Do you really think a $20 co-pay covers the cost?
My mother used to say, “Treat yourself, Michael. Don’t go to the doctor for every complaint. Don’t go for every ache.” Today, we have a totally different mind-set. You wake up with a touch of pain in the side of your ear, you run to an ear specialist when a $3 bottle of antihistamine or aspirin would probably have cleared things up. Every cringe, every soreness, creak and groan sends us to the doctor when much of it is just a part of normal living.
And there’s fifty quacks lined up to bill the government.
If only you had practiced some self-control. If only you practiced dietary control. If only you integrated some level of exercise. If only you practiced holistic medicine, you wouldn’t need as much of this expensive health care. Which is not to say it’s not life saving when you really need it. It certainly is. But it only makes sense to save those trips to the doctor for when you need it not for every little thing.
What’s more, you have been encouraged by the drug industry through endless streams of TV ads, to take six painkillers a day if you play sports. You know, take six or eight of these liver-killing, kidney-killing painkillers all day long, every day of your life because it’s good for the pharmaceutical companies. It’s certainly not good for your liver or your kidneys.
Personally, I’ve always paid for my health care. Even when I was a student, I paid for my health care for my young children and myself. It was always very expensive. But I managed to get good health care when I needed it. I only bought healthcare plans for the catastrophic illness, which so far, thank God, never came. And, I’ve done my best to take care of myself rather than rely upon a pill. When I was in the emergency room last year for an accident, they asked me right away, “How many drugs are you on? What medications do you use?” They figured a man my age would be on five, six, maybe seven. I said, “None.”
The nurse looked up and said, “I said how many medications are you on?” I said, “None. I don’t take medications. I don’t need them.” She about fainted. I was the one out of a million, maybe one out of ten million. Over-medication is part of the entire healthcare problem in this country. Americans have far too much health care and take far too many medications. If we’re serious as a nation to rein in the costs, start by reining in the misuse of doctors and prescriptions.
Chickens to Chicken Little: The Schecter Brothers
For the better part of his first term in office, Barack Obama behaved like the central character in one of Aesop’s Fables, Chicken Little. Remember that one? As the tale goes, an acorn fell on Chicken Little’s head who, in turn, ran around like a chicken with its head cut off shouting: “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Her big mistake was to misinterpret the acorn (no relationship to the infamous ACORN scandal) as an omen of bad things to come. She, in turn, created a wave of mass hysteria among her friends.
Things didn’t end well for Chicken Little and company.
They all became dinner for Foxy Loxy.
In similar fashion, using a manufactured healthcare crisis, Obama spent a year whipping up the masses into a panic with his version of “The sky is falling.” He manipulated those fears to shove socialized medicine down our throats. And while it’s a bitter pill to swallow, it isn’t the first time big government has tried to force nonsensical, draconian regulations on the American people. Nor will it be the last, especially given this Marxist-Leninist president’s track record.
America saw the same sort of government intrusion in the 1930s under President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). Like Obama, FDR skillfully leveraged the crisis of the day to usher in a number of “New Deal” socialist programs. As one reporter puts it, “The New Deal was a heady mix of redistribution, regulation, and rhetoric.”93 The operative word there is redistribution. That’s pure Marxist-socialism. Does the fact that FDR was Obama-lite surprise you? It shouldn’t. You see, in the 1930s, centralized government control was appearing around the world.
Russia had Stalin.
Italy had Mussolini.
America had Roosevelt.
“But Mike,” you may say, “FDR wasn’t a fascist. He was a good guy.”
I’m not suggesting Roosevelt was an outright fascist. I’m saying he was dabbling in the popular thought of the day; namely, that the government knows better than private business and the private sector about what’s best for the people. If the prices are too high or too low, the government will fix it. If the people don’t save enough for retirement, the government will force them to save à la Social Security, one of FDR’s pet programs. What’s more, if the sheeple don’t go along with the plan, they end up with a stiff fine—which isn’t hyperbole.
Remember, that’s in Obama’s health-scare bill.
That said, just as this isn’t the first time Americans have been shackled with unfair, unconstitutional legislation, history demonstrates a legal way to fight back—and win. How? Let me set the stage by taking you back to the Great Depression when, in 1934, unemployment had reached 23 percent. Virtually one-in-four Americans were without work. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted from its high point of 381 in 1929 to just 93 points. Against that backdrop, FDR went into a quasi-socialist overdrive by over regulating banks, railroads, farming, and private industries.
The people accepted it because they were desperate.
The people lost sight of the freedoms they’d give up in the exchange.
Using the heavy hand of government intervention—think Lenin, think Stalin—FDR instituted the National Recovery Administration (NRA). His goal? Under the guise of fairrrrrrness, FDR mandated a number of regulations or “codes of fair competition” in order to minimize what he thought were destructive competition practices. In reality, FDR was “systematically vilifying businessmen whose leadership had brought goods to their customers, jobs to their workers, and profits to their shareholders.”94 Why am I rehashing this history?
