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Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements Archive

Tuesday

7

June 2011

0

COMMENTS

California Schools Getting All Up in Your Business

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Education, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

How much private information should you have to hand over to enroll your student in a government monopoly school? Roseville, California apparently thinks it should be a lot:

Parents hoping to enrol their children in the Dry Creek School District have to complete an application form that asks if their child was delivered naturally or by caesarean section.

Those mothers who tick the ‘C-section’ option are then asked to explain why the procedure was performed.

…I really don’t feel think the school asking if the child was delivered vaginally or by C-Section is appropriate,’ a mother of two identified as Heather told the local CBS13 station.‘What’s next? This is an invasion of our privacy,’ she said.

Heather said she had asked the school to explain their reasoning behind the invasive questions, but had yet to receive a reply.

According to the article, the school has offered no explanation for its line of questioning. My guess is that it’s due to research which indicates that traveling through the birth canal exposes newborns to bacteria which builds up their immune systems.

But that fact ought not justify this inquiry. While the manner of a child’s birth might indicate susceptibility to certain conditions, they can be observed directly. Simply ask about what actual health conditions the child has, and that should be sufficient.

Finally, two things occur to me from this story. 1) Almost anything can be connected to health in same way, and so the more interest government is given in your health, the more it will seek to acquire such private information. 2) If schools were not under monopoly control of the government, they would have to be more responsive in explaining things like this (and no doubt less likely to try and get such information in the first place), and would not so easily get away with brushing off parents.

 

Friday

3

June 2011

0

COMMENTS

Obama Administration Has Easy Solution to Avoid Individual Mandate

Written by , Posted in Economics & the Economy, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

Don’t want to be forced to purchase government-approved health insurance? Worry not, the Obama administration has an easy opt-out (Hat-tip: Committee for Justice):

During the Sixth Circuit arguments, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, asked Kaytal if he could name one Supreme Court case which considered the same question as the one posed by the mandate, in which Congress used the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution as a tool to compel action.

Kaytal conceded that the Supreme Court had “never been confronted directly” with the question, but cited the Heart of Atlanta Motel case as a relevant example. In that landmark 1964 civil rights case, the Court ruled that Congress could use its Commerce Clause power to bar discrimination by private businesses such as hotels and restaurants.

“They’re in the business,” Sutton pushed back. “They’re told if you’re going to be in the business, this is what you have to do. In response to that law, they could have said, ‘We now exit the business.’ Individuals don’t have that option.”

Kaytal responded by noting that the there’s a provision in the health care law that allows people to avoid the mandate.

“If we’re going to play that game, I think that game can be played here as well, because after all, the minimum coverage provision only kicks in after people have earned a minimum amount of income,” Kaytal said. “So it’s a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self insuring. It’s not just on self insuring on its own. So I guess one could say, just as the restaurant owner could depart the market in Heart of Atlanta Motel, someone doesn’t need to earn that much income. I think both are kind of fanciful and I think get at…”

First of all, I think the court got Heart wrong. Private businesses and individuals (unlike government) do have the right to discriminate for whatever reason they please, disgusting as some of those reasons may be – and we recognize a similar right to disgusting political speech. I also disagree with the typical leftist refrain which holds that, without such judicial findings, discrimination would still run rampant. I don’t think the courts were the real catalysts at all, but rather reflected already changing social mores. Courts rarely, if ever, jump out in front of political attitudes. This is not to say that they serve no purpose, but they tend to reflect popular opinion, or emerging popular opinion, more than they create it.

But let’s get back on topic.

This is a rather remarkable admission that the administration will no doubt be forced to start walking back. Obamacare is “a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self insuring.” Maybe I’m just crazy, but aren’t these things we ought to be rewarding? Why are we penalizing people for being productive members of society, or being responsible enough to prepare for their own health needs? This kind of attitude toward productivity certainly goes a long way toward explaining the current economy.

