe it is in the same section that allows SAFER grants, and firefighter death benefits...

Could you possibly point to that section.....

[ScareCrow57]

One thing is for sure. The insurance companies are happy, they just picked up a whole bunch of new customers.

[MarcusKspn]

One thing is for sure. The insurance companies are happy, they just picked up a whole bunch of new customers.

They will really be happy that they have to pick up the customers that they have been trying to keep away. Or the customers that have had to pay for 12 months before they could get any coverage in return....

[MarcusKspn]

A good commentary:

Editor's note: David Frum writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he was special assistant to President Bush in 2001-2. He is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again" and the editor of FrumForum.

Washington (CNN) -- What the hell do we Republicans do now?

In the very short run, our course is obvious enough: There will be more votes on health care in the Senate, and we will vote nay again. But this is anti-climax territory. The decisive vote occurred Sunday night.

The "what next?" question pertains to the days further ahead, after President Obama signs the merged House-Senate legislation and "Obamacare" becomes the law of the land.

Some Republicans talk of repealing the whole bill. That's not very realistic. Even supposing that Republicans miraculously capture both houses of Congress in November, repeal will require a presidential signature.

More relevantly: Do Republicans write a one-sentence bill declaring that the whole thing is repealed? Will they vote to reopen the "doughnut" hole for prescription drugs for seniors? To allow health insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions? To kick millions of people off Medicaid?

It's unimaginable, impossible.

But there are things that can be done, and here are some early priorities:

1) One of the worst things about the Democrats' plan is the method of financing: an increase in income taxes. The top rate of tax was already scheduled to jump to 39.6 percent at the end of this year. Now a surtax of 5.4 percent will be stacked atop that higher rate. At first, the surtax bites only very high incomes: $500,000 for individuals. But that tax will surely be applied to larger and larger portions of the American population over time.

Republicans champion lower taxes and faster economic growth. We need to start thinking now about how to get rid of this surtax -- if necessary by finding other sources of revenue, including carbon taxes.

2) We should quit defending employment-based health care. The leading Republican spokesman in the House on these issues, Rep. Paul Ryan, repeatedly complained during floor debate that the Obama plan would "dump" people out of employer-provided care into the exchanges. He said that as if it were a bad thing.

Yet free-market economists from Milton Friedman onward have identified employer-provided care as the original sin of American health care. Employers choose different policies for employees than those employees would choose for themselves. The cost is concealed.

Wages are depressed without employees understanding why. The day when every employee in America gets his or her insurance through an exchange will be a good day for market economics. It's true that the exchanges are subsidized. So is employer-provided care, to the tune of almost $200 billion a year.

3) We should call for reducing regulation of the policies sold inside the health care exchanges. The Democrats' plans require every policy sold within the exchanges to meet certain strict conditions.

American workers will lose the option of buying more basic but cheaper plans. It will be as if the only cable packages available were those that include all the premium channels. No bargains in that case. Republicans should press for more scope for insurers to cut prices if they think they can offer an attractive product that way.

4) The Democratic plan requires businesses with payrolls more than $500,000 to buy health insurance for their workers or face fines of $2,000 per worker. Could there be a worse time to heap this new mandate on smaller employers? Health insurance comes out of employee wages, plain and simple. Employers who do not offer health insurance must compete for labor against those who do -- and presumably pay equivalent wages for equivalent work.

Uninsured employees have now through the exchanges been provided an easy and even subsidized way to buy their own coverage. There is no justification for the small-business fine: Republicans should press for repeal.

That platform is ambitious enough -- but also workable, enactable and likely to appeal to voters. After 18 months of overheated rhetoric, it's time at last for Republicans to get real.

I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes, it mobilizes supporters -- but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.

Now the overheated talk is about to get worse. Over the past 48 hours, I've heard conservatives compare the House bill to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 -- a decisive step on the path to the Civil War. Conservatives have whipped themselves into spasms of outrage and despair that block all strategic thinking.

Or almost all. The vitriolic talking heads on conservative talk radio and shock TV have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination.

When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say -- but what is equally true -- is that he also wants Republicans to fail.

If Republicans succeed -- if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office -- Rush's listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less and hear fewer ads for Sleep Number beds.

So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it's mission accomplished.

For the cause they purport to represent, however, the "Waterloo" threatened by GOP Sen. Jim DeMint last year regarding Obama and health care has finally arrived all right: Only it turns out to be our own.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Frum.

[ScareCrow57]

They will really be happy that they have to pick up the customers that they have been trying to keep away. Or the customers that have had to pay for 12 months before they could get any coverage in return....

And when they do the rates will go up. Unlike the government, Insurance companies have to have a balanced budget.

[MarcusKspn]

Why are you even talking about balancing budgets....