It was the author of the U.S. Constitution James Madison, who proclaimed:
“The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
(click to enlarge)
In this latest example (originally posted Sept of 2012) of John Van Huzuim’s conflating terms and ideas, we see a prime example of how liberals will argue. First, let us deal with how the framers of the Constitution understood “General Welfare,” and not what John says it means or how he thinks conservative Republicans understand it. Here is some input from two of the authors of the Constitution, professor Williams explains:
On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine men signed the U.S. Constitution. Each year since 2004, we have celebrated Constitution Day as a result of legislation fathered by Senator Robert Byrd that requires federal agencies, and every school that receives federal funds, including universities, to have some kind of program on the Constitution. I cannot think of a more deceitful piece of legislation or a more constitutionally odious person to father it – a person who is known as, and proudly wears the label, “King of Pork.” The only reason that Constitution Day is not greeted with contempt is because most Americans are totally ignorant about the framer’s vision in writing our constitution. Let’s examine that vision to see how much faith and allegiance today’s Americans give to the U.S. Constitution.
James Madison is the acknowledged father of the constitution. In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia. James Madison wrote disapprovingly, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” Today, at least two-thirds of a $2.5 trillion federal budget is spent on the “objects of benevolence.” That includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, aid to higher education, farm and business subsidies, welfare, ad nauseam.
A few years later, James Madison’s vision was expressed by Representative William Giles of Virginia, who condemned a relief measure for fire victims. Giles insisted that it was neither the purpose nor a right of Congress to “attend to what generosity and humanity require, but to what the Constitution and their duty require.”
In 1827, Davy Crockett was elected to the House of Representatives. During his term of office a $10,000 relief measure was proposed to assist the widow of a naval officer. Davy Crockett eloquently opposed the measure saying, “Mr. Speaker: I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it. We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”
In 1854, President Franklin Pierce vetoed a popular measure to help the mentally ill saying, “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity.” To approve the measure “would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.” During President Grover Cleveland’s two terms in office, he vetoed many congressional appropriations, often saying there was no constitutional authority for such an appropriation. Vetoing a bill for relief charity, President Cleveland said, “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.”
Compared to today, yesteryear’s vision vastly differs in what congressional actions are constitutionally permissible. How might today’s congress, president and courts square their behavior with that of their predecessors? The most generous interpretation of their behavior I can give is their misunderstanding of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that reads, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” Misuse of the “general welfare” clause serves as warrant for Congress to do just about anything upon which it can secure a majority vote.
The framers addressed the misinterpretation of the “general welfare clause. James Madison said, in a letter to James Robertson, “With respect to the two words ‘general welfare’, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” James Madison also said, “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.” James Madison laid out what he saw as constitutional limits on federal power in Federalist Paper Number 45 where he explained, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.”
Thomas Jefferson explained in a letter to Albert Gallatin, “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
What accounts for today’s acceptance of a massive departure from the framer’s clear vision of what federal activities were constitutionally permissible? It is tempting to blame politicians and yes we can blame them some but most of the blame lies with the American people who are either ignorant of the constitutional limits the framers imposed on the federal government or they have contempt for those limits….
POLITISTICK notes the difference when they write: “Progressives and their communist cousins — even RINOs (Republicans in name only) will argue the ‘General Welfare’ clause is somehow being authorization for the federal government to spend on anything members of Congress dreams up.” Continuing Madison is again quoted from:
James Madison, in his brilliance, anticipated this argument, of course, and shot it down on several different occasions:
“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.”
In other words, if the words “general welfare” meant going outside of the enumerated powers, there would have been no reason to even write the enumerated powers in the first place!
Madison further imagined where Congress might stretch the General Welfare clause if it were misinterpreted to be open-ended:
If Congress can apply money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may establish teachers in every State, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public Treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads.
In short, everything, from the highest object of State legislation, down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.
[….]
For all of the reasons above, with the Democrat Party all but merging with the Communist Party USA and the Republicans, led by big government RINO’s Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, only wanting slightly smaller and just barely less unconstitutional than the Democrats, I strongly support both the Convention of States and the Federalist Party. Both parties are arguing which can bastardize the U.S. Constitution the most. We know that the Democrats will always be the most aggressive in this venture but the Republicans are not far behind.
The Sage from South-Central
Larry Elder on his radio program takes a call in regards to this exact same understanding of the General Welfare Clause.
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Ben Franklin Money Quote
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. (Ben Franklin)
In another ARTICLE Professor Williams ends with this, and I think it is suitable for this discussion:
You might say, “If our Constitution provides no authority for programs near and dear to the hearts of so many Americans, the heck with the Constitution.” If that’s your perspective, you’re in good company. The Courts, Congress and the White House beat you to it. Long ago they said, “The heck with the Constitution.”
This is what John is saying, the heck with the constitution! Take note as well that not only does he miss-defines what conservative think, he also argues for police and fire personnel, and then from there jumps to welfare programs (the war on poverty, so-called). (Remember what I always point out with John? Non-sequiturs… he is full of them.) Now, Obama-Care is placed under this umbrella the writers of the clause rejected. I will end here with Professor Williams in regards to Obama-Care:
Here is the second part to POLITISTICK’s post on the matter… love me some Madison!
