Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA) appeared at a local town hall meeting last week and got the what for from a constituent on the government health care legislation. What Pete let slip out of the bag was his belief that the government can do pretty much what it damn well pleases. The crowd wasn't too happy to hear that.
Just another indication of how little regard the arrogant Stark has for the public.
Pete admitted it. At least he understood the question. I could not help but thinking what type of answer S.J. Lee would come up with to this lady's questions. Lee would not even understand those questions I am sure. That would make great television.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the chance of that joker losing his seat in November?
ReplyDeleteChrist all mighty, Gary. Was his response good? No. But her question is asinine. I'll admit that when I'm confronted with absurd questions, I don't really have ready answers. Slavery? Really? How the hell do you even begin to answer something so absurd?
ReplyDeleteThe lady's logic was impeccable, clearly stated, and deserved a direct answer, which she didn't get. She was wrong about the health care legislation, but she was right about enumerated powers.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have heard Stark announce in around 2003 that there are no constitutional limits on what the Bush administration can do if it chooses to. Call it the Cheney-Stark doctrine.
Now here is the strict constitutional constructionist, politically libertarian, economically socialist, culturally conservative, reply:
Congress has authority to regulate interstate commerce. That was a very limited authority when most commerce was intra-state. It is a huge authority when our economy is literally almost entirely interstate, not to mention global. There are limits to even that expanded authority -- expanded not by fiat, but by the reality of the economic relations we all live by. Congress and the courts have pushed the envelope at times, and we the people do need to push back.
When it comes to the specific of medical care, we get most of our diagnosis, treatment, therapy, medication, from huge interstate and international corporate oligarchical for-profit combinations. We don't live in the world where my great-uncle saw anyone in town for free when he knew they couldn't pay, carried it on the books, and never sent out bills.
So, because medical care is indeed interstate commerce, because we are at the whim and mercy of large interstate institutions, most of them for-profit, to get our medical care, it is a suitable matter for congress to legislate on.
The bill does not require doctors to work any given hours, to see any specific patient, nor does it require them to get permission to abandon the practice of medicine. Insurance companies and medical conglomerates come close, but that is called wage slavery -- check out the IWW on that subject, and marvel that it even applies to medicine these days.
Now, having entered this field, can congress fine people who do not obtain health insurance? That was originally a conservative Republican idea, when they tried to cobble together an alternative to the Hillary plan. Its a plain fact that if care is to be provided to all, then all must contribute to the costs, to the best of their ability. There are limited alternatives:
1) Those who do not wish to obtain insurance because they feel young and healthy will sign a waiver saying "You can let me bleed to death at the emergency room door." But, our culture wouldn't actually hold them to it, and we all know that.
2) Those who do not get insurance until they find they need an expensive operation can pay one month's premium, get their operation at taxpayer's expense, then drop the coverage.
There is a very conservative principle at work here: TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If we're going to make it available, we have to work out where the money will come from. Sliding scale is fine with me, so are surtaxes on large concentrations of wealth, but everyone pays something.
Oh, Pete Stark, yeah, he does have a safe seat, but someone should have had the gumption to challenge him in the primary. He made a real ass of himself.