Because, as you’ll see in a moment, buried in the dusty pages of history lies the tool I believe Americans can use against the ObamaCare juggernaut. Yes, a legal maneuver has been used successfully when one of the three branches of government overstepped its boundaries.
Here’s the rest of the story.
It’s the case of the Schecter Poultry Company in New York City, founded by four Jewish brothers—the Schecter Brothers. These first generation immigrants migrated to America to open two kosher poultry slaughterhouses. In Yiddish, their last name means “ritual butcher” and the value of their service was based upon the fact that they butchered chickens to conform to Jewish dietary law. In order to maintain a kosher operation, the Schecter Brothers had to sort out and remove sickly or dangerously unhealthy chickens. That flew in the face of the new regulations handed down by FDR’s totalitarian mandate.
In short, the government said customers had to buy either an entire coop of chickens or half a coop of chickens—but they were forbidden to pick out particular birds in the transaction. In other words, the new law forced the Schecter Brothers to sell unhealthy chickens to people who didn’t want to buy them. Somehow operating a “kosher” business that way made sense in the upside-down world of liberalism. But from the Schecter Brother’s viewpoint, this was nothing short of a violation of their religious freedom.
That meant nothing to the government, which cracked down on the Schecter Brothers saying they couldn’t sell chickens their way. They had to sell them the government way—or go to jail. The brothers failed to comply. Having run afoul of the Live Poultry Code of the NRA, they were arrested and tried in court where they went head-to-head with the government lawyers.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that these were uneducated men and had no legal training. While they did have legal representation, they didn’t have deep pockets and couldn’t hire some big-shot lawyer from a top law firm to represent them. In fact, their command of English was broken and “their intonation and syntax were the sort we today associate with a stand-up comic from the Catskills.”95 In t
he end, the court found them guilty as charged, fined them a years’ wage, and then sent them to prison. But the story doesn’t end there.
The Schecter Brothers appealed their case, which ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court. Against all odds, in Schecter Poultry Corp v. United States, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the Schecter Brothers. The Supremes ruled that FDR’s program was unconstitutional on several levels. Of primary concern was the way his NRA program sought to regulate intrastate commerce. Constitutionally speaking, intrastate law is governed by the states and not the feds.
Furthermore, the court said that FDR’s regulations were an usurpation of congressional power. After the decision was handed down, Justice Louis Brandeis told a lawyer representing FDR’s New Deal:
This is the end of this business of centralization, and I want you to go back and tell the President that we’re not going to let this government centralize everything. It’s come to an end.96
Back then we had justices who could speak plain English and tell the plain truth. Imagine one of our Supremes drawing a line in the sand against this president in such a direct manner. This brings us to how Obama’s Frankenstein healthcare bill can be repealed. After all, 58 percent of Americans want to see it repealed according to a Rasmussen poll taken three short weeks after ObamaCare passed.97
Keep in mind this is something you can do rather than wait around for the checked-pants Republicans to act. They’ve already signaled they won’t go to the mat to repeal the unpopular measure. They’re cowering before the ever-arrogant President Obama who welcomed that fight: “My attitude is, go for it. If these congressmen in Washington want to come here in Iowa and tell small-business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest.”98
Let’s set aside that Obama’s bill doesn’t do small business any favors, as I’ve already documented. The strategy to undo this mess lies within the pages of the bill Congress passed. Did you know that Baby Dictator Obama’s healthcare bill makes religious exceptions in several instances?
That’s right. Buried within this 2,000+ page monstrosity is the Achilles’ heel that can be used to fight back. Read it for yourself:
Exemptions From Individual Responsibility Requirements
In the case of an individual who is seeking an exemption certificate under section 1311(d)(4)(H) from any requirement or penalty imposed by section 5000A, the following information:
(A) In the case of an individual seeking exemption based on the individual’s status as a member of an exempt religious sect or division, as a member of a health care sharing ministry, as an Indian, or as an individual eligible for a hardship exemption, such information as the Secretary shall prescribe [emphasis added].99
The three groups mentioned are “a member of exempt religious sect” of which the Amish or practitioners of Islam who view insurance as a form of gambling might be included, Indians, and members of a “health care sharing ministry”—which are non-profit, non-insurance, and typically faith-based organizations such as Samaritan Ministries International or MediShare whose members pool their funds and share in one another’s medical expenses.
If you’re a religious person—whether you’re a member of the Christian Science Church, the Old Order Mennonites, or a member of another religion that does not believe in using modern medicine who, instead, believes in faith healing—you can follow the Schecter brothers. You can get yourself a top-flight lawyer and sue Obama once you are forced to buy a healthcare plan. It might take a few years to fight your way through the legal system, but, as we challenge this bill in court, the time will come when this entire centralized, socialist healthcare plan will tumble down around Obama’s clay feet. Yes, he will be brought to his knees and exposed for being the dictator that he is.
