"Vernon's a good soul but"

Yesterday I had a friendly conversation with a nephew about the merits of the health reform bill. I tried to respect his opinion but then he posted the comment to someone that "Vernon's a good soul but" which I felt was somewhat dismissive of mine. It is good to have a blog!

No, I like to think of myself as a person who takes the time to research a topic and try to base any comments I have on actual facts.

For example, when you stated that “This is a disaster and this executive order to amend a bill like this is unconstitutional.”, I found and read the executive order. You are probably right that if he tried to amend the bill it might be unconstitutional, but the executive order doesn’t do that. What it does do is instruct his Secretary of Health and Human Services to insure that the Hyde Amendment be enforced on federal funds that the new bill provides. This simply reinforces what the bill already contains. This was done to reassure the pro-life faction that federal funds would indeed not be used to cover abortions.

My personal opinion is that to give the Hyde Amendment any semblance of permanency is a mistake. The Hyde Amendment is not permanent law. It must be renewed at the beginning of each congress and is actually a rider which is attached to annual appropriation bills and primarily affects Medicaid. When the Supreme court ruled that abortion is legal this amendment was devised to deny that right to one class of women, namely the poor. Henry Hyde himself said “I would certainly like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion: a rich woman, a middle class woman, or a poor woman. Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the HEW Medicaid bill.”

As to your comment “…hospitals looking more like the VA with longer wait times, degraded service, and inadequate care for the masses” I fail to understand your logic. Thirty two million people who didn’t have insurance before will now have access to private insurance (so much for a “socialized system”). What a windfall this is to insurance companies and to hospitals. Thirty two million people will have access to health care without having to rely on emergency room treatment.

You cite Amtrak and the post office as examples of government getting involved in creating massive debts. The post office receives no subsidy from the government. Railroads (environmentally friendly by the way) receive only a fraction of the subsidies that go to transportation. The bulk of that money goes to airlines and highway maintenance. The United States only spends 0.4% of its transportation capital on rail. Compare that to 21% in France and 22% in Germany.