By Jane Orient View all 5 articles by Jane Orient Published 09/22/09  
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After the town halls are over, and congressmen head back to Washington, possibly to do whatever they had already decided based on high-level threats or promises, many citizens are asking, exactly what was the point? Our Blue Dog Democrat congresswoman, for example, billed her town hall as a "listening session"—but for whom? People jamming the auditorium and the more than 1,000 seated outside listened for half an hour to introductory remarks by Persons of Importance. During the remaining one-and-a-half hours, she took about 15 questions. In her answers, she "recited parts of her stump speeches, extolling the virtues of Cash for Clunkers, the Stimulus, Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare," according to a physician attendee. The audience learned a few things about her positions, in the most general terms. She said she’s opposed to single payer, for tort reform, strongly supportive of a public option, and opposed to anything "that is not actually paid for." She and the press complained about a "boisterous," "rude" crowd, whose boos and cheers sometimes drowned out the speaker. Especially the cheers in response to the suggestion to vote the entire Congress out in 2010. Of course, the "applause meter" was the only method available for most members of the audience to express themselves. The fact that the attendees were evidently opposed to "reform" by a margin of 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 apparently did not register with the press—which didn’t mention it. Or with the congresswoman, who thought people were mainly "frustrated with a broken system." If Congress really wants to learn from constituents, isn’t the process backwards? Why doesn’t the representative, at some point, ask the audience for a show of hands on some basic questions? For example: Do you favor or oppose rushing reform through without hearings or adequate time to read and debate the proposal? Do you trust the government to run a health insurance company? Do you think Americans should be forced to buy health insurance, and the kind of health insurance the government dictates? Do you favor or oppose a federal health board, modeled on the Federal Reserve, to make decisions affecting the availability of medical services? Do you favor or oppose a health plan that will increase the federal debt? Do you favor or oppose giving the Internal Revenue Service access to your financial records to be sure you are paying the required health insurance premiums? Of course, these are not the questions most Congressmen are likely to think of. Maybe the audience has to suggest the questions as well as ask for a poll on the answers. The biggest question of all is why are we even discussing the details, while begging the biggest question of all: Does Congress have the Constitutional authority to do any of the things that are proposed as "health care reform"? Where does it get the right to outlaw existing private arrangements and contracts? To force Americans into government dependency for paying for their medical care? To set medical standards and prices for medical services? To manage one-sixth of the economy? To decide for individuals what they can afford? To delegate enormous authority over people’s lives to an executive agency to avoid political accountability? Well, of course there’s Medicare, the big, popular precedent. As Jonathan Swift pointed out in Gulliver’s Travels, if a wrong can legally be done once, precedent assures that it can be done again. If a one-vote, one-time democracy has the right to turn American medicine over to czars like Zeke Emanuel, then town halls might as well be an orchestrated circus to give homage to our elected nonrepresentatives. But Congress apparently did not foresee the response this August. Change is in the air. Long-held assumptions are being challenged. America might yet turn back from the road to tyranny, and find the way back to freedom and limited, Constitutional government. Copyright © 2009 Campaign for Liberty |
Also by Jane Orient:
Abortion and the Health Care Bill 01/05/10
Health Care: Missing the Forest for the Trees 11/21/09
What's the Real Emergency in Health Care Reform? 09/28/09
Why Not a Public Option for Automobile Insurance? 07/30/09
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