…Only certain, specifically identified powers, called “enumerated powers,” were delegated to the federal government from the states — powers that the Founding Fathers believed were best performed on a national basis, duties like “provide for the common defense,” to coin money, establish uniform immigration laws, “Post Offices,” treaties with foreign nations, to regulate (which does not mean restrict) interstate commerce, and a few others. These powers were clearly listed in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution.
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Madison further described the proper role for the soon-to-be federal government versus the unique roles of the individual states:
“The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
So (let’s forget the politicized decision by the tyrants in black robes who declared Obamacare constitutional — it is not) what does this mean? Would a full single-payer healthcare system like the one proposed in California (which would have more than doubled the entire state budget) be allowed by the U.S. Constitution?
You bet it would — on the state level — but NOT on the national level. If people in California want to more than double their already exorbitant taxes in order to pay for such a system, they are allowed to under the Tenth Amendment, which states, referring to Article I, Section 8:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Nowhere in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution among the enumerated powers are the words, medicine, health care, doctor visits, surgery, healthcare insurance (yes, people got sick in the late 1700’s and there were doctors and medicine), or anything like this even remotely mentioned as a power being transferred by the states to the federal government…..
The Affordable Care Act was supposed to lower healthcare costs, but it has done just the opposite. Why? Because it ignored the realities of how markets work.
Here are two interview with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who wrote an important piece. She is the highest ranking House [female] Republican, mother of three, and one of her children ihas a special needs child with a pre-existing condition. Her op-ed in the Washington Post can be found on her site, and is entitled:
Here are the interviews that include some description underneath. Anjoy:
I attach the previous call to the interview, as, it dove tails nicely into the the topics discussed. It is key to hear the concerns of people — often misinformed, as my post on the issue makes clear. I set the time on the video to start at the opening of the interview. The mainstream media’s narrative is sickening, BTW.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers honestly states that rates will still rise a bit… but that this is a three-part “dealing with” Obama-Care. Hugh Hewitt fleshes out some strategy and other issues that plague the GOP in a polite professional matter in this all-too-important [HOT] topic of health-care.
I will first post a serious challenge/worry that the MSM (mainstream media) will be using as “special cases.” BUT FIRST, why is this not a good way to write law? That is, write law using special cases. Being that I am “conservative” and lean towards this bias, I will use some examples from these similar thinking people. The first zeroes in on a separate issue, but in regards to writing laws, it is the same:
…Proponents of gay marriage fail utterly to comprehend the idea that laws are made with society, not the individual, in mind. That is why they also fail to grasp the idea that law is predicated upon averages, not outliers. Interestingly, both libertarians and progressives suffer from this lack of understanding…
…But more often they try to undermine the link between marriage and childrearing by pointing to outliers—marriages in which couples choose not to have children or cannot have them because at least one partner happens to be infertile. But this argument only reveals the weakness of the progressive understanding of the law. Put simply, rules that are justified by the average case cannot be undermined by the exceptional case, otherwise known as the outlier. Thus the old maxim, “Hard cases make bad law.”…
Mike S. Adams, Letters To A Young Progressive (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2013), 81, 82.
The following two media files are the same analogy of car insurance explained by Dennis Prager, but two different times:
PREEXISTING CONDITIONS
With the above in mind, here is my first response via Facebook to a thoughtful post:
This is a thoughtful and understandable challenge by a single mother who is on a fixed income… she asks a question about her child with a malady and what the change in “pre-existing” is according to the current bill (remember, it will go through the senate, then most probably “conference,” reconciliation [by this time the CBO will have gone through the bill then — which will be tweaked from the one we are speaking to currently], and then be re-voted on)…
…here is her concern:
✦ My child’s digestive and respiratory issues caused by her being born prematurely and her grief depression caused by her farther dying when she was 5 are all considered pre-existing. As a single mother on a fixed income, her health care is an issue I do get very excited about!
With the AHCA, and the future fixes, premiums will fall dramatically. If you are caught without insurance for 63-days, you will pay about 30% more, but again, the overall payment will be much lower. Due to Obama-Care imploding (the latest example out of the many is Iowa having zero insurance coverage options, in other words, if you are a single mother on a fixed income in many states, you have zero options.
This was and is untenable. One of the GOP’s goals is to allow cross state competition for insurance groups that will increase pool sizes and lower costs dramatically. This has been illegal. Also, tort reform would be the single most beneficial thing that could be done… This is hard because injury lawyers are the first or second largest donors to the Democrat Party, so until we get enough conservative and other Republican’s to take this part of the issue seriously, the Democrats will continue to stand in the way of effective ways to lower your cost and increase your coverage options.
ADDENDUM 1 Just to add to make what I said clear (wanting clarity to reign). If you have not had insurance for 63-days — and AFTER this point you get an illness, this is when “pre-existing” kicks in. You see, I run a warehouse, and while the owner (a close friend) could afford the rise in his premiums, and I had insurance through my wife, the responsible young man who made $12 bucks an hour had insurance through Blue Cross on his own, lost his insurance because of Obama-Care. When he could find a policy again, it was more expensive. Two years after this it was more than twice as expensive as he was paying before O-Care. And he made the least in the warehouse. Why was it so expensive? His plane included pregnancy tests, Pap smear, mammogram, etc.
This way, through this legislation, the premiums should drop (esp. through more free market options in the future), but the cost won’t be a burden to poorer responsible people who have health insurance.
