Thoughts on Obamacare

From Charles R. Kesler (Author of I Am The Change:  Barack Obama and the Future of Liberalism)… 

“The problem with Obamacare is not merely that it will ruin health care, but that it undermines the whole notion of rights – natural rights – that come not from government but from our own nature and from God. Yes, it is unfair, unworkable, and unaffordable. But to leave the argument at that leaves the Constitution out of the picture. So when denouncing Obamacare, let’s hear more about its unconstitutional aspects. 

The fattest target is the Independent Payments Advisory Board (IPAB), which is unconstitutional on its face. IPAB consists of 15 members who are not elected by the people but appointed by the president. Their job is to make recommendations to limit Medicare’s budget by reducing reimbursements to doctors. Unless both houses of Congress overrule IPAB by passing their own equal or greater cuts to Medicare, IPAB’s proposals automatically become law. What’s worse,  Obamacare conspires to make IPAB permanent by mandating that no resolution to repeal it can be introduced before January 1, 2017. In other words, the Constitution would be operational for one month only – and even then the repeal must pass by August 15, 2017, in order to be valid, and it could not take effect until 2020! 

Congress could presumably unravel these restrictions and undo IPAB anytime it wanted. Nonetheless, the spirit and the letter of this kind of regulation suggest just how averse (and adverse) to the Constitution Obamacare really is. To think that Congress couldn’t repeal it, except for one month, and that even then repeal wouldn’t take effect for three years afterwards, is astounding.”