Tuesday

24

May 2011

0

COMMENTS

Consequences

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 1,700 employers across 32 different sectors of the U.S. economy reveals troubling consequences in store thanks to passage of government-run health care. NCPA summarizes:

  • More than four in five (84%) are likely to make changes — e.g., raise premiums, deductibles, and co-payments — to offset increased costs thanks to the law;
  • More than five in six (86%) of employer respondents are likely to re-evaluate their overall benefits strategy;
  • More than half (51%) of employers did not expect to maintain “grandfathered” health status — meaning employees will forfeit their current health coverage, and pay higher premiums as a result of federal mandates introduced on their new coverage;
  • Nearly two in three employers (65%) expect to be affected by the “Cadillac” tax on employer health plans;
  • Almost half (45%) of companies “indicated they were likely to change subsidies for employee medical coverage” as a result of the law — quite possibly “dumping” their employees on to government-run Exchanges; and
  • Exactly one-half (50%) are considering “significantly changing or eliminating company subsidies for dependent medical coverage.”

Friday

8

April 2011

1

COMMENTS

Government Health Care Leads to Tyranny

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Government Meddling, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

Forget all that compelling  wonkish stuff against government sponsored health care, like the third-party-payer problem, regulatory capture or public choice theory. The most compelling argument, and simplest to understand, is that it inevitably leads to tyranny. Once you decide that the health of an individual is of collective interest, and funded by collective dollars, you give that collective the authority to interfere in any individual act which impacts a person’s health, and it turns out that’s just about everything.

To wit (hat-tip: Moonbattery):

Saying that sugary drinks have caused rising obesity among city residents and driven up health care costs, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino today moved to ban the sale, advertising, and promotion of the drinks on all city property.

…The order applies to cafeterias, vending machines, concession stands, and beverages served at meetings, the mayor’s office said.The drinks that will be banned include: non-diet sodas, pre-sweetened ice teas, refrigerated coffee drinks, energy drinks, juice drinks with added sugar, and sports drinks…

Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said that in the long term, the policy will cut health care costs.

With Obamacare around the corner, this is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg. Under government run health care, nothing is personal any more.

Saturday

12

March 2011

0

COMMENTS

$10 + Government Meddling = $1,500

Written by , Posted in Free Markets, Government Meddling, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

And not in the good way.

A drug for high-risk pregnant women has cost about $10 to $20 per injection. Next week, the price shoots up to $1,500 a dose, meaning the total cost during a pregnancy could be as much as $30,000.

That’s because the drug, a form of progesterone given as a weekly shot, has been made cheaply for years, mixed in special pharmacies that custom-compound treatments that are not federally approved.

But recently, KV Pharmaceutical of suburban St.Louis won government approval to exclusively sell the drug, known as Makena (Mah-KEE’-Nah). The March of Dimes and many obstetricians supported that because it means quality will be more consistent and it will be easier to get.

None of them anticipated the dramatic price hike, though…

Of course they didn’t, because they don’t think about the consequences for their feel-good meddling.

Makena is a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone that first came on the market more than 50 years ago to treat other problems. Hormone drugs came under fire in the 1970s, following reports they might damage fetuses in early pregnancy. In the 1990s, the early incarnation of Makena was withdrawn from the market.

But the drug got a new life in 2003, with publication of a study that reported it helped prevent early births to women who had a history of spontaneous preterm deliveries.

…The study of women at risk for this condition found that only about 36 percent of those given the progesterone drug had preterm births, compared with 55 percent among those not on the drug.

…To get FDA approval, the company is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in additional research, including an international study involving 1,700 women, Divis said. The FDA last month signed off and gave Makena orphan drug status. That designation ensures Ther-Rx will be the sole source of the drug for seven years.

I’d say that the fools got what they deserve for wanting their precious “FDA approved” in front of what was already a perfectly good and safe drug, but really it’s the rest of us that will bear the costs through increased insurance premiums and entitlement subsidies, or loss of access to a beneficial drug.

It just amazes me that the doctors in the article, who are presumably intelligent people, are shocked and surprised that adding an expensive approval process and a government granted monopoly would make something more expense.

How can we ever hope to create good public policy with so much economic illiteracy to contend with?

Thursday

17

February 2011

3

COMMENTS

Obamacare: Now Exempting Entire States

Written by , Posted in Economics & the Economy, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

Another day, more Obamacare waivers:

The Obama administration said Wednesday that it had granted broad waivers to four states allowing health insurance companies to continue offering less generous benefits than they would otherwise be required to provide this year under the new federal health care law.

The states are Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee, the administration told Congress.

Lawmakers said that many other states, insurers and employers needed similar exemptions from some of the law’s requirements and would seek waivers if they knew of the option.

