Health Care Bill

Is Wrong In Principle

To the Editor:

The founding principle of our nation is that we are a free people - a nation that has a government, not the other way around, as President Reagan put it.  To that end, our founders created the most amazing experiment ever in the course of human history, articulated by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Both of these documents established how we arrange our affairs in this nation so as to create maximum individual liberty in an ordered society: not anarchy, not tyranny, but the best balance between the two.  In short, ordered liberty.  Limiting government power is the primary aim of the Constitution, since the compulsion for people to seek and wield power is as old as the human race.  To be completely explicit about this, the tenth amendment to the Constitution specifically states that the only powers that the federal government has are those which are delegated to it by the people.  Here it is, in full: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.  We, the people, have the power, unless we grant it to them.  We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around.

So why the civics lesson?  Because in a very short time, we have seen world record federal spending and deficits, the nationalization of an automobile company, passage of a massive federal restructuring of the energy industry (so-called “cap and trade”), the impending restructuring of the healthcare industry, and on it goes.  The key question you should ask yourself is, “Are they allowed to do this?  Have we given them this power?”  Make no mistake: the federal government was already deeply involved in the energy, financial, automotive, and healthcare industries, but that is apparently not enough.  The drive for power is eternal and is to be resisted on that basis alone.

Be very skeptical of a rush to get a bill passed quickly. It rarely leads to anything good over the long term.  Frankly, we’re Americans: we can and will do it ourselves, and if we wish the government to get involved, we need to explicitly authorize them to do so.  We don’t have a universal federal program for home insurance, car insurance, life insurance, pet insurance, renter’s insurance, liability insurance: why health insurance?  Once freedom is yielded, it is nearly impossible to regain.  To paraphrase Franklin, if you trade liberty for security, you end up with neither.  The day they provide healthcare is the day they can tell you how to behave in order to receive it.  To be completely clear, were this new healthcare bill to slash costs in half, it would still be wrong just in principle.  Our liberty is not worth the price.

If this concerns you, you can exercise your power: Contact your representative and senators, which is very easy to do at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

Respectfully,

Scott A. Reiss

42 Obtuse Road, Newtown                                            August 5, 2009