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The democrat-controlled Virginia Senate passed the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act this week that — if passed by the Republican-controlled house — would make it illegal to force Virginians to purchase healthcare as well make it illegal to fine Virginians for not doing so. Wherever you stand on universal healthcare, this bill is an abomination to the democratic process, which the Virginia General Assembly supposedly intends to uphold. To pass this bill while President Barack Obama and his administration are retreating from their plans for healthcare reform is the ultimate display of stubbornness. Why not wait until the administration actually produces any legislation before voicing opposition to it?
Under the guise of protecting “the blessings of liberty,” this bill merely protects the profits of private health insurers and ensures that Virginia is exempt from any variety of universal healthcare. If Virginia senators actually cared about the federal government infringing on their ability to purchase private healthcare they would voice their concerns in a more hospitable way to allow Virginians the free choice to participate in a public healthcare option, if they so choose.
This bill brings front and center the elitism that is at the heart of the anti-universal healthcare movement. As well-paid legislators, the GA has nothing to lose by electing not to participate in universal healthcare. It is the average citizen who loses the ability to participate in a universal healthcare system that would most likely be cheaper than private insurance. Contrary to the opinion of the GA, universal healthcare is not intended to force citizens into a one-size-fits-all healthcare plan. The goal of universal healthcare is to allow all citizens the right to have health insurance that is not controlled by a private enterprise whose ultimate goal is profit. The only freedom the GA is protecting with this bill is the freedom of private health insurers to charge exorbitant rates while providing minimum coverage.
A government-run healthcare plan would ensure that citizens with pre-existing conditions are shown the same care as those with clean bills of health. While this may not mean much to those who can pay for their healthcare out-of-pocket, it means a great deal to those who cannot afford healthcare and whose lack of preventative care has left them with conditions deemed uncoverable by private insurers.
The principles behind a public healthcare option are the same as those behind public schools. All citizens must pay into public education because, as a democratic society, we have deemed basic education every citizen’s right and not a privilege for those who can afford it. If one is not satisfied with public education, one has the freedom to purchase a private education, just as a citizen covered by universal healthcare has the ability to purchase additional private healthcare if they choose to do so. This bill is equivalent to deeming Virginians exempt from paying the taxes that go to public education — considering how the GA treats the College of William and Mary — this may very well be their intention.
Although I have outlined some reasons for the adoption of universal healthcare, you don’t have to be a socialist to see why the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act is an assault on the democratic process. Above all, this bill is a preemptive strike on any possibility of a public health care option before any such legislation has been proposed. The Virginia Senate has demonstrated that it is unwilling to participate in an open discourse on this issue and has chosen to end the debate before it has even started.
E-mail Russ Zerbo at rjzerbo@wm.edu.
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14 Comments
This article is full of
This article is full of emotion but not accurate in its primary claims. The VHCFA will not forbid anyone from participating in whatever federal health care reform comes about. It will not prevent you from buying health insurance from some benevolent and charitable government agency, with arms outstretched to warmly embrace you and your pre-existing conditions. That’s still fine by Bob Marshall and the General Assembly.
Instead, Bob and company take issue with the individual mandate and the so called “penalties” for maintaining private insurance that have been proposed by Congress. Because they view the individual mandate as an unprecedented and ultimately unconstitutional extension of federal lawmaking power, and because the individual mandate rings of bondage for so many people, the General Assembly has taken political action. And that’s what it is — political action. In short, the state legislation that has cleared both houses is nothing more than a shot across the bow. It says that Virginians don’t need to listen to Congress on either of those points — the individual mandate and the resulting fine. But any law student, attorney, or high school civics teacher will tell you that such a move simply does not hold water. The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution makes federal enactments, not state ones, the supreme law of the land. Everywhere. Even in Virginia courts. Whatever Congress passes is the law, Virginia senators and delegates be damned.
The legislation does signal two things, though. First, it tells Congress that state legislators — who are presumably closer to the people — are unhappy with current proposals. Second, it tells Congress and President Obama that (some) states will challenge this legislation when the time comes. Most obviously, Ken Cuccinelli is prepared to challenge the federal law if it is ever enforced against a non-compliant Virginian. This law is a good move for that anticipated suit — it places Virginia firmly on the side of anyone who chooses to dissent from the individual mandate should it materialize. And a possible third, and closely related, message for federal lawmakers is this: good luck enforcing your mandate, because we’re going to make it hell on you.