Why do we need to exempt people from a law that was supposed to make things better? The question answers itself: because it doesn’t.

These new waivers are being handed out because the fantasy of Obamacare has run into the reality of economics. Requiring “more benefits” means higher costs. Higher costs mean some people that previously had coverage will not be able to afford the new plans. There’s no reason why people should be denied the opportunity to buy plans that are appropriate to their situations and needs, instead of forcing them to buy plans some bureaucrat in Washington DC decides is appropriate.

This was all obvious at the time the law was passed, and plenty of us said so. Are we to believe that Obama honestly didn’t know, or was he simply lying when he said people would be able to keep their plans, even as he artificially made them more expensive?

Tuesday

1

February 2011

0

COMMENTS

Sharing the Wealth, Mob Style

Written by , Posted in Economics & the Economy, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

I’ve had this article open for several days now, so it’s probably time I get around to a response. Reuters reports on the World Economic Forum with a headline that ominously warns “Rich corporations ‘must share wealth’ to avoid unrest:”

Poverty and unemployment reared their heads at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, with speakers urging the elite audience to bridge a growing gap between booming multinationals and the jobless poor.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who also chairs the Socialist International group of center-left parties, said the global crisis had led to an “unsustainable” race to the bottom in labor standards and social protection in developed nations.

…Maurice Levy, chairman and chief executive of French advertising giant Publicis, said there was “a huge suspicion about CEOs, bankers, corporations.”

“People do not understand that these large corporations are doing extremely well, while their lives have not improved and without the support of the people, there is no way we will be able to grow,” he told a panel discussion.

“We have been led by greed. We have been led by only the bottom line, the profit and we have sacrificed the workers in order to please the stockholders.”

The increasing division between fast-growing emerging market economies and stagnating, jobless nations in the developed world has been a theme at the talks in Davos this year, which some corporations pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend.

Their lives have not improved compared to what? Since these greedy corporations are doing so well but are failing to “give back,” clearly we would be better off without them. So let’s just abolish them. We’ll see how well off the people are without their convenience stores or cheap electronics. Ah, but of course that’s silly. People are clearly much better off than they would be if there were no “greedy corporations” servicing their demands by supplying them with necessities and luxuries.

If you want to look at why some people are not better off than they were some number of years ago, I’d suggest starting with politicians and the excessive burdens of debt that they have heaped onto the taxpaying citizens of those stagnating welfare states.

Monday

31

January 2011

3

COMMENTS

Judge Vinson Piles On

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

It comes as no surprise at this point, but the major news of the day is that the Judge from my hometown – and whose wife, incidentally, was my 4th grade teacher – has become the second to strike down Obamacare.

Unlike the previous ruling, Judge Vinson found that the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate was enough to invalidate the entire law, as it lacked a severability clause.

Although obviously newsworthy, I’m not sure this ruling changes anything. The Supreme Court was almost certain to take the case already. Sadly, the fate of Obamacare may ultimately be decided by what side of the bed Justice Kennedy rolls out of before oral arguments.

For more on the ruling:

Thursday

20

January 2011

0

COMMENTS

Another Inane Constitutional Theory

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

The latest crack-pot interpretation of the Constitution to justify Obamacare comes from Rep. John Lewis, who cites the Preamble, the Declaration of Independence, and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said on Tuesday that the government should require individuals to buy health insurance and cited the Preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence’s “pursuit of happiness” language and the 14th Amendment as the sources of Congress’ authority to enact such a mandate.

“I think people should be required to get health insurance. We require people to get insurance for their automobile state by state but the federal government has an obligation to encourage by law, moral persuasion, to get people to get health insurance,” Lewis told CNSNews.com on Tuesday after a House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing in opposition to Republican efforts to repeal the health-care law enacted last year.

…

CNSNews.com also asked Lewis what part of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to require individuals to buy health insurance.

“Well, when you start off with the Preamble of the Constitution, you talk about the pursuit of happiness,” said Lewis. “You go to the 14th Amendment–it’s equal protection under the law and we have not repealed the 14th Amendment. People have a right to have health care. It’s not a privilege but a right.”

