First, I despise the Affordable Care Act. I want every single individual who voted for it dipped in tar, coated with feathers, tied to a salt-treated 4 x 4 mounted on a 4WD truck that has had the shock absorbers replaced with steel bars and driven out of town on whatever road has the greatest number of potholes per square foot during a hailstorm - with Barack Obama driving - after removing the windshield.
Second, I wanted the Supreme Court to reject it, and I had a very bad day when they didn't. I agreed with the minority when they said they found the act unconstitutional in its entirety, and would have been elated had this been the majority opinion.
But, I might be wrong about that second part. I'll attempt to explain why . . .
The United States government - the one we typically and awkwardly refer to as the "federal" government - has, as an obligation enumerated by the Constitution, the responsibility to "lay and collect taxes . . . (to) provide for the . . . general welfare of the United States . . ."
This is quite reasonable and intelligent - what would be the main point of having created a Union that would ultimately bind 50 sovereign states together if not to do things that would benefit all of those states and their citizenry? (For those wondering, the United States is not one nation, despite what the Pledge and revisionist historians say - it is a union of states, a term that traditionally refers to the political entity of a nation.)
Congress, under the obligation found in Article I, Section 8, is required to collect taxes for purposes that will ultimately benefit all the states, and by extension, the people that live in them. Undeniable as a result of this requirement is the inevitable fact that the degree of benefit from one citizen to the next will vary in amount and form of that benefit.
Let's suppose that a local city government determines that it is in the best interest of the entire population to add two lanes to a main thoroughfare that connects two business districts. Presumably, the effect on business in this city will be positive. Suppose I do regular business over the Internet with an office supply in one of those districts. It is possible that one benefit of the road expansion would be an increase in foot traffic in his store. To capitalize on this, he may offer reduced prices on items popular with walk-in customers to encourage even more foot traffic. I may also purchase those items and he may apply those savings to Internet sales. I benefit from the road expansion, but not necessarily as much as the people who use the newly expanded road to drive to the store - they get there and back quicker, saving time and gas, as well as the cost of the items that are now reduced in price. I may save money by not driving there, but I must pay shipping, and the owner may not apply the walk-in sale prices to everything I buy online. There are a lot of variables. Regardless, the general population benefits from the improvement in business operations through an increase in tax revenues which are collected through sales taxes. Many businesses see an increase in their sales as a result of people who now realize that not only is it a more pleasant experience to get back and forth and therefore visit more frequently, but also stop in at businesses that are not the main objective of their trip while they're there.
The expanded road would obviously need to be paid for by taxes, although morally all the taxes should come from the local or state government. (It makes little sense if this town is Norfolk, Virginia and the United States government were to force people who live in Nebraska to help pay for it, it being highly unlikely that any Nebraskans will drive to Norfolk to pick up office supplies . . . )
What we have in this example is an illustration of how government can collect taxes that provide for the general welfare.
Being confident of this principle, let's take a look at real example of it in action.
On December 17th of 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright gave the world a rather spectacular Christmas present. They defied the naysayers when they revealed a machine that allowed Orville to stay aloft for 12 seconds on the beach in North Carolina. Eventually, aviation technological improvements allowed the development of an airplane that has a cargo bay alone that is only 20 feet shorter than Orville's entire first flight.
The commercial applications of flight came very quickly, particularly in the delivery of mail. Until then, getting letters from one place to another was not what anyone would call quick. It is rarely mentioned that the Titanic was officially the RMS Titanic - Royal Mail Ship. One of her primary functions was to carry mail between the continents. You can imagine how long it would take to get your new import CD copy of The Beau Brummels if you had to wait for a boat to bring it over from England - especially if it was on the Titanic . . .
Naturally, it wasn't long before aviation became interested in passengers. The trouble was the lack of technology to support safe traveling by air. Fatalities were common among pilots who had to depend on fair weather during the day and bonfires to light runways at night. But as always, innovators improved the operations, and air-travel began to be a viable way to move around.
For awhile, an interesting situation was in place: there was a complete void where one might expect an all-encompassing United States government legal act in place to govern the operation of aviation in the country. Early operations involved a cooperative effort between D.C. and the states. It might have seemed like a good idea, but the fact was there were still of lot of planes and people getting physically rearranged as a result. At the request of the airline industry, the U.S. government passed the Air Commerce Act of 1926. In our day, the evolution of this first act is known as the Federal Aviation Administration.
I know it's odd to hear me say this, but the FAA is a government operation that is and has been quite successful. I have what may be a different opinion compared to some as to why, but that's another story. Fact is, when you look at the number of airplanes that take off, zoom about, and land in this country every day and compare it to the number of planes that successfully attempt to occupy the same space at the same time, the second number is very, very small. The choreography involved in accomplishing this is staggering. Is there room for improvement? I'm sure there is, but regardless, in those brief days when I flew every now and then, I never worried about the procedures involved that kept me from being killed and cremated all for the same low price.
Well, like our business-improving road, the FAA has to be paid for. This is done by the U.S. government collecting taxes that are used to provide for the general welfare of the United States.
