Congress Really Doesn’t Care If It’s Constitutional

When a person is brought into an office in the Federal Government– from the President down to the Senators and Congressmen– they are administered an oath of office that includes upholding and defending the Constitution.  And it seems that’s the last time that they actually think about it.

After that oath, everything becomes all about what they can do– the power that they have achieved through their office.  It becomes about “what I wanted to do” and “what I tried to do” more than doing what’s best for the country.

Health Care Question

That is the only reason that I can think of that they would not be able to answer the question of where Congress gets the authority to force a person to buy a product or service.  Many in Congress couldn’t be bothered to answer the question, which means that they believe one of three things:

• That the question’s absurd, why dare you question me?
• That the question’s absurd, any idiot could see the Constitution says we can do it!
• That the question’s absurd, I really don’t care what the Constitution says.

And that last one’s the one that is scary.  It seems that, in this debate and many others, it really doesn’t matter what they come up with as long as it meets their goals and they get something passed.

How else can you explain:

• Offering 72 hours to review the bill before passage, and then pulling that restriction.
• Making a deal to get passage, only to attempt to force a change in the other body to remove said restriction.
• Planning votes on weekends and late at night where less people are engaged in what is going on.
• Having bills that are 1000s of pages long and not in clear language so that people have trouble deciphering what’s happening.
• Specific language added to bills to only benefit certain states.

There are games being played and there are big, serious questions to be asked or answered.

The Constitutional Question

To me, what is most telling is the fact that there’s language in the bill that, should any part of it be deemed un-Constitutional, the rest is still in force.  Now, it could be that this language is routinely inserted, or it could be that there has to be language in all bills that say what parts of bills must stick together.

However, I would like to know just how much of the big principles here were discussed with the framework of the Constitution in mind and how many were simply done to attempt to finish the work that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt started with his “New Deal.”

Missing The Mark

What I really find absurd is that they do not seem to accomplish any of the goals they claim that they’re attempting to fix.

Insuring the Uninsured

They claim that they’re attempting to insure 100% of the American people.  However, the estimates indicate that they will be able to insure only 96% of the American people.  An improvement, but not solving the problem.

Controlling the Cost of Health Care

The plan that they have in place spends billions or trillions of dollars and will only grow as more people get on the public plan.  Every country that has gone this route– towards socialized medicine– has seen a decrease in the quality or the amount of service or increased cost.  Sometimes they’ve seen both.

Part of the problem with this bill is that it will be hard to get a good gauge on what it will cost compared to the status quo because of the fact that there is multiple years before it becomes implemented.  Why is this a factor?

First, because the insurance companies know what’s coming, they are going to restructure their plans– they will end up increasing premiums or reducing services in order to compete in cost with the public plan.  That means, by the time that the plan is implemented it will seem like it’s even a better deal than it would have been if nothing had been done.

Conclusion

The health care bill is bad all the way around, but Congress really doesn’t care.  Should it be struck down in part, our representatives can say “we tried” and the people will get behind them instead of saying, “Why did you try!?”  People don’t care about the Constitution, they only care about themselves and their livelihood, and that’s one sign of a culture in decline.