I just wanted clarify the above, as, I feel for you. Your concern is real! The call at the end of this interview is similar to your case (via my YouTube upload):
ADDENDUM 2 Sorry, one last thing, and this is to help you get through the weeds of Main Stream Media and all the other sources you will come across — yes, even me. The best non-partisan summary is this:
➤ States may opt-out of requiring premiums to be the same for all people of the same age, so while individuals with pre-existing conditions must be offered health insurance there is no limit on the cost of that insurance. A new $8 billion fund would help lower premiums for these individuals.
So even with the “ding” against “pre-existing” cases, there is money set aside for people just like you… if your state chooses to participate. BTW, this is called Federalism light… it is more Constitutional than the previous plan. Something we should all be moving towards.
The above Kellyanne Conway Tweeting of a WASHINGTON POST OP-ED by Cathy McMorris Rodgers:
Hearing late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional monologue this week about his son’s condition and his family’s experience in the moments after his birth, I had a flashback to the day my son was born and we learned he had Down syndrome.
My husband and I had a lot of questions about Cole’s future. Whether he’d have health care shouldn’t have had to be one of them. When you’re facing years of doctor’s appointments, you want to know that having a preexisting condition, such as an extra 21st chromosome or a heart defect, won’t prevent you or your loved ones from accessing the care you need.
Protections for children such as Cole Rodgers and Billy Kimmel have long existed, as they should. And despite what people are saying, House Republicans aren’t seeking to strip these protections — or anyone’s protections — away.
[….]
To me, protecting people with preexisting conditions isn’t just good policy — it’s a personal mission.
All across the country, families like mine have real concerns about the future of health care, and they are why we’re focusing on results and working on these reforms. Obamacare is wrong for America. It has failed, and it’s only getting worse — making health care more expensive and less accessible. To stand by and do nothing would be irresponsible. The AHCA is a monumental step forward that trusts the American people — not the federal government — to make the best decisions for themselves and their families….
She does state elsewhere that for two years premiums will still rise, but that this is a “PART 1” of a three-part “fix,” and from all I have read, they will not rise nearly as fast as under O-Care.
OTHER NATIONS OFFER HEALTH-CARE…
…EXCEPT THE FASCIST GOP…
Here is another challenge, albeit not so thoughtful:
The United States Government is stupid… every civilized nation on the globe offers citizens health care…this country can’t and won’t because of greed and big business! Fuck Trump and the fascist GOP!
Just a quick note… Hitler’s Germany offered single-payer health care… speaking of “fascists.” Here is my FB response, I will add something a bit later:
Canada, the UK, Norway, etc., Are all moving toward free-market health-care as their single payer systems fail… I have read quite a few books on this over the years (a classic I recommend is “Code Blue: Reviving Canada’s Health Care System”) dealing with the issue, it is a bit more complicated than your “erudite” synopsis. For instance, to exemplify my point a bit, here is some commentary by the guy who is the founder of the Canadian model of health care, which the UK also used for their model:
“Back in the 1960s, (Claude) Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.”
Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.”
“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”
But that is why most insurance companies backed O-Care to begin with, as a way to weed out competition. Private practices could not compete, other option (that allowed for groups of private citizens to form their own catastrophic care groups became illegal), etc… So greed plays a part, but not the way you think. Here are a couple of short examples of Econ 101 to make my point on my site: BAM! WHAT IS CRONY CAPITALISM
Here Is My Addition Here On My Site
SCANDINAVIAN SOCIALISM
One can read and listen/watch all the media on my main post about “
Economics 101
In an excellent Bloomberg article entitled, “Booming Sweden’s Free-Market Solution,” the myth is dismantled in toto by Anders Aslund. Here is a snippet:
…From 1970 until 1989, taxes rose exorbitantly, killing private initiative, while entitlements became excessive. Laws were often altered and became unpredictable. As a consequence, Sweden endured two decades of low growth. In 1991-93, the country suffered a severe crash in real estate and banking that reduced GDP by 6 percent. Public spending had surged to 71.7 percent of GDP in 1993, and the budget deficit reached 11 percent of GDP.
TURNING POINT The combination of the crisis and the non-socialist government under Carl Bildt from 1991 to 1994 broke the trend and turned the country around. In 1994, the Social Democrats returned to power and stayed until 2006. Instead of revoking the changes, they completed the fiscal tightening. In 2006, a non-socialist government returned, and Finance Minister Anders Borg, with his trademark ponytail and earring, has led further reforms. Sweden successfully weathered the global financial crisis that started in 2008, and the Financial Times named Borg Europe’s best finance minister last year.
Before 2009, Sweden had a budget surplus, and it has one again. For the past two years, economic growth has been 4 percent on average, and the current-account surplus was 6.7 percent in 2011. The only concerns are the depressed demand for exports caused by the current euro crisis and an unemployment rate that is about 7.5 percent.
Sweden’s traditional scourge is taxes, which used to be the highest in the world. The current government has cut them every year and abolished wealth taxes. Inheritance and gift taxes are also gone. Until 1990, the maximum marginal income tax rate was 90 percent. Today, it is 56.5 percent. That is still one of the world’s highest, after Belgium’s 59.4 and there is strong public support for a cut to 50 percent.
The 26 percent tax on corporate profits may seem reasonable from an American perspective, but Swedish business leaders want to reduce it to 20 percent. Tax competition is fierce in some parts of Europe. Most East European countries, for example, have slashed corporate taxes to 15-19 percent….
