The America Healthcare Dialectic Cannot Stop Here.
The America Healthcare Dialectic Cannot Stop Here.
by Jake MacAulay
There are many mixed feelings across America about the bill designed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare that the House of Representatives passed last week.
The current concern from both sides of the isle is what will the Senate respond with?
Republican Sen. Susan Collins told ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday:
"The Senate is starting from scratch. We're going to draft our own bill.”
The Senator from Maine later explained, “I would like to see us put together a bipartisan group to solve this problem, of Democrats who acknowledge that there are problems with the current law, that it is not working well in several states, and Republicans who also want to make sure that we're not reducing coverage and we're giving flexibility.”
Just what “law” is Mrs. Collins talking about?
In order to restore right thinking about “the law,” I set forth the following analogy by Michael Anthony Peroutka:
Imagine your “Uncle Sam” comes to your home one Sunday afternoon in a new vehicle you haven’t seen before and says, “Hey! Let me take you for a spin in my new car.”
“Sure,” you say, and you hop in and take a tour in his new car.
After he pulls back into your driveway and you re-enter your home, your spouse asks, “Did Uncle Sam drive the car ‘rightly’?”
You think a minute, reflecting on the last 20 minutes you spent in the car. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Uncle Sam came to a full stop at every stop sign, he drove within the speed limit, obeyed all the traffic signals, and he refrained from texting while he was driving. So you look at your spouse and say, “Yes, dear, he drove the car rightly.”
Now, let’s add one more fact to this story.
Suppose that, just before your wife asked the question about Uncle Sam’s driving, you received a call from the local sheriff and learned that Uncle Sam had stolen the car earlier that day.
Does this fact change your answer as to whether Uncle Sam drove the car rightly?
I think it does.
You see, if Uncle Sam has stolen the car then he has no right to drive it at all. Therefore, no matter how safely or recklessly he seems to drive it, without the authority to drive it in the first place, he cannot possibly drive it “rightly.”
There is no right way to do a wrong thing.
The point I am trying to make with this illustration is that when we consider the rightness or wrongness of any federal government program or agency the discussion of its “rightness” must always begin with the question of authority. Does the federal government have the authority to do this thing in the first place?
Article One, Section Eight, of the U.S. Constitution provides no authority for the federal government to involve itself in health care regulation or financing of any kind. In other words, “Federal Healthcare” is a stolen car. And anyone who drives a stolen car is a lawbreaker.
Therefore, all who have taken an oath to the U.S. Constitution, including federal and state officials, need to do their duty by pulling this stolen car over and arresting “Uncle Sam” or anyone else trying to drive it.
I truly hope that our Congress and President will not rest with this “two steps forward, one step back” conclusion. While gaining one step of liberty is encouraging, this dialectic is not a victory until we regain the liberty taken by both unconstitutional steps.