“Unconstitutional”
A lot of people at yesterdays regrettable townhall meeting were yelling that this or that detail of the proposed healthcare plan was “unconstitutional.” They had read their pocket constitutions and decided that this made them an expert on constitutional law. Apparently the U.S. Constitution prohibits everything they don’t like—and only the things they don’t like.
The proposed bill does not do anything about malpractice suits. Malpractice suits are tort law and tort law is (generally) state law. To limit or cap awards in malpractice suits would thrust federal law into an area that had traditionally belonged to the state. It might even run into some actual constitutional problems. If the healthcare bill is constitutionally problematic (and, for the most part, it isn’t), some sort of federal tort reform is constutituionally unthinkable.
I enjoyed whispering conspiratorily to the booing people who didn’t know I wasn’t on their side, “Wait—wouldn’t that sort of thing be unconstitutional?” They didn’t know—but either way, it didn’t bother them.
I don’t know how familiar you are with the Patriot movement but ‘unconstitutional’ is a pretty popular rallying cry among those folks. (If you’re in Dingell’s district you might occasionally rub elbows with members of the Michigan Militia, or the radically anti-tax people in Michigan who firmly believe that any form of taxation ever to exist is unconstitutional.)
I find it extremely, extremely alarming in general when people call shit like this ‘unconstitutional’ and I’m not familiar with their politics, because my next thought is ‘shit, am I about to hear some patriot movement crap?’
Regardless, get used to it because you’re going to hear it an awful lot.
The call of “unconstitutional” was pretty much the thing that disillusioned me when I was flirting with libertarianism. It is quite clear that health care coverage is something that crosses state lines. My employer is in MD, my doctor is in DC, I might fall down the stairs this weekend in NJ. It’s interstate commerce and the legislature can make laws to regulate it.
I think the prime counterarguement to socialism should be “It is dumb and doesn’t work” rather than “It is illegal.” Intrusive doesn’t always mean unconstitutional.
I could not agree more.
Why is it nobody realizes that, hey, the USSR tried socialism and… what happened again? Oh, right, it failed miserably and only oil money and a (former) KGB man saved the remains from catastrophe.