First of all, law is not “moral persuasion,” it is force. But let’s look at the Congressman’s theory, taking each relevant text one at a time. Here’s the Preamble of the Constitution:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

There are no grants of authority in the Preamble. Rather, it makes an affirmative case for the existence of government at all. It explains why they are doing what they are doing in signing any Constitution in the first place. This was important given the context of the founding of the U.S., and the desire of the Founders to establish a legal government with the consent of the governed. They were establishing a contrast with divine right, the historical justification of government until that point. So there is nothing useful to be gained by citing the Preamble as a source for a specific governmental action. It provides none.

Strike one.

Next, the relevant section from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

As before, the Declaration establishes no specific authority for governmental action. Nevertheless, it is an important tool for understanding the purpose and scope of our government, so let’s go ahead address his claim contextually.

This sentence is clearly describing the natural rights of man as they exist prior to government – specifically, the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, with the latter right being historically interpreted to refer to rights of property. It means much more than just that, describing man’s right to live for himself and pursue the improvement of his station toward whatever goals please him. But in terms of constraining government force, protection of property rights serves as a means to protect the pursuit of happiness.

Regardless, it doesn’t really matter what ‘pursuit of happiness’ means in this context, because the sentence is not describing a source of government power, but a restraint upon it. These natural rights are said to exist before government, and therefore anything government tries to do cannot be justified by this clause alone, it can only be contradicted by it. As if this weren’t obvious enough by the plain meaning of the words, the fact that it was used to throw off an oppressive government should make it clear. It says simply: these are the rights that man has without government, and any legitimate government must recognize as such and not infringe upon them; to do so is to render said government illegitimate.

Strike two.

Finally, we come to the actual source of specific legislative actions, the Constitution. The 14th Amendment contains five sections, but it really only comes down to one. First, the text:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

As you can see, Sections 2-4 are completely irrelevant, while Section 5 only authorizes legislation based on the authority of the other sections. That leaves us with Section 1, the last chance for Rep. Lewis to find even the slightest shred of authority for an individual insurance mandate needed to avoid complete embarrassment.

The first sentence is again irrelevant, as it deals with citizenship. Very little is left now, so surely Rep. Lewis’ authority must reside herein.  But what’s this? There’s no source of new governmental powers there! All the remainder of the section does is restrict the power of the state governments. Here it is again, with phrases in bold:  “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

These are all constraints on state governments, passed to prevent state level infractions of Constitutional rights.  Section 5, the sole instance in anything he cited of an actual grant of legislative authority, merely authorizes Congress to legislatively enforce these constraints on the states.

Strike three.

There’s whiffing and then there’s whiffing big time, and this was big time. I’d be hard pressed to pick three more irrelevant clauses to health care legislation than Rep. Lewis has done here.

How sad it is that John Lewis, a leader of the civil rights movement and a man who has come to symbolize the importance of restraints on the ability of governments to violate rights, has so thoroughly failed to understand the source of the protections he now enjoys.

Wednesday

19

January 2011

1

COMMENTS

Dumbest Constitutional Argument Ever?

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

The left and the media, but I repeat myself, like to argue that conservative and Republican candidates for elected office are stupid light-weights that should be laughed off the national stage. While this is sometimes true, the fact that these same people always ignore the stupidity of elected Democrats, who keep getting sent back to Washington election after election, renders those criticisms dishonest (by omission) and opportunistic.

The latest example of outrageous stupidity from an elected lefty comes from Sheila Jackson Lee, a person so embarrassing that she ought to render any leftist with a shred of introspective ability incapable of ever again tarring opponents with the stupid-by-association brush. This is a woman who has asked NASA whether the Mars Pathfinder took a picture of the American flag planted there by Neil Armstrong. This is a woman who doesn’t know how many Vietnam’s there are. And her latest brilliant insight? Repealing Obamacare is unconstitutional.

Arguing that the Commerce Clause provides the constitutional basis for ObamaCare, Jackson Lee said repealing the law by passing Republicans’ H.R. 2 violates both the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.

“The Fifth Amendment speaks specifically to denying someone their life and liberty without due process,” she said in a speech on the House floor moments ago. “That is what H.R. 2 does and I rise in opposition to it. And I rise in opposition because it is important that we preserve lives and we recognize that 40 million-plus are uninsured.

She continued, “Can you tell me what’s more unconstitutional than taking away from the people of America their Fifth Amendment rights, their Fourteenth Amendment rights, and the right to equal protection under the law?”

My head hurts; my heart weeps. God save this wretched country for electing such a fool.

Hat-tip: HotAir

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About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

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