May 18, 2012
Blog by John Steigerwald
There’s a decent chance that some federal money was involved in a $5million grant to renovate a high school athletic facility in New York City.
Especially when the high school team hasn’t played a home game in 38 years because of the short field.
That’s what happened in the Bronx.
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Yeah these are the people I want in charge of my health care.
Is the New York City Dept. of Education taking over your health care?
If the government takes over your health care this is an example of what to expect. It’s inevitable when one group is playing with another group’s money with little or no accountability.
The only connection I see between this story & the federal government is your comment that “there’s a decent chance some federal money was involved.” “Government” covers a lot of levels. No, I wouldn’t want the Mayor of Hooterville in charge of my health care. If I was among the 45 million who are uninsured & can’t afford health care, I’d take my chances with federal government-run health care. Government-run health care was OK for Sarah Palin, by the way. Until she ran for VP & was forced to chant the anti-health care reform mantra, she routinely took her family over the border into Canada for health care.
The point is that government shouldn’t be involved in something as personal as our health care. Bureaucracy is bureaucracy no matter what level of government. There will be massive waste and fraud because there is no profit motive.
I’m of the opinion that something had to be done about health care & with nobody else proposing any ideas, we should at least give Obama’s plan a try. Clinton’s health care reform was defeated, & where are we almost 20 years later—higher costs & more uninsured people. If Obama’s plan turns out to be a big flop, well, at the next election cycle the Republicans will use this to their advantage & it will be repealed. In the meantime the millions of uninsured have nothing to lose. One of the arguments against it are the taxes—why should you & I pay for others’ health care? Well, guess what, if we have health insurance, we’re been paying for it anyway. Every time somebody goes to the emergency room for care & can’t pay for it, it’s built into our insurance costs. Costs are out of control, fewer people can afford health care, & nobody’s making money off it but the CEO’s of the health insurers. Doctor clients of mine that were making $800,000/year in the ’80′s are making $300,000 today & working harder for it. Soon nobody’s even going to want to be a doctor. “The market” just isn’t taking care of these problems.
John, I’m an open-minded guy & I’m trying to understand the conservative position on this, but all I see is people screaming about socialism & not involving the government. How would you fix the health care crisis? Do you agree that there’s a crisis in the first place?
No government involvment unless it’s health savings accounts accumulated by 100% income tax deductions. Instead of taking 6% of my money and making my employer contribute 6%, let me put that money aside everey year. If I had started doing it when I was 30, I would have one or two hundred thousand dollars in in my account. I could paY CASH for most of my medical expenses from here on out. i could also have a relatively inexpensive $25,000 deductible catastrophic insurance policy. When I’m paying cash, I’m going to ask how much I’m being charged. (I’ve had four knee surgeries and the only thing i never talked to the doctor about was how much he was charging me.) Cash in the patients hands would force insurance companies and hospitals to be more competitive. No more 25 dollar aspirins.
Sounds like a good idea to me, John. The problem is, of course, that there were no such things as health savings account when you were 30, & the government has to deal in the reality of the day. I don’t know what the answer is. The problem I struggle with is that I believe health care is a right. When you throw profit-oriented insurers into the equation, many will be denied that right.
Health care is not a right. Free speech is a right because it deoesn’t require someone else to contribute to your ability to exercise it. Your “right’ to health care requires the government to violate someone else’s property rights by confiscating their wealth to pay for your right. Why not establish medical savings accounts going forward? Medicare and medicaid are on the way to being broke.
Medical Savings Accounts & Health Savings Accounts exist today but are not in wide use. I don’t know why. I guess the people who can afford health insurance prefer that, & those that can’t probably can’t afford to put anything in these accounts.
I see health care as a right, so we have to agree to disagree on that. The way I see it, I’ve never been a drain on society. I put myself thru 7 years of college & grad school, paid for it all myself, never defaulted on my student loans. I’ve worked hard for 28 years now, never collected unemployment for even a day, paid my taxes on time, & never committed a crime or broke the law, unless you count a couple parking tickets. I would hope that should I somehow ever fall upon hard times, that there would still be health care for me. I understand that money would be confiscated from someone else for this. I’m not offended when my tax dollars help those less fortunate than me. I’m more offended when I have to finance subsidies for big oil companies that don’t need them or a war in Iraq that has nothing to do with making the US safer, but I seldom hear as many complaints about that as I do for new taxes for health care.
National defense is a legitimate function of the federal government. Paying your doctor bills is not. National defense benefits (or, depending on your feelings on he particular war) hurts everyone equally. I don’t believe in subsidies either. Do you believe that access to food is a “right?” Why not have the government provide us all with “free” food?
>”National defense is a legitimate function of the federal government.”
Agreed. Preemptive strikes for vague reasons that nobody ever seemed able to articulate, however, are not.
>”Do you believe that access to food is a “right?” Why not have the government provide us all with “free” food?”
