Health Care is NOT a Right

Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.

President Obama believes that health care is a right for every American. This is a perversion of the Founding Fathers’ idea of rights. There is an abundance of problems associated with ObamaCare but not enough attention has been paid to the dangerous philosophy behind the law. The underlying problem with ObamaCare is that too many Americans now see health care as a human right rather than a good.

The Declaration of Independence states that we have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That doesn’t mean that other people should be forced to sustain our life or make us happy. Many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the negative rights listed in the founding document. A negative right is a right to not have something done to us. The right to not be killed, the right to not have our property confiscated and the right to not have our speech punished are negative rights.

These legitimate rights do not place obligations on anyone except to not infringe on the rights of others. Otherwise, people are free to do as they please.

Progressives have invented so-called positive rights that are listed nowhere in our founding documents. A positive right is a right to something such as health care, housing, and clothing. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights claims that everyone has a right to health care. Of course, there’s no such thing as free health care. The government has no money of its own which means that it cannot “give” anyone health care without first taking away something from someone else.

There is a big difference between a need and a right. Health care is a basic need that everyone is free to pursue. This means that the government cannot infringe on our right to pursue health care but no one owes us health care. Health care is a good just like food, clothing, and shelter.

Positive rights contradict the very notion of rights. The so-called right to health care infringes on negative rights by imposing forceful obligations on taxpayers and health care providers. What about the right of the taxpayer to keep the fruit of his own labor? Should a doctor ultimately decide who he treats—or should he be forced to treat everyone whether he likes it or not? To say that we have the right to someone else’s time and services takes us back down a dark path in American history.

A right is not something someone gives you- it’s something that no one can take away.

Those who reject the idea that health care is a right are not dismissing the importance of health care. Quite the opposite is true. Health care is too important to be left to the incompetent federal government. Due to a lack of proper incentives, government generally destroys everything they touch. The government has never been able to run anything more efficiently than the for-profit private sector.

Anti-ObamaCare activists are often accused of being selfish, greedy people. That isn’t the reality. ObamaCare was passed under the guise of compassion. But as the late economist Murray Rothbard said, “it is easy to be conspicuously ‘compassionate’ if others are being forced to pay the cost.” There is nothing virtuous about spending other people’s money without their consent, no matter how well-intentioned the cause. Where’s the compassion for taxpayers—who are forced to foot the bill?

Theft is seen as immoral in practically every society on earth. Most of us would never dream of stealing money from a neighbor to give to someone less fortunate. Why then do some people demand that the government do it for them? Private charities that run on voluntary donations are the best way of helping the poor obtain health care, not government welfare that relies on force and coercion.

President Obama seems to believe that he can simply repeal the economic law of scarcity. There will never be enough of anything to satisfy all human wants. People can complain about the alleged unfairness of reality, but the fact is that health care will always be a scarce good. No laws can change that fact.

Bad ideas have bad consequences. The idea that health care is a right has led to more government involvement in health care. Government now pays for more than 50 percent of all health care costs in the United States. In order to stop government control and increase freedom, Americans must reject the idea of so-called positive rights. Health care is a valuable good that would be better left to the free market.

Unintended Consequences of ObamaCare Keep Rolling In

Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.

The “pesky” law of unintended consequences strikes again. Do you remember when President Obama said “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it”? Just as we expected, ObamaCare will not live up to its grand promises. According to a recent National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) report, one in eight small businesses have had or expect to have their health insurance plans terminated since the passage of ObamaCare in March 2010. This is likely just the tip of the iceberg since the 2,801-page health care takeover law will not be fully implemented until 2014.

The unintended consequences of ObamaCare keep rolling in. Insurance prices are skyrocketing, major health insurers have stopped offering child-only policies and we may soon be facing a huge doctor shortage. It comes as no big surprise that health care law will end up costing more than originally thought. A new report from Cornell economist Richard Burkhauser and his colleagues warns that ObamaCare could cost at least $50 billion more per year than previous Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates.

Government has an extensive history of under-calculating the long-term cost of legislation. For example, in 1967, House Ways and Means predicted that Medicare would cost $12 billion in 1990. The actual spending in 1990 was $110 billion. Medicare now costs taxpayers over $314 billion annually. In the case of Medicare, the government estimate was off by over 816 percent. How wrong was the CBO on the cost of ObamaCare? I’d rather not find out.

