[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

I've read that about a $1000 of a health care insurance premium is actually to compensate for costs born by the uninsured. This seems to be to be a quite irregular situation that would benefit by being made regular.

This is a classic case of the government creating the problem (The Emergency Medical Treatment Act) and then swooping in as the saviour to solve it. And the situation was supposedly made "regular" by that act. To say that it is now "irregular" and will be made "regular" by another act that will have similar discrepancies in who will bear the burdens of cost, but now through an even more sweeping and classically unconstitutional Act is further mandating that transfer of wealth as a goal is the ultimate regulation. Making commerce regular is not making it all the same, but allowing it to function under the same rules. Making interstate commerce "regular" was originally intended to make commerce between States freer, not to mandate that there be commerce, or any particular type of commerce. The only function of the Federal Gvt. regulation was to allow commerce to be free from interstate commercial wars such as tariffs and restrictions against import or sale of goods from other States. Commerce would thus be made "regular" between the States and flourish rather than suffer from interstate restrictions. And regulating INTERstate commerce was not, originally, about INTRAstate health care nor how those within a State pay for it. As I said, removing the interstate aspect, redefining "commerce" to mean anything that might possibly affect it, and "broadening" the definition of "regulate" to include power to prohibit commerce or to require that there be a certain or certain type of commerce ,or even, now, to create a whole structure of a new definition of commerce that can be mandated universally regardless of place, would not be remotely possibe under the Constitution as written--but, obviously possible under the rewritten one that is the fellow traveller of the administrative state.

I think you just made the Administration's case

No, the reduction of inactivity to activity is absurd. It's just a linguistic trick, like what most of progressive reasoning is. Non-existence is existence. Yeah, right. That only works as an abstract thought puzzle. What if you insert a concrete object in the puzzle? The turtle that doesn't exist is the turtle that exists. I suppose such a turtle should be forced to buy health care. Under strict textual interpretation, if I choose to not buy something, there is no commerce. And that something, to boot, is within my State, not interstate, there is nothing, under the original Constitution, for the Federal Gvt. to "make regular". I would not be a part of that commercial process so would not be under its regulation. Bearing in mind, also, that regulate under that Consitution did not partake in its meaning any prohibitive or coercive notion against individual rights. But under the redefined words of our progressive administrative State my not buying something, in the total aggregate of such inaction, might affect the price of health care, so I must, therefore, buy something I don't want to buy, and the absurdity of inactivity being activity and my being forced to engage in an activity which is entirely different than the inactivity/activity I prefer, is perfectly fine.

Of course if we were to mandate that everybody is on their own...

There's that administrative mentality which believes that even being on one's own must be government mandated.

At the time the Constitution was drafted most health care was dispensed by ones barber. Today my x-ray is read in near real-time by a doctor in India.

At the time of the Constitution most health care was not interstate. And most was paid for out of pocket--so was much cheaper. Of course, most health care today is also not interstate, but that portion of the Constitution has been "interpreted" out of existence, and today, with third party pay, and various government regulations, health care is vastly more expensive than if it were paid out of pocket. As has been mentioned, States are free to have their own "plans" for how to pay for it. That you consider the Federal Government being the administrator is more efficient, is not Constitutionally relevant. It is not, classically, a Federal responsibility. And arguments about efficiency and cost are too often proven wrong--efficiency leading to inflexibility and costs actually becoming greater, but those are irrelevant considerations. ITS NOT A FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY.


I thought conservatism subscribed to the belief in the value of mundane knowledge that has been weathered by time. If a court finds an interpretation of the Constitution to be valid -- and it's stood the test of time -- doesn't this enter somehow into the mundane collective?

I wasn't informed about such a conservative subscription. Nor is it relevant to the Constitution. No, an error "standing the test of time" is still an error. Besides, what makes you conclude that it has stood the test. If there is constant regulation and re-regulation and system failure and costs and debt beyond the possibility of paying, and a surrender of State, local, and individual rights to a behemoth central power with no end in sight to it's expansive regulatory power, what test has this been standing?

Man! The mundane collective! That's conservative? Who was talking about conservative anyway? Thought we were talking Constitution. I don't know--aren't collectives more a progressive, socialist thing?

While there should be tremendous respect for the founding fathers obviously, doesn't the wisdom of those who've followed also count for something?

-spence

It's not about respect for the Founders. It's about what kind of government you want. I don't find collectivism, and all-powerful, unrepresentative government to be wise.