Finland is joining military exercises with other Scandinavian countries, as well as several members of NATO, in late May, Finnish media report. The maneuvers called Arctic Challenge will span 12 days, starting May 25, and include nine countries and close to 100 planes. The drills, over Sweden and northern Norway, come amid increased tensions between Russia and its Baltic and Nordic neighbors.
Sweden and Switzerland, which like Finland are not members of NATO, are expected to join the exercise, along with NATO members Norway, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Germany and the United States. Finland plans to send 16 F-18 Hornet fighter jets, while the other countries will supply Gripen “multirole” fighters, F-16s, Eurofighters and Jet Falcons, as well as transports and tankers, Russian news agency Sputnik reported. The Norwegian armed forces said the purpose of the Arctic Challenge exercise is to “learn to coordinate efforts in complicated flight operations conducted in cooperation with NATO.”
Russia has ramped up military activity along its borders with northern Europe, causing consternation in several Baltic and Nordic countries and pre-emptive actions to head off — or prepare for — a possible military crisis. Latvia, which reported a Russian submarine near its coast in mid-March, is beefing up security on its eastern border, while Finland recently began a letter campaign notifying some 900,000 reservists of their duties in a potential crisis. Sweden also intercepted four Russian planes flying over the Baltic Sea in March with their radios off. Russian jets have been intercepted in other instances while flying in European international airspace….
I also pointed out that this promise went back to the Cold War, and was not known about till a Swedish defense think-tank/security firm uncovered the agreements in 1994. The original story’s link has been lost, but it is here on FOI’s site. FOI’s “about us” page has this:
FOI is one of Europe’s leading research institutes in the areas of defence and security. We have 1,000 highly skilled employees with various backgrounds. At FOI, you will find everything from physicists, chemists, engineers, social scientists, mathematicians and philosophers to lawyers, economists and IT technicians…. The Armed Forces and the Swedish Defence Material Administration are our main customers. However, we also accept assignments from civil authorities and industry. Our clients from the defence sector place very high demands on advanced research, which also benefits other customers.
Initially after the end of World War II, Sweden quietly pursued an aggressive independent nuclear weapons program involving plutonium production and nuclear secrets acquisition from all nuclear powers, until the 1960s, when it was abandoned as cost-prohibitive. During the Cold War Sweden appeared to maintain a dual approach to thermonuclear weapons. Publicly, the strict neutrality policy was forcefully maintained, but unofficially strong ties were purportedly kept with the U.S. It was hoped that the U.S. would use conventional and nuclear weapons to strike at Soviet staging areas in the occupied Baltic states in case of a Soviet attack on Sweden. Over time and due to the official neutrality policy, fewer and fewer Swedish military officials were aware of the military cooperation with the west, making such cooperation in the event of war increasingly difficult. At the same time Swedish defensive planning was completely based on help from abroad in the event of war. Later research has shown that every publicly available war-game training, included the scenario that Sweden was under attack from the Soviets, and would rely on NATO forces for defence. The fact that it was not permissible to mention this aloud eventually led to the Swedish armed forces becoming highly misbalanced. For example, a strong ability to defend against an amphibious invasion was maintained, while an ability to strike at inland staging areas was almost completely absent.
In the early 1960s U.S. nuclear submarines armed with mid-range nuclear missiles of type Polaris A-1 were deployed outside the Swedish west coast. Range and safety considerations made this a good area from which to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike on Moscow. The submarines had to be very close to the Swedish coast to hit their intended targets though. As a consequence of this, in 1960, the same year that the submarines were first deployed, the U.S. provided Sweden with a military security guarantee. The U.S. promised to provide military force in aid of Sweden in case of Soviet aggression. This guarantee was kept from the Swedish public until 1994, when a Swedish research commission found evidence for it. As part of the military cooperation the U.S. provided much help in the development of the Saab 37 Viggen, as a strong Swedish air force was seen as necessary to keep Soviet anti-submarine aircraft from operating in the missile launch area. In return Swedish scientists at the Royal Institute of Technology made considerable contributions to enhancing the targeting performance of the Polaris missiles.
After a friend posted something asbout the house passing the American Health Care Act (AHCA), his own flesh and blood… his mother… wrote:
American Health Care Act (AHCA),
If their legislation is so great why did they vote themselves exempt from it? Good enough for us – not ok for them…?
I respond,
Yes, this is a great example of misinformation via the MSM [the Left]. But the reason that separated the two is explained well in this article…. BUT BEFORE THAT EXCERPT, which is more in-depth, let’s go barney style first:
NYT CORRESPONDENT FALSELY REPORTS HOUSE MEMBERS VOTED TO EXEMPT THEMSELVES FROM GOP HEALTH CARE BILL
A New York Times correspondent falsely reported Thursday on Twitter that members of the House of Representatives unanimously voted to exempt themselves from the Republican health care bill.
A day earlier, reporters noticed that a provision in the American Health Care Act would exempt lawmakers and their staff from losing some of the repealed Obamacare provisions. In response to the criticism, House leadership announced they would vote separately on the issue.
The House voted 429-0 to pass a bill rectifying the mistake, preventing lawmakers from being exempted. But the New York Times‘ chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, apparently misunderstood the vote…..
HERE’S WHY CONGRESS EXEMPTED ITSELF FROM THE NEW HEALTHCARE BILL
Last week, Vox dug into the Republican healthcare bill and found a provision that would exempt Congress and its staff from many of the bill’s effects.
