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To: wideawake
Not only are you clearly wrong, your attitude is part of the reason why Constitutional issues are rarely given the serious discussion they deserve.

Gosh, maybe I have an out of date constitution which is missing the magic 'mental health care' power, or 'limitation upon patient confidentiality' power. There is every valid reason to restrict the federal government from having access to medical records, but not one in restricting a doctor from telling a patient's mother about medical issues. Privacy restrictions are upon the government, not on other parties. I can not scream that you're infringing on my first amendment right to free speech, as that contract is upon the government, not you.

But that's ok, let's continue the fiction that some vast intelligence is invested in Washington DC and that they'll come up with some solution... Oh, right, yet again, they are the problem here.

17 posted on 12/17/2012 12:52:05 PM PST by kingu (Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)
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To: kingu
Gosh, maybe I have an out of date constitution which is missing the magic 'mental health care' power, or 'limitation upon patient confidentiality' power.

When someone starts by using condescending sarcasm, you can tell that the quality of the reasoning is going to be unimpressive.

I would point out that the fifth item on the list involves the abolition of SAMHSA, which is something that even a faux Constitutionalist like Ron Paul would endorse.

Issues relating to confidentiality, as represented in item 2, speak to an issue that is of very recent "Constitutional" vintage. You wrote:

Privacy restrictions are upon the government, not on other parties.

While that's not coherent English, I take it that you are arguing that there is some kind of absolute Constitutional "right to privacy." If there is, that "right" was unknown until it emanated from the penumbras of the Warren Court in the 1970s.

The second item quite reasonably argues that if someone is going to be legally liable for the health of their dependent child, they should be allowed to know what the health status of their child actually is.

The third item discusses reducing the ability of Medicaid to provide cash incentives for "treating and streeting" mental patients. If one wants to argue that Medicaid is unconstitutional, I'm not sure why reducing Medicaid's power and scope, is somehow even more unconstitutional than Medicaid itself.

The fourth item calls for the tightening up of the definition of mental illness to focus on those who are truly mentally compromised, instead of the very broad and open-ended federal standards we have now. This again calls for a narrowing of federal power and arbitrariness and a reining in of federal overreach. I'm not sure how this is unconstitutional but the existing very broad and formless federal mandate is somehow constitutional.

And the first item, calling for a federal law to ensure public safety is kind of the point of federal legislation in the first place.

let's continue the fiction that some vast intelligence is invested in Washington DC and that they'll come up with some solution

These 5 points are not calling for intellectual gymnastics, but common sense and the reduction of the power and discretion of federal entities.

22 posted on 12/17/2012 1:18:29 PM PST by wideawake
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