As I just wrote in my current blog post (ink in my name):

IT GETS WORSE

Under this legislation, we've obviously given up on the concept of health care as a "right" in favor of viewing it as a personal responsibility -- enforceable under tax law via IRS scrutiny. You are to be additionally taxed should you not be able to produce documentation of your having "acceptable health care coverage."...

[relevant provisions of the bill here]

...What will be the bureaucratic FTE necessarily devoted to determining compliance with the myriad foregoing provisions? How many childhood immunizations, annual checkups, MRIs, arthroscopic surgeries, splints, and rounds of chemo and radiation would these FTE otherwise pay for?

Under the current House bill (H.R.3200), we've obviously given up on the concept of health care as a "right" in favor of viewing it as a personal responsibility -- enforceable under tax law via IRS scrutiny. You are to be additionally taxed should you not be able to produce documentation of your having "acceptable health care coverage."...

[relevant provisions of the bill in my blog post]

...What will be the bureaucratic FTE necessarily devoted to determining compliance with the myriad foregoing provisions? How many childhood immunizations, annual checkups, MRIs, arthroscopic surgeries, splints, and rounds of chemo and radiation would these FTE otherwise pay for?

See my current blog post update.

http://bgladd.blogspot.com/2009/07/doing-some-basic-health-care-reform.html

(Link in my name as well)

Link in my name.

to determine whether you have "acceptable health care coverage." If not, you will pay a penalty tax. So much for health care as a "right."

I'm not making that up. Link in my name. Scroll down and read all of

TITLE IV--AMENDMENTS TO INTERNAL REVENUE CODE OF 1986

Subtitle A--Shared Responsibility

PART 1--INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY

SEC. 401. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.

(a) In General- Subchapter A of chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the following new part:

`PART VIII--HEALTH CARE RELATED TAXES

`subpart a. tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage...

contained in H.R.3200.

The epistemological equivalent of drooling. This is fodder for those whose IQs start with a decimal point.

will be tasked with auditing you to make sure you have "approved health care coverage." If you don't, you will be assessed a penalty tax. I'm not making that up. See my blog (link in my name), wherein I cited the exact provisions of H.R.3200 (down in the post before the current one).

So much for health care as a "right." They're gonna treat it like mandatory car insurance, i.e., because driving is a "privilege" granted by the state, you must have liability insurance.

I guess we should require that everyone obtain "approved military defense, police, and fire protection coverage" as well.

Presidential candidate Obama declared unequivocally during the debates that health care is a "right."

There's another provision in the legislation (also detailed in my blog) authorizing the establishment of a new bureaucracy within which to vet people for income eligibility for health care insurance "affordability credits" -- i.e., sliding scale government subsidies for buying the required policies.

We already have this kind of thing. It's called "Welfare."

This is all getting pretty depressing.

I certainly don't need you to patronize me regarding what words actually mean. I keep my hardbound set of The Federalist Papers within arms' reach at my desk, and have them bookmarked online as well (and I actually read the stuff). My use of the word "welfare" clearly meant present-day means-tested public assistance eligibility. Moreover, while I agree that the Preamble sets forth core elements of the Constitutional "why" ('...promote the general welfare...') underpinning the rest of the "what" and "how" (e.g., privileges, duties, separation of powers), the Preamble has yet -- sadly, in my view -- to be cited in any SCOTUS ruling. Scalia would say "screw you, life is unfair, get over it. Our job is not to mete out 'justice' in the broader ethical sense, it's to determine what it narrowly textually evident in the words of the Constitution regarding the permissible "what" and "how."

I think you completely missed my point. The cognitive dissonance I see (and write about) is in at once loftily claiming health care to be a "right" while now legislatively treating it as yet another private citizen obligation (like buying auto insurance) -- one to be henceforth enforced by IRS scrutiny.

Condolences.

Here's a comment I made over at Open Salon:

___

"He has the power to stop this anytime he WANTS to."

___

I'm with Tony Wang on this one. Why would Obama "want" to stop this stupidity? It just marginalizes all of you, while providing the rest of us lots of laughs. He's smart enough to know that NOTHING will suffice with you people, no amount of scientific, forensic evidence. Face it, you just hate President Obama, and want to see him taken down, by any and all available means, no matter how utterly sleazy and idiotic.

You have the burden of proof exactly backwards. Obama has no need to kiss your asses, to "prove" anything to your (unattainable) satisfaction. He's already been vetted. Fully. Neither the Clinton nor McCain campaigns (or the myriad initial other Dem and GOP contenders) could find any dirt on him, and you can bet that the deadly, deadly serious senior career National Security people would have surreptitiously outed him had there been any skeletons. Get serious. The more you try to justify your mistake, the more clownish you look.