Socialized HealthCare

Have We Tried Socialism Before?

Did you know that the first [Plymouth Colony Pilgrim's] Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative?
William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" precept.
The results were disastrous. Communism didn't work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had suffered serious losses. Starvation was imminent.
(1) In his diary, Bradford wrote; “. . . the young men . . . did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong . . . had not more in division . . . than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes, etc . . . thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And the men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it."

Governor Bradford concluded drastic measures were of need. He scrapped the communal system and assigned each family a plot of land for them to farm. All hazards, as well as any reward would be attributed to the landowner. The results were astounding:
(1)Bradford wrote, "This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness and inability, whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression."
In infancy, America experimented with socialism, “or communism lite” and found it lacking. The separatists who founded this country did so with individual freedoms as their cornerstone, “religious and otherwise”. And…capitalism is simply the freedom to engage in commerce.
Socialized healthcare would seem to UN-learn the lessons of Americas first settlers.

Is Healthcare a Right?
Americans have been conditioned to assume, “rights” where “need” resides. Human rights are not reciprocal and do not exist in a vacuum. Whereas we have freedom of speech, yet… no one is required to listen. We enjoy the freedom of religion; yet…churches are not built at the taxpayers’ expense. The freedom to assemble and protest our government is a fundamental right, though; the individual is responsible for carrying their own sign. Our second amendment grants us the right to possess firearms, yet…your neighbor isn’t put upon to contribute to its purchase. Simply; a right comes not at the expense of another’s right. Socialized healthcare would impinge on your neighbors’ right to keep the fruits of their labors and the most basic right of choice as government would assume the role as arbiter in individual medical choice.

How Much Will Free Healthcare cost?

Democrats have spent their summer recess insuring the American electorate that the hoards of illegal aliens would not be covered under the Federal Health Insurance program. The president said:
“This has been an example of just pure misinformation out there. None of the bills that have been voted on in Congress, and none of the proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants — none of them. That has never been on the table; nobody has discussed it. So everybody who is listening out there, when you start hearing that somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants that is simply not true and has never been the case”.(4)

(2) H.R. 3693, a bill introduced by the Democrats has greatly contributed to Medicaid fraud. Before that bill became law, proof of citizenship was required when applying for Medicaid. H.R. 3693 changed that when it was passed in 2007. Now those enrolling in Medicaid are not even required to show identification.
This law virtually ensures that the 12-20 million illegal’s illegally in this country would automatically be enrolled in any institutional public indemnity.
President Obama and his Democrat cohorts have exalted the public option as the center piece of their reform, citing it as a cost saving mechanism. The Congressional budget office refutes these claims and scores the house bill as a net gain in costs of $1.5 trillion dollars. (3)
David Walker, former comptroller General of the United States was appointed by President Clinton. He recently resigned his position so that he could speak frankly to the American people.
In a presentation to the National Press Foundation, January 17, 2008, Mr. Walker brought forth the following facts and projections:
1. From 1966 to 2006, the percentage of federal funds spent on Medicare rose from 1% to 19%. This trend will grow exponentially as millions of “baby boomers” enter the entitlement pool.
2. For the same period, spending for mandated government commitments rose from 26% to 53% of the total budget. The budget is increasingly out of the control of government officials.
3. As of 2007, Medicare is running in arrears. In 2017 Social Security will be in deficit. By the year 2040, Medicare and Social Security alone will be running annual deficits of nearly 900 billion dollars.
4. Medicare spending from now until 2032 will be 235% of economic growth. By 2040, Medicare will be spending about 10% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product annually, and the annual deficits of the United States will total some 20% of the total Gross Domestic Product.
The bottom line is this: mandated fiscal entitlements, projected into the future, are over 52,000 billion dollars. That will equal 90% of all household wealth in the U.S., and will place a burden of over 450 thousand dollars on every household in the land. This is almost ten times the present median household income level.
Mr. Walker concludes that “We face large and growing structural deficits largely due to known demographic trends and rising health care costs.” Further, “GAO’s simulations show that balancing the budget in 2040 could require actions as large as cutting total federal spending by 60 percent, or raising federal taxes to two times today's level.”
To close the revenue gap through growth, the United States economy would need to expand in the double-digit range for the next seventy-five years. During the boom years of the 1990s, the economy grew at an average rate of 3.2%. Walker concludes, succinctly: “we cannot simply grow our way out of this problem.”
Health care entitlements constitute by far the largest single piece of this economic disaster. Those who think that creating thousands of billions of dollars in new government entitlements—in a health care bill that adds tens of millions of Americans to government programs—will do anything except hasten the coming bankruptcy are out of touch with reality.
Mr. Walker has taken his show on the road, in an attempt to educate Americans about the financial disaster they are creating. He was accompanied by both the Brookings Institute on the left, and the Heritage Foundation on the right. He stresses that this coming financial meltdown is known by everyone in Washington--but no one wants to acknowledge it.
The Rasmussen poll shows that almost twice as many Americans think that cutting the deficit, rather than health care reform, should be the president’s top priority. Another poll shows that twice as many people think that the reform legislation will drive up costs than think it will lower costs. Perhaps these Americans grasp Mr. Walker’s point better than their elected representatives do.
A nation that violates the rights of its citizens cannot, in the long run, escape the consequences of its moral failure. When a nation with the unique strength of the United States does so systematically and over decades, the results must necessarily be catastrophic. The dire economic forecast of David Walker illustrates the connection between the moral and the practical. To regain our economic viability we must regain our moral viability. (5)

