Hat tip to Hot Air
Founding Bloggers and Sharp Elbows nailed Illinois Democrat Representative Jan Schakowsky with a good question, which she doesn't seem to be able to answer. (Where in the Constitution does it say the government can mandate that we have to have health care insurance?) Note how her aide says, "It's time to go."
Schakowsky, like many of her Democratic colleagues from Illinois, is an embarrassment.
Then there is Alexi Giannoulias, running for Barack Obama's old Senate seat against Mark Kirk. On Sunday, they appeared together with David Gregory. Giannoulias is a walking financial scandal, who, believe it or not, is Illinois State Treasurer. In this exchange, Kirk produces a list a convicted mobsters who received millions in loans from Giannoulias' Broadway Bank. (That also includes Tony Rezko.) Check out his answer to that question.
And I thought things in California were bad.
One more Democrat who should have hired me to write their speeches (and script answers to questions).
ReplyDeleteFirst, that question should be directed to Senator Orrin Hatch, who wrote most of the provisions of the recently passed health care reform bill in 1993, as his conservative Republican alternative to the Hillary Clinton abomination.
Second, Congress has authority to regulate interstate commerce. At this point in time, health care delivery has definitely and emphatically become interstate commerce, big time.
If it was still a matter of Doc Saunders taking time out from raising his pigs and harvesting his apples to come down the road when Ma is ready to deliver her baby, congress would have no jurisdiction. But its not.
Its a matter of multi-state and multi-national drug companies, insurance companies, hospital chains, HMO's, and equipment manufacturers. So, its interstate commerce. End of story.
Not so fast, Siarlys. Do I as an individual have to participate in this one area of inter-state commerce?
ReplyDeleteFar be it from me to offer a fast answer to a slow question Gary.
ReplyDeleteAgain, that question should first be directed to Senator Hatch, who concluded that if there is to be a safety net of coverage, then there must be mandatory contributions, and first developed the motion of mandatory premiums.
I am all in favor of an opt-out provision, where you can sign something along these lines:
"I have chosen to forego health care coverage, because I'm young and healthy and don't expect to ever need it. I hereby agree that if I am brought to a hospital emergency room, I should be taken directly to the morgue and left to bleed to death on the table, or die of a heart attack, or appendicitis, or any other treatable illness. I absolve all health care personnel, hospitals, health care delivery organizations, from any liability to me, my estate, my heirs, or my assigns."
However, being the humane, moral sort of nation we are, such a waiver would probably not be honored. So, it is wiser to simply collect your premium.
As my mother observes about social security (and she was born before there was such a thing, by a few years), there are people who will waste all they make -- including some quite wealthy people -- then expect society to provide for them in their old age. We probably won't just let them starve to death on the street. Social security provides a fund so that they have a small pittance at least, without further burdening society. At least they make some contributions to it while they have the income to do so.
Illinois politics is the dirtiest, most corrupt, most inept in the nation.
ReplyDeleteThis explains
Rod Blagojevich, George Ryan, Otto Kerner, Rahm Emanuel. Richard J. Daley, Richard M. Daley, Jessie Jackson Jr., Roland Burris, and Barack Hussein Obama.
Lincoln is rolling in his grave over these jokers.
Maybe, Findalis, but it doesn't clarify the question of constitutionality. Have you ever lived in Illinois?
ReplyDeleteI've been out here right outside of Chicago the last 5 years (can't wait to get back to the real world one day).
ReplyDeletePolitics here is a contact sport. They've been through 3 Governors in the last 5 years. One is in jail, one is going on trial again, and the third just might be thrown out of office this November.
This state is going to Hell in a handbasket. They are out of money, yet spend as bad as Congress. I wonder how fast they will be filing bankruptcy.
What city do you live in? Maybe you're a neighbor of my parents. I think they're both voting for Schakowsky, but they are kind of old fashioned... remember when it was considered rude to ask someone who they planned to vote for?
ReplyDeleteI'm in Palatine. Crook oops Cook County.
ReplyDeletePolitics here is always fun to watch.
According to Mike Royko's biography of the original Mayor Daley, Democratic committeemen from your neck of the woods were referred to as "a bunch of meatheads" because they didn't deliver the votes to keep the all-important Cook County States Attorney office in machine hands.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I don't think much of Rahm Emmanuel for mayor. But I don't know who I would cast my vote for if I lived in the city, which I don't.