Health care bill would work against libertarian ideals

Late last Saturday night, we witnessed the result of weeks of closed-door negotiations by the Democratic party - the passage by the House of Representatives of HR 3962: The Affordable Health Care for America Act. Though the bill only passed by two votes and obviously has a long, uphill climb before it can become law, it has already drawn lavish praise from the left as a landmark achievement. Borrowing a phrase from President Lyndon Johnson - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) called this a bill "whose time has come." An ecstatic Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) likened it to the historic passage of the Social Security Act of 1935.

On the other side of the coin, (The Wall Street Journal) has called this "The Worst Bill Ever," and congressmen such as Rep. Mike Pence (R-IND) have cited this bill's passage as evidence that the Democratic congress does not listen to its constituents, hundreds of thousands of whom have marched on Washington on several occasions to protest the bill's massive expansion of federal government control and its potential for high-cost, low-quality medical care.

Let us examine some of the reasons for the public's opposition to the bill and explore some of the finer points contained in the 1,900 page leviathan that the giddy House Democrats would rather the public not discover.

First, and most obviously, HR 3962 is unconscionably expensive. At a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high and our federal defect is already at a record $1.5 trillion, the decision by the House to pass a $1 trillion-plus overhaul of the health care system is sheer insanity. Though Pelosi assured her liberal base that the bill would come in just under President Obama's $900 billion target, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the cost of the bill at $1.055 trillion over the next 10 years while only providing coverage for six.

This toxic bill contains dramatic cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, which cover as many as 30 percent of Americans and virtually all seniors. Section 1161 of this bill cuts funding for Medicare Advantage plans (plans that contain extra benefits for patients and are used by 20 percent of seniors). The bill takes $426 billion out of future Medicare spending to help finance the "public option" section of the bill. Further, section 1302 sets up what is called a "medical home" system, where instead of Medicare patients choosing which doctors to visit and those doctors being paid on a per-service basis, doctors manage tests and specialist visits for a flat monthly payment and therefore have little incentive to offer more advanced, expensive care to seniors. Further, this section of the bill provides that Medicare patients may be seen by nurse-practitioners rather than real doctors, an obvious degradation of patients' standard of care. Seniors and other Americans who rely on Medicare or Medicaid are being unabashedly betrayed by this bill.

Additionally, and even more alarmingly, if the bill were passed, the government would have the power to mandate that every individual have a qualifying health insurance policy. To this end, the bill creates a "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" that would be responsible for determining what constitutes a "qualifying plan." Presently, a definition of a "qualifying plan" does not exist. So, this is analogous to signing an auto lease today and being told months from now what the terms and interest rates would be; it is madness of the first order.

We must grasp just how invasive this bill allows the federal government to be - a libertarian's nightmare. HR 3962 allows the government to do everything from regulate snack machines to raise income taxes by up to 5 percent, and even regulate financial aid policies for nursing schools from which a satisfactorily high number of minority students do not graduate. This legislation allows Washington to impose its social agendas on our nation under the guise of health care reform. We do not want the government interfering with our day-to-day lives, but this sort of sweeping reform opens the door for just such disturbing interference.

A thorough analysis of "The Worst Bill Ever" would take pages, but a 1974 quote from Gerald Ford illustrates the danger of this bill very succinctly: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take from you everything that you have." As responsible Americans, we must keep this axiom in mind as we weigh the costs and benefits of a federal government that unconstitutionally absorbs the provision of health care into its list of non-enumerated powers.