Has Anyone Read This Thing?

Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

~Oscar Wilde

It seems to me that many people enjoy escaping reality. While some of us do it by reading books and watching movies others appear to escape reality by going to Washington D.C. I speak of course of the Politicians and interest groups who are trying to garner support for the “Healthcare Reform Act.” It would appear that prolonged exposure to extreme liberal ideas has affected the way that these people perceive reality.

One of the key points of this whole movement to me is what politicians are saying. When confronted by the “angry mobs” at town hall meetings you hear all kinds of things from various Democratic Party Congressmen/women stuff like, they would never vote for something that would increase our national deficit. How are they going to not vote for something that increases our deficit and still support this bill? I can guarantee that this massive chunk of legislative cow pie will result in an ever expanding bureaucracy (see section 141 of HR 3200) in which a “Health Choices Administration” headed by a “Health Choices Commissioner” (I like the term Commissar better) will be created to oversee and operate this dive into socialism.

If that isn’t bad enough this Commissar will have the power to audit private insurance companies in announced and unannounced audits, and then to “recoup expenses” so effectively the Commissar could drive private insurance companies out of business by continually auditing them, billing them, and then the Commissar and President will be able to say that these companies were obviously gouging the consumers since they weren’t able to compete when the government was watching them. (Section 142.b) It also gives the Commissar the right to “collect data” without saying what this data is limited to, and giving permission to share it with the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Section 142.c) to me this just smacks of the government collecting information on individuals, at an even more invasive level, they don’t need to know what operations I’ve had or if I’ve broken a bone. They can say “Oh but we’re doing it so we can make sure they don’t over charge.” Screw that, that information falls under the realm of none of their damn business.

I want to know why the government thinks it can run a healthcare industry. It can’t even run itself without going into massive amounts of debt. Democrats where always decrying the cost of the fight against terrorism both in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet in less than a year they have spent so much money that they virtually doubled our deficit. Considering this, if they pass the Healthcare Reform Act I can’t see our entire deficit getting paid off until after my great-grandchildren (assuming I have any) are dead. Because apparently in some people's world, huge bureaucracies cost nothing, however those of us in the real world know the truth.

The sad thing is that this can be veiled in a completely Constitutional argument, because I believe that this can/will fall under the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Yet just because you can make a law doesn’t make it right, so come on you stupid jackasses in Congress, do the right thing kill H.R. 3200.

(I’m not holding my breath)

Here are my sources for the bill:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text