The official positions of the Constitution Party are stated in its platform. Articles and transcripts in this newsroom contain the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily to be construed as representing the official positions of the Constitution Party.

by Darrell L. Castle
Constitution Party National Committee Vice-Chairman

An oft repeated declaration is that the United States is the richest country in the world, so don’t tell me we can’t afford healthcare for our people; but, is that statement really true? In fiscal year 2009, the U.S. Government spent over a trillion dollars more than it took in through tax revenue, and it plans to continue such trillion dollar deficits for at least 10 years. Well before those ten years of deficit spending end, interest on the accumulated debt will exceed revenue. The national debt is now about 12 trillion dollars with 55 to 100 trillion dollars in off budget obligations such as Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drugs, Social Security, and the like. The defense budget must allow for trillion dollar wars to be fought and for American troops to garrison some 144 countries. Deficit spending requires the U.S. to be dependent on the savings and goodwill of strangers in order to continue operations. China and other solvent countries have hard working people who make valuable products which they then ship to a counterfeiter. Before the counterfeiter can buy the products the strangers must first buy the counterfeiters debt so he will have money to buy the products as well as fund his wars, and his welfare state. Is this the way the richest nation in the world behaves or is it the way a bankrupt nation both economically and morally behaves?

A second oft repeated declaration is that America has the greatest system of healthcare in the world so why would anyone want to reform it? Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama recently stated “President Barack Obama’s plans amount to the first step in destroying the best healthcare system the world has ever known.” Shouldn’t we take time to analyze whether or not those statements are true because according to a health report from The World Health Organization (WHO) they are not true. The greatness of the American system of healthcare is called into question when the system is compared and contrasted with the systems of other countries. For example, the U.S. ranks 31^st in life expectancy (tied with Kuwait and Chile), 37^th in overall healthcare rank by country, 37^th in infant mortality, and 34^th in maternal mortality. However, in total health expenditures as a percent of GDP the U.S. ranks number two behind only the Marshall Islands, a country that has almost no GDP.

www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html. and www.photius.com/rankings/healthy_life_tables2.html.

I would argue then that rather than opposing healthcare reform of any kind, our approach should be to offer a different healthcare solution. In any event our priorities as a nation must be re-examined and our healthcare system evaluated without screaming at each other.

When the government controls some vital facet of American life and that facet is failing we are usually told that failure is because government has underfunded the project and taxes must go up and then proper funding will quickly turn abject failure into spectacular success. A good example is our system of public education. Test scores and student performance have been declining since the government’s intervention in the 1960’s when government decided that it should control curriculum, ban discipline, and ban religious activities such as prayer. In laymen’s terms, the more children attend school, the dumber they get. Many of us can remember getting a very fine education from the public schools in the era before government intervention. Every year the problem gets worse and the only answer is always more money. Perhaps underfunding and too little government control are not the problem with our education or with our healthcare system.

The conclusion then is that our healthcare system really does need reform. President Obama has made healthcare reform his signature issue which might lead one to conclude that he has some kind of burning desire to provide every American with high quality, affordable healthcare. However, if we listen carefully to what he and those who surround him say, we will learn what his true signature issue is. His real purpose is redistribution of the wealth of the American people from those he does not want to have it to those he does want to have it. In a 2001 interview he lamented the fact that the Constitution “says what the federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the federal government must do on your behalf.” He went on to say that he believes redistribution could best be achieved through legislation rather than through the courts. He has certainly been true to his philosophy of redistribution of wealth in his first ten months in office having redistributed, to Wall Street and the central bankers, trillions of dollars representing the fruits of the labor of the American people.

The purpose of this article is not to evaluate and criticize the 1990 page monstrosity the House of Representatives recently passed except to say that affordable, high quality healthcare is not what it will provide but it will add trillions to our already unpayable debt and hasten national bankruptcy. What then should a wise and prudent people do to reform a healthcare system in great need of reform?

The decline of American healthcare can be traced to the beginning of government control. The healthcare industry fell into government hands piecemeal but government really took control in the 1960’s with Medicare and in 1974 with ERISA and the other bills tying healthcare to employment. ERISA gave tax deductions to employers for healthcare expenses but not to employees and this inequality should be reversed immediately. The joining of healthcare to employment is illogical and tends to drive up costs and to restrict quality care to those employed. In a time of rising unemployment such as we have today, that is a real problem. Many people think that healthcare is now private and Obama wants the government to control it but only the second half of that statement is true. Rising costs, denial of care, and bureaucratic red tape are not the result of free market failure. Instead, they are the result of government policies which have destroyed the free market healthcare system. It’s time to rethink and reform our entire healthcare system and free it from corporate/government control. The more healthcare is funded by corporate/government interests, the more costs escalate out of control and out of the budget of many people. A good example would be the cost of prescription drugs after the Bush drug bill was passed.

Reform to a completely free market system is not possible at this time without reform of our monetary and tax system. We must end the reign of plunder of the Federal Reserve and take control of our money. We must end the income tax and fund the government with a very small revenue only tariff which would return the American peoples’ labor to them and free a tremendous amount of money for the productive economy. We must stop killing foreigners and end our wars. We must secure our borders and get our immigration, education, health and other social systems stabilized. The only thing that will bring costs down permanently is a system of true free market competition. Free competition would end the stranglehold the government now has on the hospital industry. Technology and innovation would put downward pressure on prices much as it did in the early days of the computer industry. New methods of prevention of disease and new treatments of disease would flourish. The earlier statement about the American healthcare system being the best in the world would be true again, and we would enter a golden age of health, peace, and liberty.

Darrell L. Castle

Constitution Party National Vice Chairman