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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Solving the Constitutionality of Healthcare Reform

Watching the Senate debate on repeal of healthcare reform yesterday on C-SPAN, I had the overwhelming urge to throw the TV remote control through the front of the wide screen unit every time a Republican Senator spoke about the mandate requirement for car insurance is not comparable to the mandate in the Affordable Care Law.  After thinking about it for a while, I now think that there is less of a case for the car insurance mandate then before the debate.  

But let's think this through together.  Our city, county, state and federal tax dollars has in some partial way paid for the construction of the different localities road system typically by a for-profit construction company, so you might suppose that you would have the right to use these roads since you partially paid for them.  But according to the GOP Senators it is a privilege to do so and that using the road system by driving your own vehicle is not a right, even-though you were taxed to pay for the construction and maintenance of this infrastructure.  The purchase of your vehicle for which taxes were excised on this transaction and every gasoline purchase thereafter has been borne sole by you and your family.  The state requires that you maintain the vehicle in good working order and to demonstrate that you can operate the vehicle safely for which you pay a fee for a state license to operate the vehicle and annual renewal of license plates.  And yet the GOP Senators stood on the floor of the Senate and said that driving a car is a privilege and not a right, a privilege that the various local, state and federal government have taxed you for over and over again.  This seems a rather odd conclusion that you would have no right to drive on a road that your taxes partially paid for, in a vehicle that you did pay for yourself for which the different levels of government have collected taxes, that these Senators would believe that this is a privilege and that the state mandates that you buy a product from a for-profit entity, car insurance is constitutional. 

On the other hand if you follow the GOP Senator's logic, one could present themselves to the local hospital emergency room, for which you have paid nothing in the cost of construction or maintenance of these facilities or the training of the staff and you could fully expect to receive quality healthcare regardless of your ability to pay for it and that this is a right.  At least so these Republican Senators argued and that we should not be mandated by the government to buy health insurance from a for-profit entity because this is unconstitutional in their opinion and the opinion of two republican appointed judges.  So taking this view to the next logical conclusion, to solve the crisis in healthcare; the government should build and maintain all of the hospitals and doctor offices and tax us for this infrastructure, then going to the emergency room for quality healthcare would be a privilege, not a right and then the mandate for buying health insurance from a for-profit entity would be constitutional.  Problem solved, with this type of logic it is a wonder that the government functions at all, are these really the best and brightest or has politic slide so far that this is the best we can get to do the job, a handsome face to read other peoples talking points as if they are their own thoughts.

No worries about my television set, it is still in tact and the remote control is safe.  I cannot say the same about the state of rational thought and our healthcare system. 

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