Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571) (21 page)

Third:
Assume that laws are only for “little people,” not for Beltway types. As we have seen, Treasury Secretary Geithner was happily playing that double game. By the way, we can add: The fun of being an Obama “czar” is that they can do whatever they want.

Fourth:
Even when the country and Congress say no, go ahead and do it anyway. Yes, damn the Constitution, full speed ahead. That rule has worked consistently for the EPA, and someday, if the greens get their wish, we'll be reduced to a third world lifestyle.

From border security to homeland security to national security we can see the administration's gangster tactics. All I can say is that the founders gave us a glorious Constitution, replete with careful checks and balances, and they gave it to us for good and sensible reasons. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison outlined one particular of the Constitution, the separation of governmental powers, protecting us against undue concentration of power in any one branch:

 

The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.

In other words, each federal branch checks the power of the other two federal branches. That's the only way to preserve our constitutional freedoms, to limit the arbitrary and abusive power of Big Government. Thus each generation, in turn, must remain ever vigilant.

The stakes today are high, because the Obama administration has launched a wide-ranging assault on our constitutional system. Yet throughout our history, the stakes have often been high. As a very young Abraham Lincoln said in 1838, speaking to the Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”

The future sixteenth president was right. Although I pray every day for the safety of our great nation—and I am sure many Americans do the same—I share Lincoln's concern that the destruction of America is most likely to come from within.

And so I oppose gangster government and vigorously fought it on the House floor.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Obamacare

PERHAPS no other Obama law is more emblematic of big government than Obamacare. Although as we shall see, big government also has gangsterish characteristics.

Politicians such as the late Ted Kennedy, and, more recently, Bill and Hillary Clinton, have been in favor of national health insurance for decades, and Obama had talked constantly about universal health-care “reform” during his presidential campaign. Yet even so, once he was inaugurated in 2009, I wondered which part of his agenda the president would launch first—cap and trade or health care? After all, with the economy still declining, it didn't make a lot of sense to enact a new entitlement program that would cause the economy to decline even further.

In addition, I wondered if congressional Democrats really had their hearts in the idea of national health insurance. Back during the first years of the Clinton administration, Democrats had pushed hard for “Hillarycare” and, for their trouble, had been punished by voters; they lost their majority in both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterms. So now, a decade and a half later, was “Obamacare” really going to be a better bet for them? If the White House had to worry about a weak economy—and if congressional Democrats had to worry about losing their majority—maybe they would look to political self-preservation and so lean against pushing for a giant expansion of government. Just when baby boomers were joining the ranks of Social Security and Medicare recipients, pushing both of those programs toward an insolvency horizon, now came dedicated members of Team Obama, convinced that their win gave them the right to implement a giant left turn for America. And so they rejected any such sensible thinking. Fired by ideological fervor, they went doggedly, dogmatically ahead with their plans.

So in full array, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid led the Democratic majorities in both chambers to storm up health-care hill, ready to fight for a bill that few, if any, of them would read before they voted for it. And once again the country was reminded that the Obama-era Democrats were firmly wedded to their liberal-left ideology—and, as a new addition, to Chicago-style politicking as well. As for the nonworkable-in-the-real-world ivory-tower ideology, the intelligentsia seemed genuinely convinced that the American people needed the government's help in health care from cradle to grave; that was their dominant impulse—finally to build socialized medicine, the crown jewel of socialism, here in America. Yet at the same time, the Obama/Pelosi/Reid leadership did not hesitate to use Chicago “boss”-style politics. That is, if Americans could be enrolled in a big new giveaway program, they would soon be hooked; having then grown dependent on the government, they would vote forever to maintain their right to “free health care.” And so for both ideological and political reasons, the leadership of the Democratic Party united around one overarching idea: Even in the middle of a recession, America needed higher taxes, more regulation, and increased bureaucratic control. And it was all so we could save money! President Obama insisted that we had to
hurry, hurry, hurry
and pass it—the quicker we did, the more money we would save! Why, the average household would save twenty-five hundred dollars a year in health-care premiums, he insisted. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! What was the rush? The liberals were afraid of exactly what happened: People would start reading the bill and see what was in it. And then the people would demand a full stop, rejecting the bill.

