A Very American Protest

The mainstream media is focused, as always, on the more dramatic aspects of the “town hall” meetings during which astonished members of Congress discover how total the disconnect between the machinations of Washington, D.C. and the rest of America is. If the Democrat politicians could recall anything from the past they might draw some lessons from it, but they are fixated on expanding the federal government’s control over our lives while, at the same time, abandoning anything that passes for common sense. In the July issue of Healthcare News, a publication of The Heartland Institute, a non-profit, free market think tank headquartered in Chicago, Greg Scandlen, Heartland’s Director of Consumer Care Choices, recalled the reaction of Americans in 1988 when Congress passed the Medicare Catastrophic law. Like Obamacare, it was supported by the AARP, essentially a large insurance company, was passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress, and signed into law by Ronald Reagan.

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“Except when the elderly found out they were about to be required to buy something they didn’t need, they were furious,” said Scandlen. “In a famous scene, a group of elderly people chased House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski down the streets of Chicago and beat on his car with their canes and picket signs when he tried to escape. Eighteen months after it was passed, the law was repealed.” If Obamacare is passed by the majority party in Congress, it is likely to suffer a similar fate, but by then none of those voting for it will be around. Voters will literally clean house of any politician stupid enough to vote for it. At the heart of Obamacare is a complete loss of a moral compass by those who support it. At the heart of the American Republic is a belief in a Supreme Being and His dictates for moral behavior. Requiring people to pay for something they do not want or believe they need is theft. Requiring people to consider death as an option is one step from euthanasia and murder. That’s why the town hall meetings are so valuable and why the September 12th March on Washington to protest taxes will likely sink President Obama’s ambitions to “change” America into a socialist nation similar to those in Europe and others. The spending frenzy of the current Congress is not going unnoticed and Obamacare is just one element of it. Voters know that Medicare and Medicaid, along with Social Security are going broke. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out that Obamacare will do the same while intruding into patient-doctor relationships and denying the most personal decisions anyone can make regarding their health. A lot of people, for their own reasons, do not purchase healthcare insurance. “About 20 percent of the people in California are uninsured, 25 percent of Texans, and similarly huge numbers in almost every other state,” notes Scandlen. Many are younger Americans in good health who want to put off the expense. “It isn’t just the cost. About one-third of the uninsured for free coverage from Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) don’t find the programs worth enrolling in.” Requiring Americans to buy health insurance is a very un-American idea. The outrage being seen and heard in the town hall meetings is quintessentially American. The entire idea behind the drafting of the U.S. Constitution was to keep the federal government small and to restrict any intrusion into enumerated rights. The notion of “redistributing” personal income has perhaps hit its apex and the failure of giant, socialist programs for an ever-growing population with an increasingly large portion of the elderly has had its day. A free, competitive marketplace will meet our needs at a cost we can afford once we cap the “tort” process by which some garner huge payoffs in court while others do not. That’s not law. That’s a lottery. We don’t ask or expect the elderly to die in the interest of the rest of the population, but that is exactly what Obamacare does. We honor and respect them. We take care of them in their final years. Calling this “un-American” and calling those attending the town hall meetings “mobs” will not change that. It is insulting, infuriating, and elitist. It will, however, change the composition of Congress and make Obama a one-term President.

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