Republicans have a replacement for Obamacare. It’s unconstitutional, too.

By: |Published on: Jul 11, 2013|Categories: Health Care, Issues, Politicians, Republocrats|

Former Republican Presidential Candidate and promoter of the “9-9-9” economic plan Herman Cain recently wrote an article to rebut the claim that Republicans don’t have an answer to our nation’s health care “crisis”.  The article champions HR 2300 – Empowering Patients First – as “vastly superior to the train wreck we’re facing right now” with Obamacare.

Mr. Cain ends his article with an interesting combination of irony and hypocrisy by quoting James Madison, commonly referred to as the Father of the Constitution, and labeling Obamacare – but not HR2300 – as “government malfeasance”.

Now I’ll agree with Mr. Cain that Obamacare is terrible legislation as well as government malfeasance.  The assumption of power that the federal government has made by enacting the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” interferes with the right of the People of the States to regulate health care as they see fit, and makes a mockery of James Madison’s assurance in Federalist #45 that the “powers delegated” to the Federal Government are “few and defined”, while those of the States are “numerous and indefinite.”

I’ll also even entertain the unlikely possibility that HR 2300, introduced by Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Price, may be less terrible than Obamacare.  Rep. Price is a doctor, after all.

However I have a few questions for Mr. Cain:

  • Is HR 2300 less unconstitutional than Obamacare?
  • Is, to quote another former Republican Presidential Candidate, right-wing social engineering more desirable than left-wing social engineering?
  • Is violating the Constitution acceptable as long as the Republicans are getting their way?

Those of us who advocate for decentralization and constitutional fidelity regardless of which political party is in charge know the answers to these questions.

In plain and simple English:  No.  No.  No.

Or perhaps Mr. Cain would prefer the answers in German:  Nein.  Nein.  Nein.

Scott Landreth
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