Obamacare, as it emerged in 2009, was a throwback to the sort of central-planning schemes that Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman had long warned against. Experts were to decide everything—aided, of course, by lobbyists and liberal pressure groups. So Obamacare would seek to reshape the insurance market, mandating that insurance policies cover an agenda full of politically correct possibilities—this, that, and everything else. It sounds nice to think that health insurance is “comprehensive,” but as is often said, economics is about the allocation of scarce resources—and money is always scarce. The reality is that if the government mandates something, then somebody—maybe you—has to pay for the whole thing. And even if you prefer to buy pieces of health insurance, strictly on an as-needed basis, the government can order you to buy the whole bundle. That is, instead of ordering
à la carte
, you have to buy the
prix fixe—
as determined by the government.

So the costs of insurance mandates can add up quickly. In a 2008 study, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance counted some two thousand mandates already required across the various fifty states, including coverage for acupuncture, marriage counseling, athletic training, social work, and massage therapy; these are mandates that individual states require of every private health-insurance policy. Meanwhile, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a health-care expert at the American Enterprise Institute, has crunched the data and found that the nationwide cost of these state mandates can run as high as 50 percent of the cost of a policy, up to four thousand dollars in high-mandate New Jersey. Merrill Matthews, of the Institute for Policy Innovation, observes, “You could lease a Ferrari for the price you're paying for your health insurance in New Jersey.” So is that what we need? Do we need Ferrari coverage—at Ferrari prices? Of course not. Ferrari pricing is one reason why so many Americans have chosen, in past years, to go without any coverage at all. As with any product, if the price goes up, fewer people buy it.

But really, no health insurance at all? And more uninsured Americans? Doesn't that go against the whole point of national health insurance? Of course it does. So the medicine socializers have an answer: Mandate that each American buy health insurance; make it an absolute requirement. And if you don't buy it, the health police (also known as the IRS) will take your money, maybe even throw you in jail. But what if you don't have the money to buy it? No problem at all, says the government—we'll give you the money, because everyone knows that the government has money to give away.

But what if you simply don't
wish
to have health insurance? What if, for whatever reason, you simply prefer to spend your money on something else? Well, here's where the nice-guy government “giving” you everything morphs into the tough-guy government telling you what to do. It's called the “individual mandate.” The government simply decrees that everyone must have government-approved health insurance, simply because you are a citizen of the USA. Does that sound like an infringement on personal freedom? Indeed, I would say it's an
unconstitutional
infringement on personal freedom—as in, the government can't do it. So here's where I differed not only with Barack Obama, but also with state laws that have mandated the purchase of health insurance as a condition of state citizenship. David Axelrod, President Obama's chief political strategist, pointed to the 2006 Massachusetts requirement for the purchase of health insurance as a template for Obamacare. The Massachusetts requirement has left the people of the Bay State with the highest health-care premiums in the country; Massachusetts law also mandates funding of abortions, as does, of course, Obamacare.

Obamacare, as well as the failed trillion-dollar stimulus, will be central to the 2012 presidential election. Then we will see the proponents of bureaucratic control lined up on one side and the proponents of personal freedom lined up on the other side.

If Republicans wish to take advantage of the opportunity to offer a sharp contrast to Obama, the GOP presidential nominee must not only be committed to Obamacare's full repeal; in addition, the nominee will have to lead the repeal fight. Waiting in the White House for Congress to pass the full repeal through the House and Senate will not get the job done. Too many special interests are invested in Obamacare; so with a passive presidential effort, socialized medicine that is both expensive and deficient will prevail. Defeat of Obamacare will take active presidential heavy lifting—as well as conservative majorities in both chambers. I also underscore that we will only have one shot in 2012 to get this job done, because after that, Obamacare will have metastasized into state and local government such that we'll likely never get rid of it.

The insurance mandate speaks to a profound violation of every American's constitutional rights as well as to a basic misreading of the American people, misinterpreting what Americans really hope for in their lives. For one thing, they desire the opportunity for liberty and have a desire for greater personal choice, and they know that health-care decisions are no exception. Furthermore, Americans instinctively understand that the enduring issue in health care is health itself, not health insurance. It's
health
that counts. Let me explain.