IMNVOHM - In my not-very-often-humble opinion - it is unarguable that the aviation industry provides a benefit to virtually every single citizen in the 50 states. An indispensable part of the things that make it so are the rules, regulations, and operations of the FAA.
But let's imagine some curmudgeon like me comes along and says he doesn't like the idea. He says "I don't own a plane, so I don't want to pay taxes to support the FAA." Someone else in the crowd speaks up and says "You may want or need to fly sometimes." Our hero says "Never! I'll drive or take Amtrak. Or a bus." Another one says "Maybe, but you buy stuff all the time that gets moved around on a plane, or get mail the same way." Eager to make his point, our rebel says "Then I will spend the next six-months making sure that I don't get or use a single thing that has any connection to the airline industry from now on."
This time, I speak up -
"It still doesn't matter, my friend. Undeniable evidence shows us plainly - no pun intended - that the airline industry is a benefit to our society. The effect of the industry shutting down for even a week would be devastating to virtually every operation that takes place in the United States. Everyone is better off as a result of it, throughout all the states, to one degree or another or in one form or another. It is an enumerated power of the Legislative Branch of the U.S. government to collect taxes in order to carry out operations that provide for the general welfare of the United States, and the FAA does that. Now, if you want to argue about not paying taxes at all as a protest against the illegal, immoral, and traitorous actions of those in government and you are willing to pay the price for fighting it, that's fine, but it's also a completely different discussion and operation. In the meantime, you have no Constitutional ground to not pay to support the FAA."
So, bottom line, in one way or another, everybody uses and is benefited by the airline industry, and Congressional action in this regard is both Constitutional and successful.
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So let's talk about health care in the United States. In many ways, it's disastrous. Control of medicine is concentrated in the hands of corporate giants that use their influence to pervert legislation to their own benefit. Anything that doesn't foster profits for the pharmaceutical industry, such as natural substances that can't be patented by big pharma to create those profits are at best treated with skepticism and at worst are the victim of deliberate campaigns to have them banned. Doctors who dare to develop alternative treatments that are against the profit interest of big corporations are hounded with lawsuits, ridiculed, or fired.
Do I sound like a liberal writing for Mother Earth? Get over it - it's true.
Lawyers are free to run amok, with the result that doctors have to pay confiscatory insurance rates in order to practice. Those costs are passed along to the sick and injured, as well as the insurance companies who cover them, who then, in turn, pass the costs along in the form of higher premiums.
Doctors themselves have largely become little more than drug dealers, passing out pills like a dope dealer at a school yard. Those who aren't just drug-dealers are often sophisticated knife-fighters whose typical answer is to cut first and see what happens later. Then they give you drugs.
Insurance companies, typically operating on a 3 - 4% profit margin, are always on the lookout for excuses not to pay. No one in their right mind would try to read the reams of restrictions that come with an average policy.
The only reason the whole thing hasn't collapsed is the fact that the people in the trenches are Americans, and Americans are usually compassionate. But their ability to overcome the power of corporations and government ineptitude is very limited.
Clearly, the health industry is in bad shape and needs redirection.
But let's set that aside for the moment and ask "Who benefits from the health industry - or would, assuming it was beneficial in the first place?
The answer is pretty obvious, ay? Everybody. Just like with the aviation industry.
When I first learned that Massachusetts was going to require everyone to buy health insurance, from no less an expert on the matter than my Massachusetts-dwelling brother, Dr. Dennis Hoyt, I was shocked into speechlessness. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The idea was, to me, utter madness. In one regard, I was and still am right, because what MA did was to socialize medicine, an act that can never, under any circumstances whatsoever, do anything other than damage or ruin health care and kill people unnecessarily, but I'll get into that later.
However, to think that the only way government can provide for the general welfare via the medical industry is to socialize the medical industry is exactly the kind of high functioning dolt-ery that statists and tyrants want you to believe.
In figuring out how to keep those nasty in-flight fender-incinerators from taking place while flying the friendly skies, it has never occurred - yet - to our Congressional mental giants such as Nancy We'll-have-to-pass-it-so-you-can-find-out-what's-in-it Pelosi, Harry Taxes-are-voluntary Reid, Maxine The-TEA Party-can go-straight-to-hell-and-and-I-intend-to help-them-get-there Waters, et al, nor, amazingly, to Barack The-private-sector-is-doing-just-fine Obama to take over the airline industry and write an unreadable, labyrinthine two-thousand seven hundred page manual spelling out every single action that every pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, flight attendant, ground controller, baggage handler, airplane fuel attendant, aviation firefighter, airport manager, skycap, airport parking shuttle driver, airport parking lot attendant, airport public restroom worker, and airport groundskeeper must read, comprehend, and comply with or face stiff penalties.
But yet that is exactly what they have done with health care.
Why didn't they simply take the same tack with health care that they did with the aviation industry? One that says "Look, regardless of anything else you do, you have to put the health and welfare of your passengers first. Now then, you can make your planes long enough to hold the NHRA Top Fuel Finals and that's fine, but it has to be able to land in the same shape it was when it took off, see?" Admittedly, that's a bit of a simplification, but you get the idea.
Well, I guess it's because it wouldn't give them enough power over peoples lives, because their every action evinces that very desire. But maybe there's more to it . . .
