Saturday, June 05, 2010

Local Control v. State's Rights

Oops, a few weeks ago, I made a serious blunder.

The primary accomplishment of the Obama administration's health care bill was that the bill wrested the regulation from the states to the federal government.

The media seemed to gloss over the fact that health care was currently regulated by the states.

Free marketeers, such as myself, tended to frame the bill as a case of a free market v. government control. The progressive media was happy to gloss over the fact that most of our discontentment with health care stems directly from the burdens of state regulation. It appears that progressives have many duped into thinking that state regulated health care was in fact a free market.

Anyway, I was so frustrated with the lack of discussion of state regulations that my withering old brain latched to the first term that came to mind in discussion state control v. federal control. I very stupidly used the term "State's Rights"

The term is stupid as states do not have rights. Only people have rights.

The tenth amendment used the term "power."

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Neither the Federal Government nor the State Government has rights over the health care or property of the people. They simply have limited powers in these areas.

The issue I wished to bring up was local control v. Federal control. Health is an attribute of an individual. For the good of the people, the control of health care should be as close to the individual as possible.

The health care bill does mischief by yanking the control of our health care resources from local control to an increasingly corrupt Federal authority.

I blundered badly when I used the term "State's Rights." Anyone who is campaigning for the repeal of Obamacare is wise to strike that term from their vocabulary and to speak of local control v. federal control.

The 2010 Health Care bill wrested control of health care from local authorities (state, county and town) and placed it in the hands of the Federal Government. This was a negative turn of events.

I sincerely apologize for using an idiotic term in describing this aspect of the health care bill.

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