The government gives out food stamps now. As I see it, a government function is helping those who can’t help themselves, & apparently our government feels the same way. I don’t mind my tax dollars feeding somebody who, for whatever reason, can’t help himself, maybe because of disability, mental illness. whatever. People who are too lazy to work & abuse the system? That’s another story. Neither party ever seemed overly interested in weeding out the abuses.
You can make legitimate arguments against just about any war. Congress authorized Iraq, but defense is a leigitmate function of the federal government as stated in the constitution. Nowhere in the constitution is the federal government given the power to take money from citizins for the purpose of benevolence.
True, but the Constitution is a 200+-year-old document. When it was drafted, our founding fathers couldn’t have foreseen today’s health care crisis. Then it becomes the philosophical question of whether the government’s powers should be limited to dealing with only matters that could have foreseen over 200 years ago? I don’t know the answer—as you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m better at raising the questions. I don’t find the answers as cut & dried as some others.
Moreover, the government takes money from the citizens for the purpose of benevolence every day. What is welfare? Food stamps? Corporate subsidies?
Both parties will always find a way to fund their priorities. Sometimes it’s defined as socialism, depending on who’s doing it, but both parties always find a way to fund their priorities.
The country was founded and the Constitution was written by people who considered government a necessary EVIL. If they came back 2,000 yeaes from now they would not be in favor of citizens giving the government the power over their lives that comes with being in control of their healthcare.
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Here:s Walter Williams on the subject.
Here’s the House of Representatives new rule: “A bill or joint resolution may not be introduced unless the sponsor has submitted for printing in the Congressional Record a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the bill or joint resolution.” Unless a congressional bill or resolution meets this requirement, it cannot be introduced.
If the House of Representatives had the courage to follow through on this rule, their ability to spend and confer legislative favors would be virtually eliminated. Also, if the rule were to be applied to existing law, they’d wind up repealing at least two-thirds to three-quarters of congressional spending.
You might think, for example, that there’s constitutional authority for Congress to spend for highway construction and bridges. President James Madison on March 3, 1817 vetoed a public works bill saying: “Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled ‘An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,’ and which sets apart and pledges funds ‘for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense,’ I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States and to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.”
Madison, who is sometimes referred to as the father of our Constitution, added to his veto statement, “The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers.”
Here’s my question to any member of the House who might vote for funds for “constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses”: Was Madison just plain constitutionally ignorant or has the Constitution been amended to permit such spending?
What about handouts to poor people, businesses, senior citizens and foreigners?
Madison said, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
In 1854, President Franklin Piece vetoed a bill to help the mentally ill, saying, “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. (To approve the measure) would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”
President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill for charity relief, saying, “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.”
Again, my question to House members who’d vote for handouts is: Were these leaders just plain constitutionally ignorant or mean-spirited, or has our Constitution been amended to authorize charity?
Suppose a congressman attempts to comply with the new rule by asserting that his measure is authorized by the Constitution’s general welfare clause. Here’s what Thomas Jefferson said: “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
Madison added, “With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”
John Adams warned, “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” I am all too afraid that’s where our nation stands today and the blame lies with the American people.
January 11, 2011
Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
Copyright © 2011 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
The Best of Walter E. Williams
Taxman, please don’t spread lies.
Palin said that her family took HER over the boarder for health care during her CHILDHOOD.
Your statement says that she took her family over the border. Not true.
Your statement leads one to believe she continued to do this until she ran for VP. Again not true.
You also say she was forcedto chant the anti-health care reform mantra. Please provide 1 shred of truth to that statement.
If it makes you feel better to trash someone with lies, then I think that says more about you than it does about Sarah Palin.
I just googled it & stand corrected on the matter of Palin going to Canada for health care. You’re right, it was her parents taking her during her childhood. Calm down, I’m not purposely trying to spread lies. I’m a reasonable person. I read something over a year ago & remembered it differently when I posted. I’m at the point in life where I have trouble remembering what I ate for breakfast. Still, whether it was Palin taking her family to Canada or her parents taking her as a child, either way it illustrates my basic point–that an American chose the government-run Canadian health care system over what was available to them in the USA.
As for Palin being forced to chant the anti-health care mantra—Can you really believe that she would have been the VP candidate had she spoken out in favor of health care reform?
The premier of Quebec came to the US for health care. The flow over the border for health care ain’t south to north. It’s north to south. Canada and I have plenty of first hand horror stories. There also is a 13% tax on EVERYTHING to pay for that free health care.
See what happens when you don’t grease the local politicians hand with enough $$$. You only get an 80 yard field.
I’m guessing few bought into the Bronx mantra of “almost half the field, almost twice the excitement.”
Maybe they could adjust the final scores by 20%.
They don’t keep score, it might hurt someones self-esteem.
The government didn’t build the field. The idiot contractor did. How is this the government fault? The government didn’t design or build the field.
The contractor built it to the government’s specs. And the govt. paid for it.