Is Socialized Healthcare Constitutional?
The tenth amendment to the constitution requires that those powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government are left to the states and the people.
Who were these “enumerators?” Most were citizens of very high standing.
They included, among others: Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson (a convention delegate and chief proponent in Pennsylvania), Edmund Pendleton (chancellor of Virginia and chairman of his state’s ratifying convention), James Iredell (North Carolina judge, pro-Constitution floor leader at his state’s ratifying convention and later U.S. Supreme Court Justice), John Marshall (a ratifier and later U.S. Chief Justice); Maryland Congressman Alexander Contee Hanson, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant (a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court), Alexander White (Virginia lawyer, ratifier, and later U.S. Senator), prominent businessman Tench Coxe, and – of course – James Madison.
Here are some of the powers they solemnly promised would be outside the federal sphere:
• governance of religion
• training the militia and appointing militia officers
• control over local government
• most crimes
• state justice systems
• family affairs
• real property titles and conveyances
• wills and inheritance
• the promotion of useful arts in ways other than granting patents and copyrights
• control of personal property outside of commerce
• governance of the law of torts and contracts, except in suits between citizens of different states
• education
• services for the poor and unfortunate
• licensing of taverns
• roads other than post roads
• ferries and bridges
• Regulation of fisheries, farms, and other business enterprises. (6)
Articles one, two and three of our constitution list the authority granted to the federal bureaucracy. As often as I’ve read the constitution I have never noticed the power to apply a Federal solution to healthcare because the authority does not exist. The Federal government should abide within its enumerated powers…to settle disputes in the arena of interstate commerce, to negotiate international treaties, to provide for a common defense and to conduct a census. Socialized federal healthcare is not only un-workable and too costly, it is also unconstitutional.



Cites



(1) http://web.archive.org/web/20070906142939rn_1/www.mises.org/story/1678
(2) http://www.examiner.com/x-20909-Columbia-Independent-Examiner~y2009m8d23-How-much-will-covering-health-care-for-illegals-cost-Rampant-Medicaid-fraud-gives-an-indication
(3) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071602242.html
(4) http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWQ3OTdkOTc1Y2U3MWYwNzRlNDI4YzAzNDU1ZjNiNzE
(5) http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5631
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/04/12/the-enumerated-powers-of-states/