Questionable methods for health care bill: Lawsuit against government reform deserves attention

Health care coverage in America is expensive. Insurance companies operate unregulated, and coverage is often inaccessible to the people who really need it, according to Nancy Pelosi. With this fuzzy belief to guide them, the federal government is debating what the changes should be.

Just before Christmas, the Senate passed an admittedly imperfect health care reform bill that President Barack Obama hailed as historic, even though much of the financial burden will be dumped onto the states. Ardent listeners of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are calling the $871 billion Democratic health care bill catastrophic for Americans, as the high costs will compromise future generations.

Beyond the cost and the uncertainty of actual health care reform, the bill is particularly distasteful because of the way it was passed in Congress. In fact, Utah is prepared to join 10 other states in a lawsuit against the federal government. The attorneys general said there are constitutional questions and parts of the bill that smell of corruption.

According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, the health care reform bill is viewed unfavorably by 56 percent of Americans. House and Senate Democrats didn’t let that get in the way of their determination to ignore the voice of the people and force the bill through with majority votes.

Liberals had to abandon a government-run public option. Deals were made with moderates such as the “Nebraska Compromise” in which Nebraska was exempt from paying anywhere from $45 to $100 million in Medicaid bills in exchange for Sen. Ben Nelson’s vote. Louisiana got a similar deal in additional federal funding. It makes you question the integrity of our leaders when these kinds of deals are made.

The constitutional questions surrounding the bill revolve around the mandate for states to enforce the laws and the requirement that every American has to buy health insurance. This line of thinking follows the law that every driver must have auto insurance, though there seems to be missing qualifiers for the health debate, not to mention thousands of uninsured drivers.

Although many Americans believe the bill will effect immediate change—such as insurers bewginning to accept customers with pre-existing conditions—the reality is, most of the benefits won’t come for another several years. This covers hidden costs and erroneously shows a balanced budget. In our great democracy, ideas and proposals should be scrutinized by the public and voted on in the open. Transparency was a campaign promise by the Obama administration, but recent actions show that day-to-day dealings have been anything but open.

Utah and the 10 other conservative states should be commended for challenging the bill’s threat to constitutional freedoms and the corrupt way it was forced to a vote.