The Right Repeal

Thirty three times House Republicans have voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, so far at a cost of $50 million to taxpayers and counting.  This is one hidden tax that is sure to go up every time the GOP stomps its feet and holds its breath over the original passage of health care reform.  May I suggest a new approach for the Republicans?  If you want real reform in the direction of conservative values, you need to attack the heart of socialized medicine.  You keep missing the target:

Repeal the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985

President Reagan provided the demon seed for Obamacare when he signed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) into law along with the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA).  EMTALA requires doctors in hospital emergency rooms to treat every person who comes through the door without requesting whether the patient is insured, how, or by whom until after the patient is either stabilized for transfer or stabilized for discharge.  That, my friends, is inhumane because it is bankrupting our children.  It is the mandate that gave birth to the mandate that killed liberty. 

We should not be surprised that Reagan signed such a socialist-leaning law.  After all, he granted amnesty for illegal immigrants and once served as head of a major employee union, the Screen Actors Guild.  Plus, it is rumored that he was from California.  Given Reagan’s questionable background, we should have known that the EMTALA was a Trojan Horse being used to sneak socialized medicine onto our shores.

The EMTALA requires that a pregnant woman coming to a hospital in labor cannot be sent away for any reason until after she has given birth.  If she is later found to be uninsured, under-insured or just irresponsible, the rest of us might be stuck with higher premiums while her only penalty would be the embarrassment of personal bankruptcy and homelessness.  If hospitals demanded proof of insurance or cash up front before providing care, that woman would think twice before having sex in the first place.    Besides, the Constitution guarantees this woman and her unborn child the right to choose to be uninsured, and that shall not be infringed.  She also retains the right to childbirth at home, or in the public restroom of her choice.

Responsible citizens with money and insurance coverage that schedule health care services in advance are being bumped by emergency ‘victims’ under the EMTALA.  Waiting in line or rescheduling an appointment can not only be inconvenient.  It can crush American worker productivity, and waiting in line for your turn smells like European centralized medical control to me.  Smart conservatives should repeat this over and over and over again until it sinks in to the masses.  “First come, first served” is the American Way.  Putting the critically injured ahead of scheduled patients sounds like rationing, and rationing as we all know is bad.

Involuntary servitude is constitutionally prohibited by the 13th Amendment, but a strict reading of Reagan’s EMTALA makes it clear that doctors are not covered under this amendment.  Any American physician licensed to practice must provide treatment if a patient requests or requires care.  To defeat Obamacare, Republicans need to push this compelling, inflammatory and racially-tinged argument.  Surely everyone can agree that slavery is wrong, therefore the EMTALA is wrong.  If true, then Obamacare is slavery, and that’s wrong.  It’s logical. 

Failure to adhere to the EMTALA and all of its job-killing regulations results in a fine per infraction of $25,000 to $50,000, prosecution, decertification actions, and expulsions from Medicare and Medicaid. Liberals may argue that these should be called ‘life-saving’ regulations, but conservatives need to expose the EMTALA for what it is.  After all, how can you live without a job?

Republicans, change your focus.  Once doctors and hospitals are no longer conscripted to provide care to the sick and injured without means or the proper papers, the rationale behind the ACA disappears.  Nothing says “bipartisanship’ like advancing the case that “Reagan was wrong”.

Think about it, if you can.