Twice, in readings this morning, the present Congress and administration have managed to descend below even my very low levels of expectation:
Investor's Business Daily reveals that, per their checking through the 1,018 pages of the "America's Affordable Health Choices Act" (read it yourself, if you can stand the legalese), and then confirming that it really did mean what they thought it meant, one of the "choices" on the table for the future will not be that of picking your own individual health cover:
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised -- with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
Of course, as a small businessman myself, one of the implications of this - beyond, that is, the grotesque illiberalism of the whole thing, which as a libertarian you can take for granted - is this: "What will it do to entrepreneurship in this country when a decision to leave a large company and go into business for oneself bascially means giving up private health insurance and going on Medicare?"
Answer: Exactly what entrenched large corporations, who really, really hate smaller competitors entering their fields and meaning they have to, you know, compete in that nasty old laissez-faire capitalist style, want it to do.
Essentially, in the interest of protecting us all from the evils of Big Business and corporatism, the Democratic voters in their immense wisdom have recently banded together to elect a president and Congress who are now working on a plan that exerts subtle yet powerful influence to prevent anyone from ever starting a business again, thereby protecting existing Big Business from any potential competition from upstart Little Guys. Way to go, y'all!
That same president, by the way, included lots of talk about protecting civil liberties in his campaign blather. Of course, now he's appointed a White House chief of staff who made this fun little speech back in 2007, which has only just come to my attention. Shame it didn't come to everyone's attention back in the day, but, hey, can't win 'em all.
If you didn't watch it, or want to skip straight to the money quote, it's at 1:56, and also right here:
"if you're on that no-fly list, your access to the right to bear arms is cancelled, because you're not part of the American family; you don't deserve that right. There is no right for you if you're on that terrorist list."
Nice to know that the protection of civil liberties doesn't, evidently, contradict being arbitrarily deprived of your Constitutional rights not only unconstitutionally, not only without due process of law, but on the basis of a secret, unchallengable list notorious already for its high rate of false positives. (And even if you personally don't give a crap about this particular one of your Constitutional rights, you might spare a moment's thought for the precedent it sets in re the others.)
The old adage about how campaign speeches aren't even worth the paper they're printed on rings even more true in this era of the Teleprompter.