This provision was bad “optics,” as they say in Washington.
But instead of taking it out — like you would usually do with a provision you aren’t wedded to and can’t defend politically — the House passed the American Health Care Act with the exemption intact after first passing a separate bill that would repeal the exemption that would be created by the AHCA if both bills became law.
There’s a reason for this mess, and it’s not about Republicans in Congress not wanting to be subject to their law.
It’s about Senate procedure.
Republicans are attempting to pass the AHCA through a process called reconciliation. This process, created by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, allows the Senate to pass certain bills relating to the federal budget with just a simple majority. There is no need to get 60 votes — and, in this case, some Democratic support — as there is for other legislation.
A variety of complex rules govern what matters may and may not be considered through reconciliation.
One of those is that reconciliation must be conducted pursuant to reconciliation instructions passed by both chambers of Congress. That happened earlier this year — Congress sent reconciliation instructions to two Senate committees (finance; and health, education, labor, and pensions) that were designed to allow those committees to write bills making changes to healthcare policy.
The problem, as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explains, is that Congress’ healthcare is governed by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and that committee was not sent any reconciliation instructions.
Therefore, if a reconciliation bill makes changes to the way Congress gets its healthcare, it might become subject to a 60-vote threshold because it addresses a matter that is supposed to be the purview of a committee that doesn’t get to participate in reconciliation this year.
Here I add some information I came across a day later:
ADDENDUM 1 And also from FACTCHECK.ORG, there was this updated insight that confirms the above:
….Indeed, Republican Rep. Martha McSally of Arizona proposed a stand-alone bill to strike the exemption of Congress from state waiver provisions should the AHCA be enacted into law. From the House floor, McSally said that “due to very arcane Senate procedural rules within the budget reconciliation process,” the MacArthur amendment “does not and cannot apply to members of Congress.”
“I believe that any law we pass [that] applies to our constituents must also apply equally to members of Congress,” McSally said. “Individuals who are stewards of public trust must abide by the rules that they make.”
McSally’s bill passed on May 4 by a 429-0 vote. Unlike a reconciliation bill, the McSally bill would require 60 votes in the Senate to pass.
So there are now two bills that the House sent to the Senate. The AHCA — for esoteric procedural reasons — would exempt members of Congress and their staffs from state waiver provisions. But then there’s a bill that would strike that exemption if the AHCA becomes law. Clearly, based on the unanimous vote for the McSally bill, there is bipartisan agreement that a health care law Congress passes should apply in the same way to members of Congress.
NOW, to the last, and the worst of them all… and I will link to the many articles refuting it with a couple commentaries from a few.
RAPE AS A PREEXISTING CONDITION
It is the — yes crazy — understanding that RAPE is a pre-existing condition. Dumb! [<<< my commentary]. Here is the first “non-partisan” [left-leaning] POLITIFACT notes this claim is… WAIT FOR IT…
~ MOSTLY FALSE! ~
And the WASHINGTON POST gives it their MAXIMUM debunking rating of FOUR PINOCCHIOS
I know… crazy huh? Someone told my wife — roughly this:
“I hope you never get raped… because that is a pre-existing condition.”
I sent her this post from the not Trump friendly REASON.ORG website… to which yesterday the last article makes clear their bottom line:
If Democrats and progressives would just stick to actual details of the AHCA, they would still have plenty of material to make Republicans look bad (and the same goes for traffic-thirsty bloggers). But once again, that’s not enough for them. In their zeal to portray Donald Trump and the current GOP as worse than Nazis, the actual details of the bill don’t matter—and if that terrifies a ton of sexual-assault survivors and terrorizes American women in the process, so be it.
Since yesterday the article has been updated substantially, which I will post a portion of:
Update | May 6, 11:30 a.m.: Since I posted this, several other media outlets have investigated the rape-as-preexisting-condition claims and come to similar conclusions as mine. Politifact declared the claim “mostly false,” and The Washington Post—which yesterday morning published an op-ed yesterday perpetuating the rape claim—ran a Fact Checker column today giving it Four Pinnochios. “The notion that AHCA classifies rape or sexual assault as a preexisting condition, or that survivors would be denied coverage, is false,” wrote the Post’s Michelle Ye Hee Lee. In addition, “almost all states (at least 45 to 48) have their own laws protecting survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.”
“It takes several leaps of imagination to assume that survivors of rape and sexual assault will face higher premiums as a result of conditions relating to their abuse,” Lee continues.
A person would need to be in the individual or small-group market (most Americans under 65 are on employer-provided plans), in a state that sought waivers, and in one of two to five states that did not prohibit insurance-company discrimination against survivors of sexual abuse.
In other words, this claim relies on so many factors — including unknown decisions by a handful of states and insurance companies — that this talking point becomes almost meaningless.
We always say at The Fact Checker that the more complicated the topic, the more susceptible it is to spin. Both media coverage and hyperbole among advocates are at fault for creating a misleading representation of the House GOP health bill. We wavered between Three and Four Pinocchios, but the out-of-control rhetoric and the numerous assumptions pushed us to Four Pinocchios.
What is also sad is that people do not read the bill outside it being put into political talking points outside the media or their organizations. I have already noted the following above:
➤ States may opt-out of requiring premiums to be the same for all people of the same age, so while individuals with pre-existing conditions must be offered health insurance there is no limit on the cost of that insurance. A new $8 billion fund would help lower premiums for these individuals.