In the twenty-first century, freedom-loving Americans are not looking for bureaucratic solutions—that is, solutions or pseudosolutions lingering from the midtwentieth century. In the era of the Internet and the iPhone, we have access to more information than ever before; we are able to make more decisions on our own, and we are taking on more personal responsibility. It's often said that information wants to be free; well, the corollary is that information itself is freeing—information frees all of us. For instance, I know that if I can go to WebMD for a solid answer to a medical question, I am far less dependent on any expert or authority. I revere the medical profession, but even the most saintly doctor doesn't necessarily want to hear from a patient at 2:00
A.M
. with a quick question. Happily, the Internet is always awake.

So back in 2009, when the new administration was talking its bait-and-switch version of health-care “reform,” I understood that the health care that America really needed was a serious injection of market forces, followed by a booster shot of empowered freedom. We needed to be knowledgeable and active consumers surveying an open marketplace. In that marketplace we would see health-care providers and health insurers of all kinds coming to us, competing for our interest—and our dollars. The consumer would be sovereign. Could the government help in some cases? Could the government help the poor, or those who might not be able to make clearheaded decisions? The government is already purchasing the bulk of health care in the country, and yet often when it comes to government, it's a struggle to distinguish between a helping hand and a heavy hand. And let's always remember where the government is getting its money—from us.

I also understood that changes to our $2.5 trillion health system should not impose a further burden, weighing down local hospitals, for example, with more uncompensated care; that is, people who receive treatment, but never pay. A system this complex is only made more so, to the point of illegibility, by another tranche of bureaucracy, laying on still more red tape. I recalled the famous quote from the great eighteenth-century conservative Edmund Burke: “The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and therefore no simple disposition of direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the quality of his affairs.” A little official humility, in other words, is in order. And if the issue is reforming American health care, a careful, cautious transition is needed. We should have the governmental equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath: “First, do no harm.” But Obama clearly did harm to America's current Medicare recipients when he chose to take over $500 billion away from Medicare just at the moment when more Americans are entering into the program. Undoubtedly we can find better ways to deliver quality health care to America's seniors, but if taking $500 billion away from them is Obama's first prescription, I don't think seniors will be eager to hear what his second prescription might be.

Then there's the issue of health itself. In Washington, D.C., terminology, discussions of “health care” inevitably turn into discussions of “health-care
finance
.” That is, the emphasis is put on health insurance, health subsidies, and payment schemes. Yet with a moment's reflection, we can see that health-care finance is not the same as health itself. For one thing, health-care finance does not automatically give access to cures and healing; cures and healing are not always available to us. For instance, if you go to the doctor with a broken arm, the doctor can fix it, but if you go to the doctor with, say, Alzheimer's disease, he or she can give you little hope—and certainly no cure. Financing schemes can't fix that ailment; they are financial, not medical. Cures are achieved not by health insurance but by diligent medical researchers working in the highest realms of scientific endeavor.

Universal coverage, in other words, no matter how complete—no matter how many mandates are imposed—won't do what only medical science can do. Today, nearly six million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's, at an annual cost, according to the Alzheimer's Association, of $172 billion a year. And as our population ages, those numbers will only increase exponentially; the number of Alzheimer's victims is projected to quadruple in the next forty years, and the cumulative cost of caring for those patients is expected to reach $20 trillion by 2050. That's a huge moral and psychic burden on all of us, not to mention a colossal expense. And yet if people are sick and need help, we will, of course, give them that help. That's who we are as Americans. No doubt the free market and the private sector, properly monitored, could provide better care at lower cost than a bureaucracy—but the fact remains that some medical conditions, such as dementia, are inherently costly.

In other words, all the brave Obama talk about “bending the curve” on health-care costs is bending the curve
up,
not down. Adding coverage for thirty million to fifty million more Americans will mean either higher costs or fewer services. So the ones already paying now will pay more and get less. And those paying nothing will still likely pay nothing in the future. The one certainty is that Obamacare will move us toward a darkening twilight of rationed delivery and fewer medical breakthroughs. And so the free market that gave us the finest health care in the world will be just a dwindling memory.