Unconstitutional Bullshit

I'm tired as hell of hearing right-wing nutjobs whine that "forcing" people to get health insurance is "unconstitutional".

First off, most Americans will NOT fall into this category. The poorest Americans are already covered under Medicaid and will continue to be until the self-same right-wing nutjobs manage to gut the program completely. Also, under the new health plan, children can stay on their parents insurance now until they are 26. This will eliminate another group that would fall into that category. Also, companies with more than 200 employees will now be forced to provide medical to their employees. So Walmart employees won't be "forced" to buy health insurance, Walmart will be forced to provide it to them.

So are you seeing the same diminishing number of Americans being "forced" to buy health insurance that I am? Excellent. Also understand that one of the stipulations of this bill sets up health insurance "pools" so that these people can buy insurance at a discounted rate, and choose their own coverage level, depending on how much they spend.

And if you're saying that mandatory health insurance is unconstitutional, where are you on mandatory seat belt laws? Being mildly claustrophobic, I've ALWAYS hated those. Or how about mandatory helmet laws for motorcyclists? Personally, I won't SIT on a bike without a helmet, but I also don't think that our government should be able to force us to wear them.

And then there's that other thing that we've tolerated for decades now. What is it… oh, yeah… MANDATORY INSURANCE. We've been forced to carry auto insurance since what… the mid-eighties? Under threat of a financial penalty if we don't? Pretty much the exact same thing that they're doing now with health insurance.

Do I like the way that it's being executed? With escalating financial penalties if people don't comply? No. Not especially. Do you have a better suggestion? I'm all ears, and I'm sure that your representative will be, too.

My point, as it has been with so many other things since the Prez took office, is that you can't pick and choose. If you're going to scream "unconstitutional" on this issue, then you have to scream it on all of those other issues, as well. And you have to be prepared to make Mr. Bush accountable for his numerous violations of our Constitution, including suspension of habeus corpus and violations of our rights to privacy and misuse of the war powers act among many others.

Peace.

Rev. Randal