Posted on 06/10/2011 7:30:04 PM PDT by inkling
"The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands... The power of the legislative, being derived from the people... [is] only to make laws, and not to make legislators." — John Locke, “Second Treatise of Government”
Here, however, is a paradox of sovereignty: The sovereign people, possessing the right to be governed as they choose, might find the exercise of that right tiresome and so might choose to be governed in perpetuity by a despot they cannot subsequently remove. Congress did something like that in passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.
The point of PPACA is cost containment. This supposedly depends on the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, which is a perfect expression of the progressive mind, is to be composed of 15 presidential appointees empowered to reduce Medicare spending — which is 13 percent of federal spending — to certain stipulated targets. IPAB is to do this by making “proposals” or “recommendations” to limit costs by limiting reimbursements to doctors. This, inevitably, will limit available treatments — and access to care when physicians leave the Medicare system.
The PPACA repeatedly refers to any IPAB proposal as a “legislative proposal” and speaks of “the legislation introduced” by the IPAB. Each proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes — with a three-fifths supermajority required in the Senate — a measure cutting medical spending as much as the IPAB proposal would.
This is a travesty of constitutional lawmaking: An executive branch agency makes laws unless Congress enacts legislation to achieve the executive agency’s aim.
And it gets worse...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
George Will gave his elitist official inside the beltway FDA seal of approval for Obama and his policies back in 2008. When Sarah Palin long ago pointed out everything George does now, (can we say plagiarism) he dismissed her as stupid and a fool of no substance.
So who was stupid then and is now the fool George?
“The PPACA repeatedly refers to any IPAB proposal as a “legislative proposal” and speaks of “the legislation introduced” by the IPAB. Each proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes — with a three-fifths supermajority required in the Senate — a measure cutting medical spending as much as the IPAB proposal would.”
I’m not a fan of George Will and enjoy skipping his articles. However this I did not know and it is a very interesting fact.
I don’t call him a RINO. He was my intellectual hero growing up. I had Newsweek, USNWP, the WP and Readers Digest to read growing up. I fell out of love with him in the 90’s partially due to his divorce but for other reasons too. I started to first read his stuff with a grain of salt then critically then with contempt.
“I’m sure there’s nothing in this article that we don’t already know and that Rush Limbaugh hasn’t already covered in detail.”
I think you’re wrong about that. If you can find a quote by Rush about the language calling IPAB’s work “legislation” and the super majority required in the Senate I will stand corrected.
You would be wrong.
I'm no longer a George will fan, either. But he found something -- well, actually, the Goldwater Institute found it -- that nobody else has yet revealed.
bttt and forward later
As Mark Levin said today when Will is good, he is very good (when bad, he is very bad), this is good article. With the exception of possibility that IPAB may be constitutional (Levin, a constitutional expert disagrees with Will), it is a good article according to Levin.
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