Payne: Illiberal Obamacare

Why are liberals in favor of a federal mandate that forces people to hand over their money to private insurance corporations to buy their products?

Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules (on Thursday, we’re told), liberal support for the individual mandate is a telling commentary on where the Democratic Party is today.

The party of civil rights and the little guy? Think again. The party of Barack Obama – who once opposed the mandate – and Nancy Pelosi is about power and nothing more.

“If things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t,” Candidate Obama told Ellen Degeneres in 2008. But it does solve the problem of giving more power to the state – and, by extension, the Party of Government.

Today’s Democrats – like health care socialist John Dingell long before them – have figured out the way to the permanent majority is through health care. The ends justify the means.

Forcing an individual mandate? No civil libertarians here. Force publicly-funded abortions? Bart Stupak looks the other way. Trample the First Amendment to force Catholic institutions to provide contraceptives? No problem. More power for Washington justifies all – even throwing “the little guy” under the bus.

“In Massachusetts, the only state with a so-called individual mandate, the threat of a tax penalty has sparked little public outcry since the state’s landmark health care law was signed in 2006,” writes AP, the Obama News Service.

Not true.

Out-of-work accountant George Fountas from Lynn, Massachusetts – can you say “little guy?” - brought suit against Romneycare in 2007 complaining that it trampled his civil rights (and that it was unfair to fine a guy when he was out of work). By liberal journalism’s self-professed motto, the case should have been a cause célèbre.

It was ignored (and ultimately dismissed).

“This is not real reform,” said Howard Dean – one of the few consistent Democrats on the subject – of Obamacare’s mandate in December 2009. “You’re going to be forced to buy health insurance from a company that’s going to take on average 27 percent of your money so they can pay CEOs 20 million dollars a year…and there’s no choice about that. If you don’t buy that insurance, you’re going to get a fine. This is a bill that was fundamentally written by staffers who are friendly to the insurance industry. I’d kill the bill entirely.”

Hopefully, the Supreme Court will follow civil libertarian Dean’s advice.

Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.com