01.22.2014
As the months have ticked by and the ludicrously misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has wobbled into reality, Americans have seen one promise after another come crashing down.
Americans now know the president was lying when he said we could keep our health plans or our doctors if we liked them.
And lying when he said Obamacare would solve the problem of the uninsured.
And lying when he said it would reduce insurance costs.
And lying when he said it would be a benefit to young, healthy people.
And lying when he said his administration would work out some accommodation with religious groups that cannot, as a matter of doctrine, condone the inclusion of contraception or abortion coverage in the health insurance plans they buy for their employees.
And lying and lying and lying.
The surprise these days is when some pronouncement about “the signature achievement of Barack Obama’s first term” turns out to hold a grain of truth.
Through it all, Obama’s allies in the media have fought a tenacious rear-guard action, stubbornly resisting both the obligation to seek the truth and the wisdom of recognizing and admitting it once it becomes glaringly obvious.
Obamacare is the left’s ticket to power, as everlasting as power can be in politics. And because they are generally left-wing elitists, people in newsrooms across the land envision themselves with a place at the table when a tired republic finally acquiesces to rule by the intellectual superiors of the people.
We’re so close, the left can taste it.
Look around. Try to find an institution of the federal government that does not behave as if it were operating in a dictatorship.
Obama himself is the most obvious example. He gets what he wants, and the separation of powers be damned.
If Congress is in the way, he illegally circumvents it. If the courts threaten his plans, he threatens the courts. And Congress and the courts back off and give in.
But the people still have some recourse — at least eventually. They can raise hell with Congress, which is still at least occasionally responsive. They can appeal for help from the courts.
Unless something that the forces of dictatorship want is purposely put out of reach of Congress and the courts.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Independent Payment Advisory Board — the relatively tiny, incredibly powerful item in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that is designed, on purpose, to have dictatorial powers.
Some people call it the death panel, and it is, but there’s more to it than that. If it’s allowed to work, it certainly will kill a lot of Americans — any sick person who is deemed to be too great a drain on the federal government, an entity already deep in debt.
Worse than that, though, it’s a potential Constitution killer. There’s no way a nation like ours can abide a monstrosity like the IPAB. If we end up being forced to abide it, we will cease to be a nation like ours.
The IPAB is designed to centralize the powers that this nation’s founders worked so hard to separate.
The IPAB will legislate, setting all policy related to Medicare. It will be in a position to declare what will be acceptable regarding health care costs, patient access and quality.
Like any other federal agency, it will be required to post its plans and decisions, and allow the public some brief time in which to comment.
Like no other federal agency, it will have no real reason to listen to the comments of the public or react to them. Congress can review the IPAB’s cost-cutting “recommendations” once a year. If Congress doesn’t like what it sees, it must cut an identical amount in some other way. That’s the same Congress that has a nervous breakdown over cutting projected growth in spending. The same Congress that passes mammoth bills without reading them or understanding what it’s voted on.
And on the Senate side of any congressional vote to overturn what the IPAB had decided, a three-fifths supermajority — that’s 60 votes — will be necessary.
That’s the same Senate that just went five years without passing a routine, constitutionally required, annual federal budget because it can hardly ever get 60 members to agree even to consider legislation, much less pass any. The prospects of finding 60 with the guts to slap down an “expert” recommendation from IPAB seem dim, at best.
So maybe Congress ought to just scrap the IPAB before it can get rolling. Except that Congress can’t. The bill Congress passed (to find out what was in it) says the one and only time Congress can get rid of the IPAB is a three-month period in 2017, two years after the IPAB is to go into operation. And that would also require a three-fifths Senate vote.
Fine. Forget Congress. Once the nature of the IPAB’s dictatorial mischief becomes apparent — with care being rationed to suit federal needs rather than patient needs, doctors refusing to work for the reimbursements the IPAB sets for them and the media explaining that former President Obama had no idea it would work out this way and that no one is more upset about it than he is — a thousand lawsuits will shut it down, right?
Wrong.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says IPAB decisions are not subject to judicial review.
So, let’s recap. Here we have a 15-member board appointed by the president that will make life-and-death decisions about which treatments will be allowed to which kinds of patients and what the people involved will pay and be paid, and the board is a law unto itself. Congress has no practical way of stopping it and the courts can’t intervene in what it does.
The time to stop the IPAB is now, before it becomes invincible. Fortunately, a lawsuit that takes aim directly at its consolidation of executive power, usurpation of legislative power and denial of judicial power is working its way through the federal court system.
