Senator Jim Bunning, you have some "splaining to do" over being AWOL as the Senate Democrats this morning defeated the Senate Republicans 60-39 in passing the Democratic Party Health Care Bill. The bill now goes to conference committee for the House and Senate to reconcile bill differences (pick your poison). I suspect given the fragile nature of the Senate Democratic sausage it will probably establish the basic framework of the final bill. To add insult to injury, the Senate Democrats voted to raise the debt ceiling a few hundred billion dollars to cover the costs of their unconscionable spending sprees.
McCaskill: The Grinch is a Republican?
First of all, this blog is called "an American conservative", not a "Republican". I used to be a registered Democrat, even while my perspective became more conservative in the early 1980's as I took graduate business school courses (which were non-ideological). In these posts, I have been heavily critical of the Bush Administration and Republican Congress' record on fiscal discipline (including earmarks), a dated political agenda, and political litmus tests for Congressional candidates.
McCaskill on Fox News was interviewed and quickly dismissed concerns of the GOP as hypocritical (e.g., earmarks), preposterously arguing that the federal government will expand health insurance coverage while reducing the budget deficit. Let me make a quick point on this: dealing with earmarks is similar to private sector plans dealing with high-risk/cost patients. It's a lot easier to do this when the same constraints apply to everyone and the risks or benefits are spread equally or on a nonpartisan basis of merit. Just like no private sector insurer wants to get stuck with a disproportionate number of below-cost policyholders, no Congressman likes his constituents having to subsidize the earmarks going to other districts. It's what I call the Sally Brown (sister to Charlie) rationalization: all I want is my fair share. That being said, the issue I have with earmarks is the inherent corruption; it is morally indefensible to be passing projects of questionable merit given an historic revenue shortfall. But let's keep in mind the disingenuous nature of McCaskill's criticism; she's trying to distract American taxpayers from the huge sums of money being spent in the Democratic Party Health Care Bill with the proportionately modest percentage spent on earmarks; this is not a quid pro quo.
As for saying that the Grinch may be a Republican, I will be charitable and say that I think she's referring to the conservative Grinch whom refunded most of what Whoville residents themselves earned, not the progressive tax agent Grinch whom decided Whoville residents hadn't paid enough taxes and moved to confiscate their possessions.
But Is the Democratic Party Bill on Health Care Constitutional?
There are a couple of interesting Constitutional questions addressing aspects of the Democratic bill, the first being the mandates themselves (since when can you force people to buy certain goods or services?) Our Founding Fathers didn't dictate the nature of the contracts between health care consumers and providers. If politicians can require health insurance (versus, say, paying for treatment as needed), where do you draw the line? Can they decide whether you rent or buy housing? Force you to pay for meals in approved restaurants? This seems, on its face, an unprecedented assault on the Fifth Amendment, not to mention the Tenth Amendment, usurping the historic primacy of the states in regulating health care.
Second, there is the equal protection issue Senator Lindsey Graham has raised with regards to Ben Nelson's "Cornhusker Kickback"... The idea that Nebraskan citizens will be exempt from the increased state burden on Medicaid expansion means that other states are having to subsidize those costs. This flatly contradicts any concept of equal protection.
There's also the point of Richard Epstein, whom notes that the Democratic Party Bill will attempt to penalize health care insurers with more than 10% administrative costs, arguing for a refund to related policyholders. This is arbitrary and capricious, because smaller companies have fewer goods and services to spread their overhead. This policy is grossly unfair to smaller businesses and anti-competitive in nature, exposing the inherent corruption of government in conjunction with Big Insurance, squeezing out their smaller competitors. This is an unprecedented regulatory overreach.
So even if the Congressional Democrats pass their health bill without Republican support (other entitlements, including Medicare, drew significant GOP support in contrast), expect the US Supreme Court to be forced to address some unsettled Constitutional issues.
Bonus Christmas Novelty Track: Kenosha (WI) Police, "12 Days of Christmas"
Political Cartoon
Steve Breen reminds us that "haste makes government waste". All votes are final; no rationalizations accepted. Personally, I think the Citizens Against Government Waste should announce a recall of all those Democratic Congressmen/women bought off by the leadership. I want the GAO to qualify its opinion on whether Democratic hype constitutes a fair presentation of financial statements in the bill, including all appropriate disclosures; they should also require all copies of said bill to be stamped with an explicit warning: "This bill may be hazardous to your financial future."
An Addendum to My Holiday Movie List
There are a couple of well-written TV movie additions to my earlier published list of favorites:
The Note (2007). Genie Francis plays Peyton Macgruder, a newspaper human interest columnist whose dwindling readership has put her job in jeopardy. An airplane crash off the coast left no survivors. Peyton discovers a note on the beach that she believes could have been written in the last few moments of the flight. The father wrote words of forgiveness, so his child was not left with the finality of their last unpleasant encounter. Is Peyton's impassioned search to find the note's intended recipient among surviving family members of victims motivated by her own need for forgiveness?
The Christmas Hope (2009). The social worker wife and her airline pilot husband find their relationship is on the rocks in the aftermath of their only teenage son's tragic auto accident death. One of the social worker's clients is a young girl whose single mother, a waitress with songwriting ambitions, was struck and killed by a motorist, and the couple takes her in as foster parents. There are a couple of subplots here, including a young doctor's haunted memory of the first patient he lost, and the pilot befriends a young man apparently heading down the wrong path in life. The orphan is convinced that her late mother will keep a Christmas promise, and she has an imaginary friend. [Speaking as an uncle who unconditionally loves his 9 nieces, I'm disgusted by the girl's uncle, a miserable excuse for a human being whose only interest is not the custody of his adorable sweetheart niece but financial exploitation of his sister's death.]
Bonus Political Cartoon
My favorite cartoonist, Michael Ramirez, has a thought-provoking, spot-on exhibit in commemoration of today's expected passage of the Democratic Party Health Care Bill in the Senate:
Christmas Musical Interlude: Eagles' "Please Come Home for Christmas"
