When Is A Law Not A Law?

When is a law not a law? When it is not actually passed.

Have you heard about this abomination - the Slaughter Solution?

House Rules Chairman Representative Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) has created a privision that Nancy Pelosi loves. It says that they don't actually have to pass HR 3590. They only have to say that they passed it, and then they can send it to the President to become law.

Let me try that again. The can "deem" (Pelosi's term) that the bill is passed without ever holding a formal vote.

What an appropriate name "Slaughter." We will just slaughter the Constitutional provisions of how a bill becomes law.

This way, none of the Dems who are supporting the bill - in direct opposition to the will of their constituents and the rest of the country - would ever be tagged with voting for its passage.

If this is allowed to happen, we will have lost our ability to be represented. Congress will no longer be accountable to anyone. The Speaker of the House will be giving the President a run for his money on who weilds the most power.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. You can also listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

30 comments • Steve Hoffacker - Real Estate Sales & Marketing Consulting and Strategies • March 16 2010 05:06PM

Try All You Want, Health Care Cannot Be A Right

We have been embroiled in this health care debate for months - years if you go back to Clinton, and decades if you go back to FDR. The progressives want to have health care to be a right. It isn't and never will be.

Health care is a product or a service. Health care insurance - often confused in this debate - is a service. Both are consumer choices. Buy them or don't buy them. Free choice.

Labeling them a right doesn't make them one. They are goods and services.

The entire debate belies the fact that they are not rights.

A right cannot be mandated. It cannot be regulated. It cannot be taxed or withdrawn. It cannot be priced - let alone having a tiered pricing structure. A right applies to everyone universally, regardless of age.

Hospital emergency rooms would need to increase the size of their staffs many times. Why should anyone have to wait to be treated if health care is a right? Why is anyone more important than anyone else?

In a disaster situation, a triage approach just wouldn't work because everyone would have the same right to health care - regardless of the severity of their injuries. Essentially, there would need to be a medical team for each injured person.

If it were a right, it would have to be constantly and continuously available. Rights don't just come and go. They don't maintain office hours. It a 24/7 thing.

In this argument about health care being a right, the main focus is just on the individual. If were really a right, what about the people who provide the health care services? What asures that they are available in sufficient quantity to attend to everyone's needs and how is this supply replenished and expanded? As a practical matter, this can't happen - another reason it is not a right.

Health care is not a right. Never has been. Never will be. If it can be legislated into existence, it is not a right. If it can be regulated or phased out of existence, it is not a right. If it has monetary value, it is not a right.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. You can also listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

28 comments • Steve Hoffacker - Real Estate Sales & Marketing Consulting and Strategies • March 12 2010 11:41AM

Reframing The Health Care Debate

The central issue in the health care debate has been lost.

The issue is not whether people should have access to insurance and at what cost. The issue is not whether people who choose not to have it should be compelled to do so - for the public good. The issue is not that we will have to subsidize those individuals without insurance coverage who go to emergency rooms - we do that now. The issue is not people being denied coverage. The issue is not the portability of policies. The issue is not that anyone wants to see people go without coverage or treatment.

The issue is this. The government should not be the one to provide it.

We live in a free market economy. If we don't like insureance companies, we are free (in a general sense) to form a new insurance company or shop for one with better terms. I would love to see the free market pull the rug out from under some of the high-priced carriers. Wake them up. Look what Walmarts's $4 and $10 drug prices did. Same idea.

The other part of this equation is that we have become spoiled. We expect no out-of-pocket expenses for anything medically related and even resent a $20-25 copay. If insurance paid for large or unexpected expenses such as hospitalization, extended care, diagnostic tests, and necessary prescriptions above a certain threshold, I could live with that. In fact I have and continue to do so.

Let's not forget the real issue. The Constitution does not allow Congress to get involved in health care (I know they already have, but we can stop it now before it gets any worse). That is the only issue in this debate, and hardly anyone is willing to look past all of the emotional ones to see what is really at the core.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. You can also listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

9 comments • Steve Hoffacker - Real Estate Sales & Marketing Consulting and Strategies • February 22 2010 04:08PM

Lemmings To Vote For Health Care

The 60 member Democratic caucus of the the US Senate should be relabled as lemmings. Earlier today, President Obama had all of them dutifully report to the White House for a closed-door meeting, and when it was over, the President gleefully reported that we were on the "precipice" of a deal to get health care passed.

All 60 members - even those who have expressed reservations or displeasure with the bill - are now on-board. One can only imagine the arm-twisting, bribery, deals, threats, and other actions to get everyone to acquiesce.

Dick Durbin said over the weekend that he has no idea what's in the bill but that he'll support it anyway. Well, how could he or anyone else know what's in the bill? Parts of it haven't even been written yet.

Remember being chastised by our parents not to jump off a cliff just because some other kid did it? That's what we have here - 60 people who didn't learn their childhood lessons.

Public support for this bill is now lower than it was for Hilliarycare, and it may pass anyway. How is this government of and for the people?

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. You can also listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2009. All Rights Reserved.

27 comments • Steve Hoffacker - Real Estate Sales & Marketing Consulting and Strategies • December 15 2009 11:35PM