The Truth About the Health Care Bills
Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney
Well, I have done it! I have read
the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices
Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise,
constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that
were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than
what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been
said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the
Democrats and the media are saying. The law
does provide for
rationing of health care,
particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved,
free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably
forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force
private insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government
run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by
federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals.
Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary
medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government.
However, as scary as all of that is,
it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation
really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it
is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive
Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated If this
law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the
United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the
masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and
Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to
the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives
of the American people, and the businesses they own.
The irony is that the Congress
doesn't have any authority to
legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text
of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of
Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for
access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, of all of your personal
healthcare direct violation of the specific
provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution information, your
personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician,
and hospital. All of this is a protecting against unreasonable searches and
seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been
legislated into oblivion regardless of what
the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare
insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the
Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on
you. It is called a tax instead of a fine
because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th
Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is
nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the
tax, it is definitely depriving someone of
property without the due process of law.
So, there are
three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out of the
original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law
It doesn't stop there though.
The 9th Amendment
that provides:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed
to deny or disparage others retained by the people;
The 10th Amendment
states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to
the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork
neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all
in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about
this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care;
it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article
6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress
to "be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution." If I were a
member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything
like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I
voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
For those who might doubt the nature
of this threat, I suggest they consult the
source, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There you can
see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.
Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton , Texas