Many politicians seem to believe that they can repeal the laws of economics. As economist Thomas Sowell says, “the first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” Most government policies actually worsen the exact same problem they were supposedly trying to cure. As Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) states “free market economics teaches that for every government action to solve an economic problem, two new ones are created.” It’s a never-ending cycle of politicians passing bad laws to “fix” problems that were created by government in the first place.

While there are an abundance of problems associated with ObamaCare, perhaps the most troubling is the philosophical problem. Most politicians –and unfortunately many Americans—believe that health care is a right. This is a perversion of the idea of rights. As the Declaration of Independence states, Americans have the unalienable right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Note that none of these things require anything of anybody else.

Health care does require something from someone else. It either requires time from a doctor or nurse or money from someone to pay for such services. The government has no wealth of its own. Every dime that the government redistributes was first forcibly taken away from a taxpayer. Politicians like to consider themselves “compassionate” for supporting wealth redistribution plans such as ObamaCare. But spending other people’s money is not compassionate. As Austrian economist Murray Rothbard said, “it is easy to be conspicuously ‘compassionate’ if others are being forced to pay the cost.”

We are not entitled to health care. Economics professor Walter Williams writes that “true rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another… For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else’s rights, namely their rights to their earnings.” Where’s the compassion for taxpayers—who are forced to foot the bill?

Of course, most individuals who oppose ObamaCare are not “evil” as some supporters have claimed. We are not insensitive to the poor and needy. In fact, conservatives are more likely to donate to charities than liberals (no statistics found on libertarians). Arthur Brooks, author of the book Who Really Cares, says that “you find that people who believe it’s the government’s job to make incomes more equal, are far less likely to give their money away.” Genuine compassion is when you reach into your own pockets to help out the less fortunate. Reaching into other people’s pockets and forcing them to pay for compulsory government programs is false philanthropy and should not be considered noble.

We must repeal ObamaCare and restore a free market in healthcare.  No matter how well-intentioned government legislation may be, it simply cannot repeal the law of scarcity. We can complain about the alleged unfairness of reality, but the fact is that medical care will always be a scarce good. Government meddling in the health care market will only lead to ugly unintended consequences. We instead should seek to get the government out of the way and let the free market function for once.

ObamaCare One Year Later: Majority of Americans Still Oppose Unconstitutional Law

Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.

Most of us are likely to remember where we were when a national tragedy happened. As for me, I’ll always remember where I was when I heard that ObamaCare had passed the House of Representatives and was headed for President Obama’s desk. On March 21, 2010, I was sitting in the back of a crammed pickup truck from Kentucky en route to my home state of Maryland. A group of us decided to drive over nine hours to spend our entire college spring break campaigning for a long-shot senate candidate by the name of Rand Paul. During our days of walking door to door in Louisville, we met many people who expressed outrage over the proposed government takeover of our health care system.

As we sat in the back of a pickup truck listening to the final hours of the House ObamaCare debate on C-SPAN radio, it was clear that Washington didn’t get it. They were ramming through an unpopular health care reform law without consulting the American people. I thought of the elderly Kentucky man I met who shook my hand after telling me that ObamaCare made him fear for the future of his grandkids and his beloved country. It was a somber long drive home as we felt helpless to big government. When Nancy Pelosi successfully passed the 2,801 page ObamaCare bill around midnight, I was reminded of the Star Wars quote “so this is how liberty dies with thunderous applause.”

Two days later, ObamaCare was signed into law against the will of the majority of Americans. At the FreedomWorks office, my phone rang off the hook with people asking what they could do to get involved. Some of them told me that they had never been involved in politics before but they wanted to let their voices be heard. They gave me immense hope that the fight still wasn’t over. A Rasmussen poll released that week showed that 55 percent of Americans favored repeal of ObamaCare.

It’s been a grueling battle. Government health care officials told us that we would soon embrace the new health care law. A year later, support for ObamaCare repeal hasn’t died down. The newest Rasmussen poll shows that 53 percent of likely voters still support ObamaCare repeal with 43 percent strongly favoring it. One of the continuous messages at Tea Party rallies across the nation is to stop the government takeover of health care.

