Health Reform: Any law can be repealed, but the Democrats'
radical health bill contains unprecedented language that could wreck the U.S.
health system permanently. It's one of the dirtiest tricks yet.
'Page 1,020" — it may soon be a mantra for one of the most disturbing
abuses of legislative power in history. In setting up an Independent Medicare
Advisory Board, that page of the Senate health overhaul bill passed in the
dead of night early Monday says, "It shall not be in order in the Senate or
the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or
conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."
This enters the realm of "hyperlaw" or "laws on steroids."
As Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed out on the Senate floor, it isn't
lawmaking, but rather "creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to
amend or even repeal the law."
DeMint is "not even sure that it's constitutional," since it affects "the
fundamental purpose of Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from
trampling the rights of the minority or of future Congresses."
Clearly liberal Democratic leaders will stoop to record depths to expand
the federal government's powers.
Public support plummets well down into the 30s? They don't bat an eyelash.
Mandating an individual's purchase of a private service like insurance
tramples the Constitution? Just watch them do it.
Bribe Senators Tom, Dick and Ben? Here's the cash.
As John Steele Gordon noted in Commentary, the Medicaid bribe that bought
the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is so unprecedented it may not withstand
constitutional muster.
According to Gordon, "one could argue that Nebraskans will be getting what
amounts to a rebate on federal taxes through the backdoor of lower state
taxes," which might violate Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution requiring
government collections to be "uniform throughout the United States."
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid admits, "I don't know that there's a
senator that doesn't have something in this bill that isn't important to
them," adding that "if they don't have something in it important to them, then
it doesn't speak well of them."
That is the arrogance of the mind-set dominating the legislative and
executive branches: Your money is really theirs, to be handed out like a
Mob-backed union boss toting a bag of cash on the waterfront.
When you put together Medicare and Medicaid recipients, government
employees and contractors, and active and former military members and their
dependents, over 40% of Americans receive government-subsidized health care.
The Democrats' health care revolution would up that to a solid majority of our
citizens.
American history shows that once an entitlement is enacted, it's next to
impossible to erase. Catastrophic health care for seniors, passed 20 years
ago, is the only such program ever repealed; the 1996 welfare reform severely
limited that socially destructive entitlement.
The statists may now finally have bitten off more than they will be able to
chew politically. If Republicans act like Republicans and convince the
populist Tea Party movement not to go the suicidal third-party route, the
coming public backlash will see to it that the greatest health care system in
the world is not gone for good.
Look for demonstrators to start burning copies of Page 1,020 the way '60s
radicals used to burn their draft cards.