Care for Health or the Constitution. Pick Only One.

What's the legal difference between a rabbit and a Hare?  The rabbit goes into hiding but is not a Congressman embarrassing the whole state of Illinois.

Phil Hare is, for now, a Congressman from Illinois.  Phil doesn't care about the Constitution, which he thinks is the Declaration of Independence anyway.

To be fair (don't laugh), nobody can tell the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, except, maybe, that the latter has more catchy phrasing.  That's because Thomas Jefferson was in France applauding the guillotine during the drafting of the former.

And can anyone tell the difference between "former" and "latter"?

Phil probably can't, either, but he doesn't care.  He only health cares.  He couldn't care less about the Constitution.  He cares way more about people who die without health care than those who live without the Pursuit of Happiness (Oops!  The Declaration, again.)

Without being specific, Phil said he wants to make every person, probably including corporations, get health insurance by the end of the day.  Easter and the following Monday are really holidays, so they surely don't count.  Figure Tuesday.

Phil was baggered into making these comments by a Mr. Tea fan.  Phil did not have his Congressional Constitution For Dummies handy and who uses seven commas in a preamble these days?  Unfortunately, Phil didn't get any better when he had time to read the damn thing backwards and compare it to Jefferson's better quilled Declaration of Independence.

Everyone knows that it is the Constitutions Commerce Clause that gives the Feds the right to do pretty much whatever they want when money is involved.  And when is it not?

Under it, Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 (just look at the commas!), Congress has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the States and with Indian tribes.  The latter should give Congress the right to get us in on all that gambling revenue the Indians think is all theirs (will they never learn?).  But it also has been held by the Supreme Court to give Congress the right, if not the brains, to meddle in just about anything.

Would Scaley, himself, even argue?  Much?  So, aside from him.

An example that comes first to mind:  You would think that your corner bar wouldn't involve commerce beyond the back alley which is regularly used in connection with the bar for related activities, which the bar owner has to clean up.  Historically, to, say, the 1990's, in most corner bars, you weren't welcome if you weren't "from here", which usually meant the Irish ward.  When the Constitution was written, taverns got both their corn products, beers and patrons locally.  Not now:  Patrons are encouraged by cities to come in from many places, from across State lines and from foreign countries, to get a Bud in your corner bar.  The Bud almost never comes from down the street from that corner, either, unless you are in St. Louis or Jacksonville.

In George Washington's day, health care was local, too.  Maybe, the leeches were imported, but they never traveled over state lines themselves.  Poking a hole in a malfunctioning skull or sawing off a limb with ugly freckles didn't require equipment from Germany.  Morphine hadn't been developed in--where else?--Germany by 1789.  Neither had the aspirin (Germany) or Tylenol (Germany again) that you get for $10 a pop at the hospital today.

Come on, Phil, it's the Commerce Clause.  Nothing in this country is local, not even the Mr. T fan club, whose members live to be on the very nationwide FOX Spews.  Interstate and international commerce!

What in your local hospital is made in your state. The CAT scan?  The hospital bed?  The static-free tile?  The executive jet for executive trips to satellite clinics in Italy?  Where did the very doctors come from?  Where did the nurses go, for that matter?  No self-respecting hospital uses in-state collection agencies to stress its patients into revenue-producing relapses.  Don't even mention the insurance companies.  One exception:  Blue Cross, which is franchised nationally, like McDonald's without the fries.

Okay.  Phil, you are now prepared to go out in public again.

Still, don't.