But here is more of a response to the broader challenge at hand:
Myth #2: People with pre-existing conditions will lose their coverage or pay more.
In fact, people who have health insurance and want to make changes to their coverage during open enrollment or after a qualifying life event (birth of a child, job loss, marriage, death, divorce, move, etc.) cannot be charged more for health insurance because of a pre-existing condition.
That said, if someone went uninsured and waited until they got sick to enroll in a health insurance plan, the MacArthur amendment to the AHCAgives states the authority to try to prevent that from happening.
One of the things a state could do, under this amendment, would be to allow insurance companies to charge people with pre-existing conditions more money for their health insurance, if they’ve been uninsured for an extended period of time.
One of the authors of the AHCA has a congenetital heart issue, he says this in an op-ed:
The American Health Care Act (AHCA) that I voted for and passed in the House does just that:
It establishes a healthcare system built upon free-market and consumer-driven principles that will revive competition, increasing quality, drive down costs, and expand coverage.
Congressional members and staff are not exempt from the AHCA. The McSally Amendment made sure this legislation applies equally to everyone.
THOSE WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS CANNOT BE DENIED COVERAGE. I HAVE A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION WITH MY CONGENITAL HEART DEFECT, AND I UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO MAINTAIN COVERAGE FOR OTHERS.
Low-income Americans are not losing coverage and will still receive coverage under Medicaid.
And finally, here are a repition of what is above, but for good measure:
1. The Upton Amendment: The Upton Amendment, named after Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mi.), adds another $8 billion on top of the aforementioned $100 billion to cover high-risk patients with chronic and/or pre-existing conditions. This amendment was put in place to help satisfy more moderate-leaning Republicans who felt the AHCA took too much away from their constituents.
Here is the final explanation to be clear:
….As the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities puts it, without community rating, “Insurers could increase premiums by unlimited amounts for people with a history of cancer, hypertension, asthma, depression, or other conditions.”
Likewise, lifting the essential health benefits requirement would allow insurers to offer plans that don’t cover chemotherapy, maternity care, prescription drugs, or other expensive treatments.
In other words, insurers could effectively turn away the sick by refusing to sell policies that cover the services they need at any price, much less an affordable one.
These concerns are wildly overstated.
First, the only people supposedly at risk of being denied affordable coverage by these waivers are the 7 percent of Americans who buy coverage in the individual insurance market.
Insurers have long been banned from discriminating against the sick in the employer-sponsored market, where a little less than 160 million Americans get their coverage. Those with pre-existing conditions who get their coverage from Medicare, Medicaid, or another government program have nothing to worry about, either.
Second, the House-passed American Health Care Act would only allow insurers to base premiums on the health status of an applicant if that person went without coverage for 63 days or more the previous year. Those in waiver states who maintain continuous coverage could not be medically underwritten — and so would be protected from egregious premium hikes.
Further, pre-existing conditions are far less common than Rep. Pallone and his fellow travelers claim. A 2010 congressional investigation found that, pre-Obamacare, insurers denied just one in seven applicants in the individual market because of a pre-existing condition.
That means that about 1 percent of the total non-elderly population has a health problem serious enough to even need those pre-existing condition protections.
Even if we add the entire uninsured population to the individual market and assume the same denial rate, the share of non-elderly people declined coverage because of pre-existing conditions would be less than 3 percent. That estimate is almost certainly high, as a number of the uninsured are probably eligible for coverage elsewhere, whether through work or a government program.
For this small share of the population that could potentially be priced out of the individual market because of pre-existing conditions, the AHCA includes several additional layers of protection. The House bill seeds a Patient and State Stability Fund with $130 billion over ten years to reduce premiums and out-of-pocket costs for these folks.
A last-minute amendment to the AHCA provides an additional $8 billion over five years specifically earmarked to help those with pre-existing conditions in waiver states who let their insurance coverage lapse for more 63 days or more pay their premiums. Insurers can consider these folks’ health status when determining premiums — but only for one year. After that, they’d pay the standard rate for their age.
Many waiver states will choose to direct at least part of that $138 billion toward high-risk pools — programs that offer subsidized coverage to those rendered uninsurable because of a serious medical condition.
By removing these most costly patients from standard risk pools, high-risk pools would help keep premiums down throughout the insurance market — and ensure that younger, healthier patients have affordable coverage options.
The AHCA has plenty of flaws. But it’s dishonest to argue that it abandons individuals with pre-existing conditions.
Liberal Media Claims Trumpcare Makes Rape A Pre-Existing Condition, It Doesn’t (Young Conservatives);
FAKE NEWS: No, The Republican Health Care Bill Didn’t Just Make Rape A Pre-Existing Condition (DAILY WIRE);
No. Rape Is Not A ‘Pre-Existing Condition’ Under The Republican Health Care Bill (CHICKS ON THE RIGHT);
No, Rape is Not a Pre-Existing Condition Under GOP Health Bill: Hysterical allegation vastly misstates impact of partial Obamacare repeal passed by House (POLIZETTE);
When the GOP Isn’t Murdering People, It’s Exploiting Rape Victims (NATIONAL REVIEW);
Just Stop: No, the AHCA Does Not Make Rape a Pre-Existing Condition (VICTORY GIRLS);
NY Mag Falsely Claims Rape Is a Pre-Existing Condition In AHCA (NEWSBUSTERS).
