Comments on: Barela, Heinrich disagree on health care reform

By: Tom Wolff

Tom Wolff — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:04:12 +0000

wedum59, 2 issues:You present a straw man in your first argument. Police/fire/EMS funding is not provided through health insurance premiums, it is allocated through property taxes and other revenue sources. I did not see Mr. Cummins dispute those, and though I cannot speak for him, I begrudgingly pay for those services primarily by virtue of being a homeowner. Of course, there are other means included in financing those essentials, but the point remains that they are not related to this topic, health insurance.As to the proposal of mandating health insurance policies and penalizingthose who don’t comply? Well, there are so many things that are wrong about that whole concept that it would take pages to list them all. I will briefly address the issue of constitutionality. Americans do not have to purchase vehicle insurance, wear seatbelts or helmets, or drive the posted speed limit. Operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway has been determined to be a privelege, not a right. Millions simply choose not to drive for one reason or another. Therefore, they have opted out of those requirements. Exercising that privelege means that if ya wanna play, ya gotta pay. Health care is not a right, either. Please point out to me the portions of the Constitution that guarantee medical care. Don’t waste your time on the “general welfare” or “interstate commerce” clauses. Those are contrived arguments that can easily be defeated by showing the recorded intent of the framers. Mandating health coverage and penalizing those who don’t want it is also unconstitutional because it is the first TAX on Americans for simply EXISTING. (Yes, it is a tax in the simplest sense of the word.) Bottom line, Americans are intended to be independent and self reliant,making their own decisions without any prodding from the nanny state ofsocialism. If people WANT to pay exorbitant amounts for “free” health caremanaged by a government that has NEVER improved a social problem, been cost efficient, or managed to do better than the private sector?Well, let them move to another country. On a final note, if this bill passes with the current mandates and penalties included, it will be accompanied by unintended consequences of such amagnitude that people will be begging for the “good old days” of those “awful” 3% profits that the insurance companies are now “raking in”.

By: wedum59

wedum59 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:22:45 +0000

So if Mr. Cummins is in an automobile accident, he would send the taxpayer-funded EMT team away and tell them he would get his mangled body to the hospital on his own? Does he also want to pay for his own police protection? The penalties he mentions are capped at the average annual cost of the proposed basic insurance policy, BTW. It’s like mandatory seatbelts, perhaps Mr. Cummins wants that law repealed also.

By: Joseph Cummins

Joseph Cummins — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:24:42 +0000

Is constitutional freedom compatible with Health Care Reform?

Politicos of all strips suggest that if Health Care Reform is not instituted then those without insurance will be subjected to unreasonable living standards. Furthermore, these same politicians support penalties for those not embracing forced participation.

In my opinion management of health is an individual choice, its up to the individual as to what are the best affordable living standards. If I cannot pay for health insurance then I should not get this care at the expense of others. Likewise, I should not be forced to pay for health care costs of the uninsured.

We all complain about rising costs. So, what are the real reasons for escalating health costs?

When the dollar loses value everything costs more. So, why aren’t we examining those (politicians) who cause the value of our money to fall? Furthermore, why do we tolerate those who want us all to experience the misery of debt?