U.S. HEATHCARE BILL
Constitutionality of Health Care
SUMMARY:
The healthcare bill is one of the most prioritized projects on the domestic agenda of the President of the United States. The passing of this landmark bill eluded six presidents. A sweeping 5 billion healthcare measure, already approved by the senate, went through with a narrow 219 to 212 win. As many as 34 Democrats joined the 212 Republicans voting en bloc against the bill. Democrats hailed the votes as historic, comparable to the establishment of Medicare and Social Security and a long overdue step forward in social justice. Republicans contend the plan amounts to a government takeover of the private insurance system that will do little to slow spiraling medical costs.
The measure would constitute the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees, since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid over four decades ago. It would extend insurance coverage to an additional 32 million Americans. A majority of working-age Americans and their families will still have employer-sponsored coverage. But the number of uninsured will drop by more than half. Illegal immigrants would account for more than one-third of the remaining 23 million people without coverage.
ANALYSIS:
The healthcare bill is essentially an expensive government takeover of the private insurance system. The intent is to provide healthcare to Americans who are as of now
outside this bandwidth and do not have any insurance facilities. Americans are forced to buy insurance and would face penalty by not doing so. The bill challenges the Bill of Rights of the U.S. constitution.
This legislation provides for access by the appointees of the administration to all personal healthcare information, personal financial information, and the information of employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the Constitution (4thAmendment) protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures.
If one decides not to have healthcare insurance or if one has private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” there will be a tax. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause (5th Amendment). However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law”.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” (9th Amendment). “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people” (10th Amendment). Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will
ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them may not be health care professionals.
The healthcare bill was pushed by the Congress strongly to see it through though there seem to be quite a few portions that are challenging the constitution. The effort to sue the federal government on grounds that it is violating the state sovereignty by mandating all Americans have some form of health insurance may fail since the Constitution states clearly that the federal law supersedes state laws. If anything the issue and the outrage have to be kept alive until Election Day.
CONCLUSION:
Although the intent seems to be noble about providing healthcare to one and all including the ban on denying insurance to people with recorded medical ailments, the long term impact may be difficult to judge. The tax imposed on those who want to take up private insurance seems as a tax imposed on free and choice that is granted by the constitution to every individual. At no point in time can the Government mandate a citizens to buy a good or service. The individual mandate is deeply problematic and unprecedented. None of the clauses in the constitution gives the Congress power to create a public healthcare system. Be it ‘General Welfare’ or ‘Interstate Commerce’, the only purpose is to give the Government a framework within which to collect taxes, pay debts or engaging in trade. Obviously these clauses have not been heeded in the process of formulation of the healthcare bill. However Constitutionalists should not allow such attempts to dismiss the constitution go unanswered.
WORKS CITED:
1. Information on healthcare bill and statistics retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35961584/ns/politics-health_care_reform/