Dear Bill — can I call you Bill, like you were called while in the Senate, rather than your current, rather grim, “William L. Armstrong”? I realize being president of a Christian college … er, university … requires more gravitas than being a US Senator, but hopefully, just us Coloradoans, you can still be Bill.
Bill, I read your op-ed in the Denver Post today, and while I think you are spot-on accurate in your final point, you make a number of arguments along the way that demonstrate you’ve busier reading Mitch McConnell’s press releases than actually thinking through matters on your own. Let’s start at the top.
The Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act …
First off, Bill, a few kudos are due you to not only not calling it “Obamacare,” but actually including the full name of the bill. Well done.
… is extremely disturbing on a number of grounds. First and foremost, the ruling allows the government to move 17 percent of our economy from doctor-patient decision-making to federal control.
Bill, really? In what strange, parallel universe America where you live has medical care been actually under “doctor-patient decision-making”? Versus the world we live in, where it’s been mostly insurance company-patient decision-making (except when it’s hospital emergency room administrator-patient decision-making)?
Further, most of what the ACA does is make it more possible for people to purchase or maintain private insurance coverage — or, when that’s not available, through state-run private insurance exchanges. In a lot of cases, more power is being given back to patients and their doctors, by eliminating insurance company restrictions like coverage for pre-existing conditions, treatment caps, etc.
By the way, Bill, congratulations on your successful surgery for bladder cancer earlier this year. I’m particularly glad that you were personally able to afford such surgery, or that it was covered by your CCU insurance policy. I hope that if you move on to another employer, Bill, there’s not sufficient time between jobs that you are then required to demonstrate you have no pre-existing conditions (like this cancer) that would disqualify you from coverage. Unless, of course, the ACA remains in place.
Sure, I’m as worried about government bureaucracy as the next guy, Bill — but have you ever argued with an for-profit insurance rep about whether some treatment is or ought to be covered? I have. I guarantee, they have government bureaucrats beat all hollow, because they’re in it for the money.
Second, the court has greatly expanded the scope and power of the federal government. The court basically held that the Affordable Care Act is a logical extension of federal taxing power under the Constitution. It is not an exaggeration to say that if the government can force individuals to either buy insurance or pay a penalty for not doing so, there are now few practical limits on what else the federal government can force us to do. The framers of the Constitution specifically intended the powers of the federal government to be “few and defined.” This decision essentially vests plenary power in the national government.
So if the government said, “We’re going to levy a tax on everyone to pay for health care coverage, a la Medicare,” you would consider that Constitutionally sound, but if the government says, “You have to buy your own health care coverage, and we’re going to fine/tax those who decline to do so because they’ll be drawing on the system in their own ways,” that’s not? How exactly does that work, Bill? I mean, you were a US Senator, I presume you understand these things …
Fortunately, one thing the ruling doesn’t do is impact Colorado Christian University’s First Amendment challenge to the Affordable Care Act. CCU was the second college in the nation to challenge the so-called “contraceptive mandate” as a direct attack on religious freedom. Since that filing, many other Christian colleges and faith-based organizations as well as seven states have sued on essentially the same grounds. The regulations issued by the Obama administration implementing the Affordable Care Act require CCU to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs …
Contraceptive drugs aren’t abortion-inducing, Bill. Not that it’s any of your business for what purpose your employees are seeking medical care, prescriptions, etc. Are you vetting all those Viagra Rx’s, Bill?
… in direct violation of our deeply held religious beliefs, or pay staggering financial penalties. We are very confident that the courts will uphold our challenge to these regulations. We expect a decision from the Colorado U.S. District court early next year.
Well, thank goodness that you’re fighting to make sure that your religious beliefs are protected, and can be imposed on your employees who get insurance coverage through you, whether or not they agree with you regarding contraceptive coverage and what God wants us to do.
And, of course, the Adminstration has offered the compromise where no institution that feels that such a mandate would violate its institutional moral conscience actually has to touch any of the money involved, the filthy lucre of coverage being arranged directly between your employees (should they choose to exercise it based on their religious beliefs) and the insurance companies.
And, of course, CCU is thus admitting that every other federal policy and spending of tax dollars is in line with what they religiously believe in — from nuclear weapons to waterboarding prisoners to drone assassinations in the Middle East to whatever else you claim — otherwise you’d be filing suit in federal court to block those tax dollars from your institutional or individual tax payments.
One final note. According to the latest national poll, more the 50 percent of Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act. There is a historically critical election coming this November. If you don’t like this decision, vote for someone who pledges to overturn it and repeal Obamacare. That’s what democracy is all about.
And that’s where — after three big wrongs (Federal control of all health care! Taxation tyranny to make us eat broccoli! Stomping on your religious freedom by making contraceptive coverage available to your employees!) — you get one big right.
This election is about (among other things) the future of the ACA. And what you don’t mention about your poll results is that while Americans (barely) oppose the ACA as a whole (hardly surprising given how it’s been villified by the GOP et al.), when you ask them about its individual provisions (removing pre-existing condition disqualifications, removing lifetime caps, expanding the duration of family coverage, helping 30 million more people get insurance, etc.), the American public tends to like each one by a majority.
So yes, consider that, American voters, when you head to the polls this November. Who you vote for as a Representative, as Senator, a President, will have an impact on your personal medical insurance, and whether you can still afford (or qualify for) it. As well as on how that impacts your neighbor, the folks you see every day at work and on Main Street, and people you don’t even know. Who is, after all, your neighbor?
You got that part right, Bill. Thanks.
I loved the grillings Boehner on the weekend news shows. For each and every provision of the Affordable Care Act, he said he agreed it was good. For some he said insurance companies are already providing the changes, but carefully dodging the admission that this action comes only because the ACA requires it. But for each provision, each and every provision of the ACA, Boehner said he agrees that citizens deserve that, and that he will work to protect it.
But the entire bill “must come out by its roots,” he said.
So, he loves the fruit of the tree, but he’s going to chop it down.
What? Oh, he says the Republicans can do it all better. He doesn’t have a bill, he doesn’t have a clue what it will look like, but he’s sure a Republican version could be passed quickly, and would work better.
Are the voters listening yet?
One can but hope, Ed.
” . . . grillings Boehner got . . .”