Health insurance companies failed to stand up for capitalism

Health insurance companies failed to stand up for capitalism. (my latest column)

Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation to repeal the government takeover of health care

Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation to repeal the government takeover of the American health care industry.   This is exactly the right approach.  Socialist health care cannot be 'reformed' or 'fixed.'  If any part of the law were to remain in tact, it would suggest that Republicans agree philosophically with Democrats that certain industries ought to be run by the government.  That would be a disaster politically as well as philosophically.  Millions of Americans know that the US Constitution does not grant Congress the power to force Americans to buy insurance, to run insurance companies, or to force employers to offer coverage.  Americans will reward Republicans for standing opposed to socialist health care and insisting that health care is a private matter left up to millions of patients and the doctors who serve them. 

The socialist health care law must be abolished completely, and only then, after the bad law has been repealed, is it possible to write new legislation that enables citizens to buy insurance across state lines, remove health insurance mandates that result in higher prices, institute tort reform, expand health savings accounts, and remove the employer tax subsidy so that consumers have the incentive to purchase health insurance on their own.

Democrats nationalize health care industry

Democrats voted to nationalize the health care industry in America on Saturday, and today, Obama signed the unconstitutional bill into law.  Americans, we will not let this legislation remain on the books.  Americans know that this legislation hands over more and more power to the federal government -- instead of in the hands of millions of market participants deciding what is in their best interest.  Democrats do not believe in freedom.  They do not believe in the US Constitution.  It is time to wake up and elect principled conservative Republicans in 2010 and 2010 to contain this agenda and reverse it.

Isn't it obvious: Democrats do hate America!

When we started this blog, a lot of people thought the idea that Democrats hate America was ludicrous.  But we knew that Democrats have contempt for America, its institutions, its Founders, and our Constitution. 

Is there any doubt now that Democrats hate America?  We are now at a point in time in which Democrats in the House of Representatives do not want to even vote on their own disastrous health care bill. 

Instead, they just want to have their legislation deemed passed if the Senate "fixes" the unpopular parts of the bill; this is unconstitutional as it is an attempt to evade the constitutional requirement that our elected officials have an up or down vote on identical legislation in each chamber, as the Constitution requires.  Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, however, states that for any bill to beome law "the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by the yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively."  

Instead, the Democrats hope to pass the health care destruction bill through the "Slaughterhouse" rule, whereby the House votes to "deem" that it approves of the Senate health care bill only on the contingency that the "fixes" to the bill are made by the Senate.  It is a complicated, convoluted, and unconstitutional method of trying to pass a bill that is already unconstitutional for many other reasons.

Why do the Democrats hate the US Constitution?  The main reason is because the Constitution is a constraint on government power, and hence, a restraint on their insatiable appetite to control the lives of individual Americans.  Thankfully, the US Constitution does provide us with one solution: vote against every Democrat on the ballot this November.

Government-run health care and education are colossal failures.

Government-run health care and education are colossal failures. From my latest column on Associated Content...

Health insurance companies cannot cover "pre-existing" conditions and stay in business.

Democrats have been rallying against health insurance companies for failing to cover those with "pre-existing" conditions.  However, it is common for insurance companies of all stripes to deny coverage for a condition after it has already happened.  To take one example: fire insurance.  You can't get fire insurance after a fire has taken place.  If a fire insurance company had to issue insurance after a fire, no one would pay fire insurance premiums until after a fire, and hence, the insurance company would only receive premiums from those who are already requesting a claim!  The fire insurance company would go out of business quite rapidly.

The same is true when it comes to health insurance.  A health insurance company does not have an unlimited amount of funds.  It receives premiums from customers, who wish to transfer the risk of a catastrophic health care bill to the health insurance company.  If one could receive health insurance after a pre-existing condition, such as an illness or an accident, then there is absolutely no incentive to buy health insurance until after one needs coverage.  That is not the way insurance works, and there is absolutely no justification for changing this standard industry practice.  The only reason to re-write federal and state law to cover pre-existing conditions is to put the health insurance companies out of business and institute single-payer, government-run health care.

United States Postal Services offers us a glimpse into the future.

The United States Postal Services is a government-run monopoly.  As a monopoly, it is the "single" provider of mail service across the nation.  Recently, the USPS has for the authority from Congress to substantially raise their prices, and offer less services, reducing their six-day delivery to five-day delivery.  What, pay more, get less?  That is the nature of how a government-run monopoly operates.  Since the USPS actually prevents competition through the force of law, it is a monopoly that isn't the sole provider because individuals have chosen it over other competitors, but rather because it has the power of brute force by preventing its competitors from competing.  If any competitor started to deliver first-class mail, the federal government would seize the property of that business and have the courts order an immediate halt to that business. 

USPS is a glimpse into the future.

The authoritarian Democrats in Congress want to set up a health care system that would ultimately lead towards a "single payer" government-run health care system.  Single "payer" is another way of saying one government-run, authoritarian, top-down bureaucracy that would decide how all health care dollars are spent within the economy.  It would be command and control.  If you want a certain procedure, the government would have the power to say no to you.  Since the government-run health care system would be the only game in town -- hence the name, "single" payer -- you would be stuck. 

In a market-economy, individuals decide how much they want of something through the price system.  People decide how much of their wealth they are willing to exchange for some good or service.  In a government-run system, the price system is eliminated, and the only party that gets to decide how much of a good or service you can receive is the government.  This would ultimately mean that there would be an unlimited amount of demand on the system, to the point in which the government would have to use brute force to cut costs by denying patients the ability to get care.  This is exactly what we are seeing at the Post Office.  Even while the Post Office is preventing individuals from competing with it, it still is determined to cut services and charge customers more.  That is why Americans do not want ObamaCare and will vote against Democrats for forcing such a system on the people.