by Randall Amster
A few months ago I inquired, rhetorically, “does anyone in the healthcare debate really care about health?” Obviously the answer was and is a resounding NO, as the discussion has wholly devolved upon insurance coverage to the exclusion of substantive aspects of health like nutrition and preventive care. Yet not only is the focus of the deliberations far removed from any talk of improving health — now it has explicitly gone to the next level in which it is simply about who will pay and who will profit. It isn’t health care being produced in this process, but rather, health carelessness.
Still unconvinced? Soon we will have the final proof in hand by way of an impending faux healthcare bill, now in conference committee while awaiting a guaranteed presidential signature no matter what it winds up including or omitting. A public option to keep the private insurers honest, as contained in the House version of the bill? Not likely. A requirement that all Americans carry private insurance anyway, backed by the government’s enforcement authority, as dictated by the Senate’s version? Quite likely.
Welcome to America, the new and improved “company town.”
Once this precedent is set, what other mandates will follow? How about no more public schools coupled with compulsory education. Or perhaps the elimination of public airwaves but a requirement that everyone be plugged in anyway. Maybe it will involve forced contributions to fund elections but the elimination of public referendums and any pretense to open ballot access. We don’t have to tread too far down a slippery slope to appreciate the ramifications of this, as recently observed in the New American in an article highlighting the potential unconstitutionality of this mandatory rubric:
“Indeed, a federal government mandate to require citizens to purchase such an expensive consumer item — health insurance often costs more than $1,000 per month — has never been created in U.S. history, even in wartime. As the Heritage Foundation recently asked: ‘Can Congress require all Americans to buy a new Buick every year or pay a tax equivalent to the price of a used LeSabre?’ Such is the same power being claimed on behalf of the healthcare legislation. Here’s what the principle [of] the healthcare mandate means: The federal government could literally require individual citizens to purchase any product or service under such a federal power, provided that the economy or some other alleged public good is served. For example, under such a power Congress could also require all citizens to deposit their cash in certain banks (perhaps to avoid the bankruptcy of the banks).”
Can you say, “taxation without representation?” Revolutions literally take hold under such conditions.
Oh, but healthcare is different, we will likely hear. “This is our best chance to have universal coverage. Once we get that established, then we can work on fixing the rest of the system. Making everyone carry health insurance will be for their own good and will protect everyone’s rights, just like requiring all drivers to carry car insurance does. Are you saying that you don’t want 30 million more people to have healthcare? You’re just supporting the far right by making these arguments, you know.”
Indeed, as Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake has observed, opposition to this unprecedented mandate has served to unite “liberal progressives and conservative libertarians” against an escalating “corporatist control of government that politicians in both parties seem hell-bent on achieving.” Hamsher’s FDL colleague Jon Walker likewise asserts that “private individual insurance in America will become a money-making scam into which Americans are forced to pay,” to which he subsequently added: “It is both immoral and financially reckless to do what the Senate bill does. It uses the power of the federal government to force people to buy private insurance and gives the private insurance companies hundreds of billions in federal funds.” In this sense, the imminent healthcare bill appears to be little more than an elaborate grift — or as Dave Lindorff colorfully refers to it, “rip-offs, screwjobs, and flim-flam.” And yet don’t count on it being struck down: Congress claims for itself an unbridled and broadly-construed power to “regulate commerce,” which the courts generally have let stand.
CD for more