"Greater Good?!" - Whatevs

You all know how much I love receiving Oregon Senator Jeff Kruse's newsletters. I haven't blogged on them in awhile because they have been sort of blah compared to the tea party/town hallers, but the once I received today was a gem of vacuity, so I thought I'd share a couple of choice lines.

Not only does government usually cost more and operate less efficiently, but we should always keep in mind the more government is involved the less freedom we have.

That second clause is particularly true, which is why I've always said "The U.S. out of the U.S."

I will admit, while I am a lover of the Kruse-man, I am a relative newcomer, so I can't be certain, but given his touching devotion to right-wing orthodox, I can't imagine he did too much balking at the notion of the unitary Executive advanced during the Bush years. Oh, who am I kidding? I doubt Kruse has ever heard the phrase "unitary Executive." He probably knows that when it comes to trillion dollar wars and all their attendant spying and torturing, it is probably best to trust a small cabal of people to make and implement decisions in secret. When it comes to health care, however, it is troubling to see the Legislative branch ceding power (it does not have) to the Executive.

The parallels between health care reform in Oregon and on the national level are striking in two different ways...What I find even more troubling is the seeming willingness in both cases for the Legislative Branch of government to cede authority granted them by the Constitution to the Executive Branch. One should keep in mind that nowhere in either the US or the Oregon Constitution is the authority to regulate health care granted to either Congress or the Oregon Legislature; however these bodies have been invested with the authority to set laws and review regulations. With the creation of the Oregon Health Authority and whatever President Obama chooses to call his organization we see a clear transfer of legislative responsibility to the Executive Branch, and this will come with very little oversight.

Jeff watches Fox, so a statement like this seems obvious to him:

The public sentiment for President Obama’s “public option” has been very negative.

A poll like this would obviously be fake, even if it says Obama is doing a bad job.

Fortunately, Jeff acknowledges that the health care system is broken. You know what broke it, don't you? (No, not that.) Medicare and Medicaid. You see, Medicare and Medicaid don't pay doctors and hospitals enough, which forces them to not make as much money is governmental interference with the natural market which always leads to a broken system. Also, the Governor of Texas, who is totally not a far-right wacko, thinks health care reform would be a bad idea and since Texas has the wisdom to exploit all of its natural resources (unlike a certain state in the upper Northwest corner of the United States that is not Washington), you know he knows what he's talking about.

All of this was wind up, of course. The real concern - the only concern! - is what might happen to our Constitutional rights.

Both the Oregon plan and the Obama plan will require the government to collect a lot more information about you than they already have. They will need to have all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. This clearly violates the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Amendments to the Constitution, but we are told it is for the “greater good”, whatever that means. I personally think the government already has more information about me than they need and I don’t want to give them access to any more.

Now, if you're my friend, then you have your Constitution memorized and you immediately know that these so-called health insurance reform proposals would jeopardize your right to be protected from having your property seized without compensation (5th), to be protected from search and seizure without probable cause (4th), and/or your right to not have government troops quartered in your home (3rd). That's right, if Obamacare passes, soldiers will be sleeping in your bed - without your consent!

And lastly, just because no discussion of health care would be complete without it, here is your completely nonsensical rant about people who are not you, a medical person, or a really convincing commercial telling you what you should do health care-wise:

Make no mistake, hospital admissions, payments to physicians, the allocation of medical devises, and what types of procedures are covered for which groups of people will be strictly controlled.How comfortable are you in having these choices made for you by non-medical people without your input?I think we should all be outraged.

I am outraged, indeed. I prefer to keep all my medical transactions between me, my doctor, my nurse, the receptionist at the doctor's office, my employer-chosen health care company, my health care company's IT people, and my employer's HR department. And the notion that someone other than myself would decide how much my doctor gets paid without my consent keeps me up at night. I like to pay my doctor in freshly-laid eggs, which, I believe, is the same policy my health insurance company has.

Now that Jeff (and I!) have thoroughly demolished Obamacare, let us leave you with this maxim, which you can hold onto when the leftists in the Senate ram their lefty health-care proposals down your throat:

Our greatness as a country is not because we are smarter or taller or better looking than the other people of the world.

May it always be true!