What’s more, the fact that “religious conscience” exemptions exist for some religious groups but not all could run contrary to the “equal protection clause” in the Constitution. Professor and lawyer Marci Hamilton of Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law says, “If the government can tolerate a religious exemption, then it must do so evenhandedly among religious believers with the same beliefs. This is sheer favoritism for a certain class of religions, or even for one religion.”100
Just as FDR’s regulations turned out to be unfair to the Schecter Brothers, the Supreme Court found them to be an unconstitutional breach of power. Do you understand that? That’s exactly what Obama’s health insurance scam is going to turn out to be for you and me. What we’re seeing is a repeat of history. Once again, the government has overreached. Nationalizing health care will be destructive to smaller insurance agencies.
It will be destructive to independent doctors.
It will be destructive to small hospitals.
Mark my words, it will destroy the entire medical infrastructure of the United States of America. Irrespective of whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, when the government forces one man to pay for another man’s illnesses or to pay for another man’s problems such as lack of medical coverage, what’s that called? Obama smiles and calls it spreading the wealth around. I call that robbery. And I’m not smiling.
Obama is a liberty stealer.
Obama is a business killer.
Obama is a spreader of trickle up poverty.
If this man can get away with force-feeding us socialized medicine when the majority of American people do not want it, what’s to stop him from doing anything else he may damn well please? Don’t think for one minute that socialized medicine will be the last stop on the train bound for perdition. When the stooges in Washington follow the marching orders from Obama like Lemmings, and when they continue taking us down the road of socialism in the days ahead, don’t think this benign joyride will end well. It is aimed at circumventing the Bill of Rights. It is aimed at robbing your freedoms.
It is aimed at destroying the middle class. Only the American people can stop him.
I just showed you how. Use the religious freedom exemption. If four immigrant butchers could stop FDR, you might stop BO.
CHAPTER 6
The Late Great Climate Scam
This is not fiction. It is science.
—President Barack Obama, Copenhagen Climate Summit 20091
If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.
—Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, Germany 19332
My mother told me never to talk about politics or religion or else I’d get into too many arguments. Since I now talk mainly about politics and religion, I thought I would add a third rail to her admonition—the weather. From the beginning of humankind, people have speculated about the weather. They’ve prayed to weather gods, made sacrifices for the rains to come so there would be bountiful crops. The Bible contains numerous references to the weather. Yet now, in this generation, we have seen complete madness overtake this ancient subject.
Al Gore, the huckster who I have not so affectionately called “Al Goreleoni”—head of the Goreleoni crime family—for years on my radio program, is the high priest of the voodoo-science called “Global Warming,” which, owing to the cooling trend of the past decade, has been renamed “Climate Change.” Goreleoni’s disciples had to revise the name given the fact that the winter of 2009-2010 produced snowfall in every state in the union, including the mountaintops in Hawaii.3
And yet, as some in the press have reported, Al could “become the world’s first carbon billionaire”4 from this global warming panic, even though global warming has now been proven to be built upon a foundation of false, fabricated, and pseudo-science. They continue to promote this fraud despite all the contrary evidence, namely, that some of the “authoritative science” used to support global warming was nothing more than “data” gleaned from anecdotal evidence cobbled together by a geography student and ripped from the pages of a mountain climbing magazine.5
That’s number one.
Stephen Schneider, climatologist, pr
ofessor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University, and ardent global warming defender, has said this about what scientists need to do to convince people that global warming is real: “[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”6
“Scary scenarios” and “dramatic statements”?
I thought this was science.
Make no mistake. Global warming alarmists and environmental radicals have been lying about climate change for decades, as I will demonstrate in a moment. We’ll touch on the history of this farce, the shifting sand upon which the “science” has been built, who pushed it, who stands to profit from it, and how the “cap-and-trade” legislation that Congress is considering will hammer every middle-class family with a tsunami of new taxes. Speaking about those new taxes, if cap-and-trade were to become law, here’s how the Heritage Foundation quantifies the financial impact: “Six hundred hurricanes couldn’t cause this much economic damage” to our country.7
You have Al Gore to thank for that.
After all, the history of this bogus phenomenon started with him.
Al Goreleoni, having failed in his bid for president in 2000 against George W. Bush, was a lost man. After twenty-four years in politics, this career politician faced an uncertain future. Unaccustomed to manual labor or a real job, Goreleoni roamed around the halls of his ten-thousand-square-foot mansion in the hills of Tennessee dreaming up his next move. Having been one of the early global warming alarmists and a strong advocate for the passage of the Kyoto Protocol, Al, the ultimate Hollow Man that T. S. Eliot wrote about, decided that saving the planet would be his next move. His first step?
Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama’s Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security Page 19