Why does the accompanying
Why does the accompanying cartoon feature an elephant taking a hammer to “health care legislation” when the first line of the article reads, “The democrat-controlled Virginia Senate…” ?
Pretty shoddy.
http://www.campaignforlibert
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=32083
The vote was 23 – 17, with all 18 Republicans and only 5 Democrats voting in favor of the bill. So I think it’s pretty accurate.
Public (ghetto) health
Public (ghetto) health insurance will only bring complaints from its recipients. Take, for instance, the increasing number of doctors who will not take medicare. Well, gee, let’s see…why could that be? Hmmm, maybe, perhaps it’s because the government pays them 20 cents on the dollar. You don’t have to be an MBA to see that this will only run more small practices out of business and result in less doctors and longer wait times.
The public option will be no different. The House wants to pay doctors medicare plus 5%. OK…that’s 25 cents on the dollar. Very generous, and all at a time when our country is flat broke.
There are simply some things that our inept, cash-strapped government cannot accomplish. Sweeping healthcare reform is one of them.
See you at the Klan rally,
See you at the Klan rally, Paradigm ;)
I leave Mr. KKK with some
I leave Mr. KKK with some quotes of a William and Mary graduate. If you want to know where Virginia’s streak of libertarianism comes from, well take a close look at the mind of one of your early graduates.
Bill
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Thomas Jefferson:
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.Thomas Jefferson:
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.Thomas Jefferson:
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.Thomas Jefferson:
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned — this is the sum of good government.Thomas Jefferson:
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.theWhat a pathetic, drive-by
What a pathetic, drive-by post from a liberal coward. You just have to know a sound argument was made when someone resorts to the Nazi and KKK labels.
I have the cahones to use my name; this liberal fool does not. Those who have the courage to make their convictions and publicly stand by them shall be the movers and shakers of the world. Meanwhile, let the drive-by anonymous poster wallow in his world of victim mentality and jealousy of the achiever. Even the teenagers today know how to label this kind of pathetic creature. A simple “L” on the forehead says it all.
this rhetoric is pretty
this rhetoric is pretty masturbatory
When Rachel the master
When Rachel the master debater has no argument, she resorts to attacking the messenger.
Surely you can do better than the non-shock value of PG-rated language. Why not visit Mr. Jefferson’s University for some inspiration?
Ah yes…the last resort of
Ah yes…the last resort of the left: Call someone who outpoints you a racist. Some things never change.
There’s no racism in the
There’s no racism in the simple opposition to healthcare reform, it was your labeling of public healthcare as “ghetto” healthcare. Are public schools necessarily “ghetto” schools? Is public transportation “ghetto transportation? And for that matter, what’s with using “ghetto” as a demeaning adjective? Your use of that descriptor reveals that you are perfectly comfortable with your insurance, sure, but it also reveals that you see the extension of healthcare to the impoverished, especially impoverished African Americans, as some kind of ploy by them to be ‘as good as you.’ I don’t think Josh would have had any problem with your post were it not for the use of that word to describe the public option. He was not being reduced to the ‘last resort of the left’ as you say, he was pointing out an indicator of some degree of bigotry in your writing.
What are you going to do now, reduce my argument by saying I’m nothing more than a stupid, PC college student? If you’re to reply to this, I hope you do so with a logical argument instead of hurling insults and disqualifiers at me.
Paradigm’s use of
Paradigm’s use of “ghetto” is both inapt in regards to public health care and does not denote anything racist about African-Americans.
End of story.
Racism exists, has existed,
Racism exists, has existed, and will continue to exist as long as people refer to something they find displeasing, lower class, or public as “ghetto.” Historically is has been the “liberal left” who has fought against racists and racist tendencies, because for some magical reason called capitalism the exploitation of individuals is profitable. Some things hopefully will change.
Your ridiculous hopes for
Your ridiculous hopes for the abolition of capitalism will never bear fruit. Unfortunately for you:
“The simple truth is that with all its flaws, capitalism remains the most productive economic engine we have yet invented.”
-Fareed Zakaria
One can hardly call Zakaria a right-wing kook…or a KKK member as you called me, even though I never once mentioned Black people.
Capitalism is the only way to generate the very wealth that the left wants to spread around. Socialism does not generate wealth, it only abuses it. And the delicious irony is that, even in the purest socialist systems, there are still elites. You cannot get rid of haves and have-nots. Nobody has ever been able to do that throughout history. Do you really think an inept morass of self-serving ideologues like our US government can make poverty disappear?
I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.