The law that created the IPAB is so blatantly unconstitutional, even the reliably wacky 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should get this call right on Coons v. Geithner.
Americans now know the president was lying when he said we could keep our health plans or our doctors if we liked them.
And lying when he said Obamacare would solve the problem of the uninsured.
And lying when he said it would reduce insurance costs.
And lying when he said it would be a benefit to young, healthy people.
And lying when he said his administration would work out some accommodation with religious groups that cannot, as a matter of doctrine, condone the inclusion of contraception or abortion coverage in the health insurance plans they buy for their employees.
And lying and lying and lying.
The surprise these days is when some pronouncement about “the signature achievement of Barack Obama’s first term” turns out to hold a grain of truth.
Through it all, Obama’s allies in the media have fought a tenacious rear-guard action, stubbornly resisting both the obligation to seek the truth and the wisdom of recognizing and admitting it once it becomes glaringly obvious.
Obamacare is the left’s ticket to power, as everlasting as power can be in politics. And because they are generally left-wing elitists, people in newsrooms across the land envision themselves with a place at the table when a tired republic finally acquiesces to rule by the intellectual superiors of the people.
We’re so close, the left can taste it.
Look around. Try to find an institution of the federal government that does not behave as if it were operating in a dictatorship.
Obama himself is the most obvious example. He gets what he wants, and the separation of powers be damned.
If Congress is in the way, he illegally circumvents it. If the courts threaten his plans, he threatens the courts. And Congress and the courts back off and give in.
But the people still have some recourse — at least eventually. They can raise hell with Congress, which is still at least occasionally responsive. They can appeal for help from the courts.
Unless something that the forces of dictatorship want is purposely put out of reach of Congress and the courts.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Independent Payment Advisory Board — the relatively tiny, incredibly powerful item in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that is designed, on purpose, to have dictatorial powers.
Some people call it the death panel, and it is, but there’s more to it than that. If it’s allowed to work, it certainly will kill a lot of Americans — any sick person who is deemed to be too great a drain on the federal government, an entity already deep in debt.
Worse than that, though, it’s a potential Constitution killer. There’s no way a nation like ours can abide a monstrosity like the IPAB. If we end up being forced to abide it, we will cease to be a nation like ours.
The IPAB is designed to centralize the powers that this nation’s founders worked so hard to separate.
The IPAB will legislate, setting all policy related to Medicare. It will be in a position to declare what will be acceptable regarding health care costs, patient access and quality.
Like any other federal agency, it will be required to post its plans and decisions, and allow the public some brief time in which to comment.
Like no other federal agency, it will have no real reason to listen to the comments of the public or react to them. Congress can review the IPAB’s cost-cutting “recommendations” once a year. If Congress doesn’t like what it sees, it must cut an identical amount in some other way. That’s the same Congress that has a nervous breakdown over cutting projected growth in spending. The same Congress that passes mammoth bills without reading them or understanding what it’s voted on.
And on the Senate side of any congressional vote to overturn what the IPAB had decided, a three-fifths supermajority — that’s 60 votes — will be necessary.
That’s the same Senate that just went five years without passing a routine, constitutionally required, annual federal budget because it can hardly ever get 60 members to agree even to consider legislation, much less pass any. The prospects of finding 60 with the guts to slap down an “expert” recommendation from IPAB seem dim, at best.
So maybe Congress ought to just scrap the IPAB before it can get rolling. Except that Congress can’t. The bill Congress passed (to find out what was in it) says the one and only time Congress can get rid of the IPAB is a three-month period in 2017, two years after the IPAB is to go into operation. And that would also require a three-fifths Senate vote.
Fine. Forget Congress. Once the nature of the IPAB’s dictatorial mischief becomes apparent — with care being rationed to suit federal needs rather than patient needs, doctors refusing to work for the reimbursements the IPAB sets for them and the media explaining that former President Obama had no idea it would work out this way and that no one is more upset about it than he is — a thousand lawsuits will shut it down, right?
Wrong.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says IPAB decisions are not subject to judicial review.
So, let’s recap. Here we have a 15-member board appointed by the president that will make life-and-death decisions about which treatments will be allowed to which kinds of patients and what the people involved will pay and be paid, and the board is a law unto itself. Congress has no practical way of stopping it and the courts can’t intervene in what it does.
The time to stop the IPAB is now, before it becomes invincible. Fortunately, a lawsuit that takes aim directly at its consolidation of executive power, usurpation of legislative power and denial of judicial power is working its way through the federal court system.
The law that created the IPAB is so blatantly unconstitutional, even the reliably wacky 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should get this call right on Coons v. Geithner.
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