Health Care Reform: The Constitution, the Bible, and Economics

My prepared remarks to the “Million Med March” in Harrisburg

Thank you. Good afternoon. Thanks for everyone here for coming out – I know none of us really want to spend our Saturday at the state capitol. Normally, I’d be watching the Michigan-Ohio State football game. But that is what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi want us to do – they schedule votes on a Saturday, in the hopes that no one will notice.

If you don’t have time this weekend to read the latest 2,000 plus page health care bill, I suggest reading something a bit shorter- the Constitution. I also recommend reading another shorter book-the Bible (and yes, the Bible is shorter than the health care bill).

Of course, neither mentions anything about government-run health care.

Yet folks in DC don’t seem to notice or care. Nancy Pelosi laughed when asked if an individual mandate is Constitutional. Others – like our own Gov. Rendell – says Jesus – as well as Moses and Muhammad – want us to support government health care.

But their plan is not charitable; it does not help the poor.

If insurance companies are greedy and evil, why should government force people to buy their product? If health care costs too much now, what sense is billions in new taxes, and more mandates that drive up the cost of coverage?

We have tried individual mandates in Mass. – health insurance premiums skyrocketed, and wait times increased. We tried rationing panels in Oregon – where life-prolonging cancer drugs are not covered, but medically-assisted suicide is. We tried the public option in Maine – few people enrolled, the quality is poor, and they need more taxes to pay for it. Almost every failed idea for health care has been rolled into one package.

Yes, we need to reform health care. But Obama, Pelosi, and Reid want to move us the wrong direction – putting the federal government in control instead of patients and doctors.

Politicians may not care what the Constitution, Bible, or economics have to say on health care – but the remaining question is will they care about we the people have to say.