http://www.businessinsider.com/the-problem-with-the-healthcare-bill...

Ron Paul
Following months of heated public debate and aggressive closed-door negotiations, Congress finally cast a historic vote on healthcare late
Sunday evening.  It was truly a sad weekend on the House floor as we
witnessed further dismantling of the Constitution, disregard of the
will of the people, explosive expansion of the reach of government,
unprecedented corporate favoritism, and the impending end of quality
healthcare as we know it.

Those in favor of this bill touted their good intentions of ensuring quality healthcare for all Americans,
as if those of us against the bill are against good medical care.  They
cite fanciful statistics of deficit reduction, while simultaneously
planning to expand the already struggling medical welfare programs we
currently have.  They somehow think that healthcare in this country
will be improved by swelling our welfare rolls and cutting
reimbursement payments
to doctors who are already losing money.  It is estimated that
thousands of doctors will be economically forced out of the profession
should this government fuzzy math actually try to become healthcare
reality.  No one has thought to ask what good mandatory health
insurance will be if people can’t find a doctor.

Legislative hopes and dreams don’t always stand up well against economic realities.

Frustratingly, this legislation does not deal at all with the real reasons access to
healthcare is a struggle for so many – the astronomical costs.  If tort
reform was seriously discussed, if the massive regulatory burden on
healthcare was reduced and reformed, if the free market was allowed to
function and apply downward pressure on healthcare costs as it does
with everything else, perhaps people wouldn’t be so beholden to
insurance companies in the first place.  If costs were lowered, more
people could simply pay for what they need out of pocket, as they were
able to do before government got so involved.  Instead, in the name of
going after greedy insurance companies,
the federal government is going to make people even more beholden to
them by mandating that everyone buy their product!  Hefty fines are due
from anyone found to have committed the heinous crime of not being a
customer of a health insurance company.  We will need to hire some
16,500 new IRS agents to police compliance with all these new mandates
and administer various fines.  So in government terms, this is also a
jobs bill.  Never mind that this program is also likely to cost the
private sector some 5 million jobs.

Of course, the most troubling aspect of this bill is that it is so blatantly
unconstitutional and contrary to the ideals of liberty.  Nowhere in the
constitution is there anything approaching authority for the Federal
government to do any of this.  The founders would have been horrified
at the idea of government forcing citizens to become consumers of a
particular product from certain government approved companies.  38
states are said to already be preparing legal and constitutional
challenges to this legislation, and if the courts stand by their oaths,
they will win.  Protecting the right to life, liberty and pursuit of
happiness, should be the court’s responsibility.  Citizens have a
responsibility over their own life, but they also have the liberty to
choose how they will live and protect their lives.  Healthcare choices
are a part of liberty, another part that is being stripped away. 
Government interference in healthcare has already infringed on choices
available to people, but rather than getting out of the way, it is
entrenching itself, and its corporatist cronies, even more deeply.