Even in its early stages of implementation, ObamaCare has already done damage to our economy and way of life. Due to a provision that insurance companies must charge the same rates for healthy and costly sick children, nearly every major insurance company has ceased offering child-only policies. Employer penalties in the law have led some major companies such as 3M to stop offering health benefits to retirees and low-income workers unless they are granted an exemption by HHS. Since December, two federal district judges, in Virginia and Florida, have declared Obamacare’s individual mandate requiring all U.S. residents to purchase health insurance to be unconstitutional.

We cannot afford this unconstitutional power grab. The health care law will cost $2.6 trillion during its first 10 years of full implementation. Ultimately, it will create 159 new bureaucracies to control our health care.  By 2016, CBO predicts the average price of privately purchased insurance will be 27 to 30 percent higher for all Americans. Struggling American families will have to pay an average of $2,100 more for coverage. Even Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz who was originally a huge supporter of ObamaCare recently stated that “I think as the bill is currently written and if it was going to land in 2014 under the current guidelines, the pressure on small businesses, because of the mandate, is too great.”

On November 2nd, the American people’s voice was heard at the ballot box. A total of 35 Democrats who supported ObamaCare were defeated. This has increased the opposition to ObamaCare in the House by nearly 16 percent. While the fight may be far from over, we can get this unconstitutional government takeover repealed through hard work and determination. We won’t stop until the repeal bill lands on President Obama’s desk. It may be a year later but our voices are louder than ever. Let’s make sure that ObamaCare doesn’t get a second anniversary.

ObamaCare Predicted to Increase Health Care Spending By 39 Percent in 2014

Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.

Over a month ago, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) claimed that the American people’s unfavorable opinion of ObamaCare would likely change over time:

Mark my words, several years from now, you’re going to look back and say, ‘Well, that wasn’t so bad after all.

Wasn’t so bad after all? In the next several years, studies have confirmed that Americans will face far higher insurance premium costs. By the year 2019, it is estimated that U.S health spending will rise from about $2.5 trillion to $4.6 trillion. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services project that overall national health spending will increase by 6.3 percent each year over the next decade. In other words, health care costs will consume one out of every five dollars spent in the United States. According to the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. health spending is projected to rise 9.2% in 2014, up from the 6.6% projected before the law took effect…The creation of new high-risk insurance pools, a requirement that children can stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26 and other early provisions will increase U.S. health expenditures by $10.2 billion through 2013, the report says.

This year, the number of uninsured Americans rose at a record rate to 50.7 million. The USA Today reports that:

Driving much of the increase, however, was the rising cost of medical care; a Kaiser Family Foundation report shows workers now pay 47% more than they did in 2005 for family health coverage, while employers pay 20% more.

In the next few weeks, health insurance premiums are expected to rise by 1 to 9 percent due to the costly provisions in ObamaCare. Last week, President Obama stated that:

As a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that’s going to increase our costs — we knew that.

Of course, these costly consequences were not exactly included in his rallying speeches prior to the passage of ObamaCare. Instead, the American people were told that “health care reform” needed to be passed immediately to “tackle needless waste and spiraling costs.”

The Obama administration is trying to change public opinion on the rising health care costs. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote a threatening letter to insurance companies stating that they were not allowed to blame premium hikes on ObamaCare. She claims that “there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.” It seems that Insurance companies only option is to keep silence about the reason for their rate hikes or be cut off entirely from government payments.

Polls show that the majority of Americans want ObamaCare to be repealed as soon as possible. Kathleen Sebelius claims that she has “a lot of reeducation to do” in order to change that fact. However, perhaps Sebelius herself needs to be educated on why informed Americans oppose this counterproductive law. Sebelius should listen to her Health and Human Services predecessor Michael Leavitt who states:

What Congress passed this spring is the illusion of Medicare reform. It does not ease cost pressures but papers over them with unsustainable price controls. It will end in disappointment.

So far, all of President Obama’s health care promises are unraveling. In 2009, FreedomWorks predicted that “your insurance premiums will go up” if the ObamaCare law is passed. Unfortunately, we have begun to see the unintended consequences of a bill that many lawmakers probably did not bother to read.  As ObamaCare supporter Senator Baucus (D-MT) said “I don’t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill.” In order to rein in spiraling health care costs, we must work towards repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with patient centered free markets solutions that will lower insurance premiums for all Americans.