President Walking Eagle is going to sign the Senate version of health care “reform” into law today. And there will be great rejoicing among the progressive liberals who have managed by both hook and by crook to force another monstrous and unsustainable entitlement program onto the backs of the average American. Not out of some noble and heartfelt sense of fairness, mind you, but from an egotistical and cynical belief that only government – a small, select group of intellectual “elite” – can do for people what people should be doing for themselves.
It is the 180-degree opposite of the intentions of our Founding Fathers, no matter what they say. Or, in the case of the Speaker of the Nuthouse on Sunday night, try to say as she failed to pronounce the words of the Declaration of Independence properly, let alone state them in the right order. Which only goes to show how little attention such people pay to the documents that created what was arguably the greatest nation in the history of man.
But I digress.
In the aftermath of the progressive liberal arm-twisting, threats, and taxpayer-funded bribes that pushed socialized medicine into American reality, it is interesting to note that lawsuits have already been prepared to challenge its legality. How far they will go when the Senate bill creates a whole new army of IRS agents with neither the billions in funding required nor any legal power to enforce the individual mandate remains to be seen, but the very fact the individual mandate exists, that inactivity in the marketplace has become a crime is, indeed, unconstitutional. (But, hey, those 16,500 new IRS agents are new jobs!)
Adding to what will be the circus is Senator Chuck Grassley’s announcement yesterday that during the Senate consideration of the House’s “reconciliation” legislation he intends to (again) introduce an amendment that would apply the health care “reforms” to the President, Vice-President, cabinet members and top White House staff .
“It’s pretty unbelieveable that the President and his closest advisors remain untouched by the reforms they pushed for the rest of the country. In other words, President Obama’s health care reform won’t apply to President Obama,” Grassley said. “Last December, the effort to apply any new law to administration political leaders was rejected by the Senate Majority Leader. But there’s no justification for the double standard, and I’ll continue to work to establish fairness.”
The Senate legislation passed last night by the House of Representatives includes an amendment Grassley sponsored and got adopted by the Finance Committee last fall to have members of Congress and their staffs get their health insurance through the same health insurance exchanges where health plans for the general public would be available. During the closed-door negotiations on the bill late last year, the Senate Majority Leader carved out Senate committee and leadership staff from this requirement.
Subsequently, Grassley and Senator Tom Coburn attempted to offer another amendment to restore the requirement during Senate debate on the health care bill, but the Senate Majority Leader would not let their amendment to fix this loophole even come up for a vote. In addition to Senate committee and leadership staff, the amendment Grassley and Coburn filed during the Senate debate would have made the President, the Vice President, top White House staff and cabinet members all get their health insurance through the newly created exchanges. It would not have applied to federal employees in the civil service.
Grassley said, “It’s only fair and logical that top administration officials, who fought so hard for passage of this overhaul of America’s health care system, experience it themselves. If it’s as good as promised, they’ll know it first-hand. If there are problems, they’ll be able to really understand them, as they should.”
Grassley said the motivation for his amendments is simple: public officials who make the laws or lead efforts to have laws changed should live under those laws.
Americans have been griping for years about the perks and benefits Congress has voted themselves at the taxpayer’s expense and how the Senate responds to yet another clarion call for personal accountability – in public, we hope – will serve to put big targets on the backs of those who vote against it.