A retired Constitutional lawyer has read the entire proposed healthcare bill
On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Norman Kurland <thirdway@cesj.org> wrote:
Sam,
Thanks for sending me the paper on the new health care law by Michael Connelly.
As a lawyer who studied constitutional law in the late 1950s under two great professors on the subject, each with a different approach to interpretation of the Constitution who taught at the same law school long before Barack Obams taught there as an associate professor, I think Michael Connelly is right in questioning the constitutionality of the Health Care Bills that recently was signed by President Obama. Whether the present members of the Supreme Court or their replacements will agree, as I do, that the mandates are inconsistent with the long-ignored Ninth and Tenth Amendments is another matter.
Keep in mind that at Harvard Law School (where are president headed the prestigious Harvard Law Review) and in other top law schools, professors don't teach fundamental and universal principles of economic justice and social justice as defined in our Glossary at http://www.cesj.org/definitions/glossary.html, and consistent with the Catholic Social Encyclicals and the Preface and chapter 5 of the first book by Louis Kelso and the Great Books philosopher Mortimer J. Adler that can be downloaded free from our homepage or from http://www.kelsoinstitute.org/pdf/cm-entire.pdf. Nor do the most influential law schools teach and define the terms in our Constitution as those terms were understood by those who wrote those words and clauses, known as the "original intent" school of constitutional interpretation. (See William Winslow Crosskey, Politics and the Constitution, University of Chicago Press, 1953, 2 volumes and William Winslow Crosskey and William Jeffrey, Jr., Politics and the Constitution in the History of the United States, University of Chicago Press, 1980.)
What Obama was taught at Harvard Law School was the "living constitution" school of constitutional interpretation. That school of thought teaches that the law or the constitution is "what the judges say it is." In my opinion, this school of constitutional interpretation eliminates one of the main checks on the potential abuses of centralized government powers, where all branches of government are supposed to conform to the first clause of the Preamble of Constitution -- "to establish Justice," each branch has its own function, and the judiciary is supposed to interpret the law, not make law.
Personally, I not only oppose the new health care law on constitutional grounds. I also oppose it because there is a better private sector approach to universal access to quality, affordable and comprehensive health care that would preserve freeom of choice and the sacred personal relationship between citizens and their doctors and other health care providers. But America desperately needs more independent thinkers and new leaders who are open to an "outside-the-box" strategy for growing the economy so that every citizen would be able to pay for his or her health care, with extremely limited involvement of government. (See what we now call "The Citizens Plan for Universal Health Care" at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/national/healthcare-exsummary.pdf. If we want to unite Americans from clear across the political spectrum, we need new, more bold and more synergistic solutions that neither the Democrats or the Republicans are providing. Both parties are blind to artificial barriers in our financial and tax systems to truly equal opportunity to earn a living.
Yes, I agree that the new health care bill is poorly conceived and will inevitably (1) worsen our Federal deficits and already unsustainable "hiden debt" of around $500,000 per American household, (2) radically increase the already functionally overloaded Federal Government, and (3) and lead toward what a growing number of citizens consider to be "fascism." This bill will turn more workers into government-financed wage slaves, welfare slaves, debt slaves and tax slaves, will open the door to adoption of a European-style Value Added Tax (VAT) (adding to state and local sales taxes an additional 20% VAT of around 20%) to try to deal with deficits, increase the leverage of countries like China over our debt, and do nothing to make our private sector more productive and competitive in global markets.
Rather than focusing on the negatives, I like to win. We need to unite behind and demand new solutions based on the original ideals and goals of America's founders: to establish a republic that guarantees freedom and justice for all. For those interested in how to reverse current trends toward a dangerously-increasing monopoly over money power on Wall Street combining with the growing coercive power of the Federal Government power, please check out the links at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37RhdFGVsM
http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htmand
Sam Nigro wrote:
http://www.cesj.org/fedrally/index.html
before America goes over the cliff. Citizens are not helpless.
If anyone reading this response can spot flaws in the logic or justice of any of the solutions we propose or can offer a better solution, please let me know. We're open to better solutions for improving the American health care system for every citizen, if any of you can bring them to our attention.
Own or Be Owned,
Norm Kurland
Center for Economic and Social Justice
http://www.cesj.org
All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.
A retired Constitutional lawyer has read the entire proposed healthcare bill. Read his conclusions. This is stunning!
The Truth About the Health Care Bills – Michael Connelly,
Ret. Constitutional Attorney
Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House
Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it
with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its
implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying.
The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens
and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for
illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced
participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of
business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions
about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal
bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals.
Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of
necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government.
However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact,
I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of
providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient
cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of
government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated If this law
or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United
States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power
between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government..
The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of
different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own.
The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate
in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of
the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members
of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama
administration, of all of your personal healthcare direct violation of
the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution
information, your personal financial information, and the information
of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a protecting
against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about
the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless
of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide...
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance, or if you have private
insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator
appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a
tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process
clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because
since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal
the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property
without the due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much,
out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified
by this law It doesn't stop there though.
The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of
certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained
by the people; The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions
of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are
going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were
theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get
the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and
limiting rights... Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both
houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution."
If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation
or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or
affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people
would hold me accountable.
For those who might doubt the nature of this threat, I suggest they consult
the source, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There you can see
exactly what we are about to have taken from us.
Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton , Texas