The designer of Obamacare, noted today as premiums spike more that the bill is working as designed (the video included his latest remarks coupled with his earlier remarks):
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor and architect of ObamaCare Jonathan Gruber told CNN’s Carol Costello on Wednesday that ObamaCare, which is set to see a sharp increase in premium prices next year, is going just as planned.
When asked what could be done to the Affordable Care Act in order to drive the prices of premiums down, Gruber responded by saying “the law is working as designed.”
WORKING AS DESIGNED?
YES, as designed:
I have pointed this out before… single-payer is the goal:
An after thought. Since the DNC leadership has said — recently — the goal is single-payer… the question becomes this then: “what other area of life would a person want single payer in?” The airlines? Fast-food? Grocery stores? Car dealers? Education? Gyms?
In other words, why would someone reject a single airline, a single grocery-store (sorry weekend BBQ’ers, no more carne-asada from Vallerta), one gym, etc. — competition drives prices down and offers the best way (supply and demand) to get to the consumer what they want… but reject all that for a system that is failing in Canada, Britain, and the like?
It seems counter-intuitive that the left likes to break up large companies/corporations that get too big, and speak about/to the “evils” large companies inflict on the consumer, but then want single-payer. Odd indeed.
Why is it a big deal that Max Baucus has now come around as well? Well, it’s not just that he was one of the architects of O-Care in 2009 as head of the Senate Finance Committee, making his “evolution” towards socialized medicine particularly noteworthy. It’s that Baucus was one of the bulwarks *against* single-payer in the Senate at the time. Leftists begged him to seize the moment eight years ago, when Democrats enjoyed a filibuster-proof majority, and push Medicare for all. No dice, he said. The country’s not ready for it. It won’t pass and Democrats might get wiped out in the midterms for even trying. In the end they got wiped out in the midterms anyway and large chunks of the country do now appear to be ready for it — including Republicans, so long as the small matter of cost isn’t emphasized.
“I just think the time has come,” Baucus told NBC News Friday, after stunning healthcare observers earlier in the day by seemingly coming around on single-payer at a public forum. “Back in ’09, we were not ready to address it. It would never have passed. Here we are nine years later, I think it’s time to hopefully have a very serious good faith look at it.”…
“I started out by saying everything is on the table,” Baucus recalled. “But I did make an exception and that was single-payer. I said, nope, we’re not going to put single-payer on the table. Why? In my judgement, America was just not there … It’s branded as socialistic by too many people.”…
Baucus compared the issue’s evolution to that of gay rights. “It’s anathema for a long time, and then suddenly — acceptance,” he said.
Take note over the years the stories of “mom-and-pop” doctors going out of business because they could not afford to stay in business. The small insurance companies warning they would go out of business, and why the LARGER insurance companies wanted this because they knew it would run their competition out of business. But even the larger companies got bit in the ass… super corporations cannot form to handle the burden. But we also know that a single-payer health care system ~ w-h-i-c-h h-a-s w-o-r-k-e-d NOWHERE.
Minnesota will let the health insurers in its Obamacare market raise rates by at least 50 percent next year, after the individual market there came to the brink of collapse, the state’s commerce commissioner said Friday.
The increases range from 50 percent to 67 percent, Commissioner Mike Rothman’s office said in a statement. Rothman, who regulates the state’s insurers, is an appointee under Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat. The rate hike follows increases for this year of 14 percent to 49 percent.
….So a loss of $70 million after less than a year in operation in just a few markets. Harken’s plan was to reduce costs for expensive treatments down the line by allowing all of its enrollees unlimited primary care visits with no co-pays and no deductibles. However those visits could only be with doctors at Harken’s own health clinics. One health broker told Modern Healthcare her clients didn’t like the idea of giving up their regular doctors:
Susan Morris, an independent broker in Atlanta, said Harken “did a poor job of marketing the plan to agents and brokers.” In addition, she said her individual customers didn’t like the idea of giving up their regular primary care doctors and instead using Harken’s staff providers. And Harken didn’t have enough clinic locations to serve the large Atlanta market….
Seems that Washington DC isn’t the only place that’s learned the art of the Friday afternoon news dump. Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman announced yesterday afternoon that the state had approved health insurance premium increases that will average 60% in MNsure, the state’s ObamaCare exchange. The statement blamed big losses by insurers in the state, and bad predictions about utilization rates, for the decision:
Rothman said that Minnesota’s rate increases are part of a national trend in the individual health insurance market, with nearly all states looking at double-digit rate increases as insurers seek to align premium revenues with expected claims costs. States’ rate increases are also exacerbated by cuts to critical federal programs that were intended to stabilize the market and rates for consumers.
However, Minnesota’s individual market also faces unique challenges because of a disproportionate concentration of individuals with serious medical conditions whose high claims costs must be absorbed by a relatively small risk pool, pushing up rates for everyone in the individual market.
Citing ongoing financial losses, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota announced in late June that it is leaving the individual market, except for its Blue Plus HMO affiliate. The company’s decision affects approximately 103,000 Minnesotans, or about 40 percent of the state’s total individual market…..
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee announced Monday it would no longer offer plans in three of the state’s most heavily populated regions. The insurer posted an explanation on its website (along with a map):
We’re trying hard to make the Affordable Care Act (ACA) work in Tennessee and are offering plans in most of the state for 2017.
Because of many challenges, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to end coverage in three regions for 2017 – the Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville regions (shaded in orange below)…..
