The news today is that Obamacare is now the law of the land.
The Federal Government can now mandate that citizens buy a product, under the guise of calling that transaction a “tax”, which falls, with that twisted bit of logic, under Federal authority. Was it so long ago that the Obama Administration and the lame-duck Congress that passed the bill declared unequivocally that Obamacare was NOT a tax in any way, shape, or form?
Make no mistake, the discussion is not of “health care”, as is so often mentioned, but health insurance. And be not mistaken in the slightest, either, that the old axiom holds true. Who pays the piper, calls the tune. The Federal Government will have the say on just what this new health insurance mandate will cover. And what it will cost. By extension, they will eventually be the de facto determinant of what such care will be allowed, and as importantly, what will not be allowed. Actuarially, those that are horrendous insurance risks will see their premiums drop dramatically, while those whom are good risks will see theirs rise. Because the Government says so. No longer am I being insured on MY risk categories, but on everyone else’s too. Any incentive to live healthily and responsibly vanishes in the foul miasma of collective responsibility and forced egalitarianism. Expect costs to insurers, and businesses who must provide, to skyrocket. Just what a struggling economy needs. Oh, and those who cannot “afford” to pay for the mandate? (Cigarettes, alcohol, tattoos, and other priorities notwithstanding.) The rest of us pick up the tab for them, too.
Our health care system, which cares for three hundred million people with a quality unmatched for its size on the planet, will find itself short of doctors and nurses, and worse, of those willing to enter the medical field, once the real and lasting effects of nationalized health care begin to have effect. Shortages? Rationing? Count on it.
What is worse, and oh-so-predictable, is that there will be no accountability in how anything that is controlled by the Federal Government is run. No incentive for efficiency, no profit motive, no customer satisfaction concerns. Like the VA, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the IRS all rolled into one.
That jolt you felt was the accelerator of the eco-friendly hybrid Obamamobile being mashed to the firewall as we are propelled down the road to Statism. A Statism where the constraints of the enumerated powers and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are no longer even given lip service, and an omnipotent Federal Government hands out individual freedoms like so much royal patronage, along with forcibly collected tax revenue, to politically favorable groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, or some other self-defined and liberally-acceptable criteria. Perpetuation of a voter base, and of power, bought and paid for from the taxpayers’ wallets. Laws for thee, but not for me.
Daily across our country we have law enforcement entities at all levels routinely violating individual freedoms, TSA badgering and assaulting law-abiding Americans, an Attorney General who ran guns to Mexico illegally, resulting in the deaths of 300 Mexican citizens and a US Border Agent, in order to make a case for gun confiscation in THIS country. And we wonder how such things could happen. Today’s ruling shows us how such things happen. In fact, such things are inevitable results. Rampant, unchecked authority and abuse of power on the part of Government entities being codified and excused. And more, much more, is to come. That is also inevitable.
When the Solicitor General made his rambling and disjointed arguments before the bench for the mammoth socialist Nanny-ism of Obamacare, he was essentially asked “Where does it end?” If this, what next? Where does the limits of government authority over individual choice stop? He never did give an answer. Because the answer is that such doesn’t end. Precedent is a very powerful tool for government usurpation of power. We have been given, thanks to Chief Justice Roberts, a Mandate Without End.
How sure am I? I’d bet my two Navy Crosses on it.