Count Minnesotans among the consumers who will get a big rate shock in November when open enrollment begins for ObamaCare. Insurers have applied for massive increases in the state MNsure exchange, with premiums escalating between 36% to 67%, and possibly more. And they’ll get it, because the alternative for insurers is to pack up and leave:
Minnesota health insurers are seeking big premium increases next year for people who buy coverage on their own, with proposed jumps for thousands of people averaging anywhere from 36 percent to 67 percent.
About 270,000 people buy coverage through Minnesota’s individual market, where shoppers buy through insurers, brokers or the state’s MNsure health insurance exchange…..
Double-digit Obamacare premium hikes projected in 2017 may bode in Donald Trump’s favor, as several swing states are being impacted by double-digit increases under the law and consumers are expected to see the hikes around Nov. 1 — one week before heading to the polls.
Trump has promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, but Hillary Clinton has vowed to make the Obamacare exchanges work. Some say the way she would do that is through raising taxes.
“Any reports of premium increases will immediately become talking points on the campaign trail,” stated Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “We’re in an election where the very future of the law will be debated.”
The Heritage Foundation found dramatic increases on premiums in Wisconsin and Florida as well as Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina under the law in comparison to before Obamacare went into effect. Currently, insurers in the Obamacare marketplace in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois are wanting double-digit hikes on premiums.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is reportedly requesting to increase rates by more than 18 percent, while in Ohio, the average requested hike is around 10 percent. In Pennsylvania, companies want hikes averaging 23.6 percent, according to the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.
Had to add this short exchange on my FaceBook. I said: “Trump wants Hillary’s plan for healthcare. So either way it [Obama-care] is getting worse.” To which this reply came:
M.H. said: “No he doesn’t. If you like I can help you come to the trump side.”
To which I replied:
…here is his more recent dilliniation of renaming “single-payer” with “heart-payer,” it’ll be INCREDIBLE:
“That’s not single payer, by the way. That’s called heart. We gotta take care of people that can’t take care of themselves. But the plans will be much less expensive than Obamacare, they’ll be far better than Obamacare, you’ll get your doctor, you’ll get everything that you want to get. It’ll be unbelievable.”
If Trump wins in the Hoosier State tomorrow, repeal is a dead letter.
Indiana’s Republican primary is not merely the Cruz campaign’s last chance to stop the Trump juggernaut, it will also determine the ultimate fate of Obamacare. If Trump wins Indiana tomorrow, he will almost certainly win the Republican presidential nomination only to lose the general election to Hillary Clinton, who is committed to preserving the unpopular law. Even if Trump manages to eke out a win in November, he will probably be hobbled by a Democrat-controlled Senate that will kill any Obamacare repeal bill. A vote for Trump in the Hoosier State tomorrow, in other words, is a vote for Obamacare.
[….]
In addition to being the most unpopular presidential candidate in decades, he is viewed askance by key demographic groups without whose support no candidate can win. A recent Gallup survey found the following: “Donald Trump’s image among U.S. women tilts strongly negative, with 70% of women holding an unfavorable opinion and 23% a favorable opinion of the Republican front-runner.” Women make up more than half of the electorate — election over.
Which brings us back to Obamacare. Trump can’t repeal the perversely titled “Affordable Care Act” or anything else if he can’t get elected president. And when he loses in a landslide to Hillary Clinton, she will claim a mandate to expand President Obama’s “signature domestic achievement.” In other words, she will make the already intrusive and dysfunctional health “reform” law even worse. Her vision for building on Obamacare’s “successes” involves a soviet-style regulatory regimen that would dictate how insurance companies, drug manufacturers, and care providers operate and what they charge their customers.
Clinton also plans to exhume the dreaded “public option.” According to her campaign website, “Hillary supports a ‘public option’ to reduce costs and broaden the choices of insurance coverage for every American.” This idea was so bad it never made the cut to be included in Obamacare. Even single payer advocates have denounced it. And it gets worse. Clinton also plans to expand Obamacare eligibility to illegal aliens: “She believes we should let families — regardless of immigration status — buy into the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Families who want to purchase health insurance should be able to do so.”
This illustrates the cognitive dissonance that plagues Trump’s supporters. By backing a candidate whom no one believes can win the general election, the very government policies that make them angry will be perpetuated for at least another four years. Trump’s supporters are angry about how Obama and Congress have handled illegal immigration. Yet their candidate will lose badly to a woman who supports amnesty and openly declares that she will make sure illegal aliens receive taxpayer-paid health care. They hate Obamacare, but their candidate will inevitably lose to a woman dedicated to expanding it….
In case you forgot how bad Obamacare is, Life News has this:
Congressional conservatives are taking a stand against the Obama administration’s abortion agenda by blocking one of the president’s Health and Human Services nominees. Until the White House investigates whether California is unlawfully forcing health insurers to cover abortions, Mary Wakefield, the deputy HHS secretary candidate, will have to wait.
The Senate Finance Committee, led by Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), is placing an obstacle before Wakefield – not out of personal animosity, but concern for the right to life and religious freedom in California. A couple of years ago, the state’s department of health mandated that insurers provide coverage for abortions as a “medically necessary procedure.”
As a result, some churches and Catholic institutions were forced to violate their religious beliefs. Pro-life groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and Life Legal Defense Foundation condemned the directive as discriminatory and filed lawsuits against the state’s department of managed health care, but the mandate remains….
