The Constitution is not an al a carte menu

U.S. Representative John Conyers believes President Bush should be impeached for violating the Constitution. Yet, Conyers will be supporting the presidential candidate that is most devoted to an unconstitutional issue he considers most important: universal, single-payer health care.

Perhaps Gentleman John has a different copy of the U.S. Constitution than I because mine makes no mention of health care. Conyers appears so focused on the limits to presidential powers, he ignores those placed on Congress. By disregarding those limits, Congress has legislated this country’s health care industry into a costly mess. Through Medicaid and Medicare, the federal government uses tax dollars for 45 percent of all health care expenditures and Conyers wants to dramatically expand that. The government’s domination of an industry that makes up 15 percent of our economy results in skyrocketing prices and destroys any chance for a free market in health care.

Ironically the same president that Conyers has frothed at the mouth to impeach has him beaten on this issue. Bush’s recent tax reform proposal involving health insurance coverage is a step in the right direction. The proposal seeks to correct the destructive impact of current tax policy on health insurance plans although I’m sure that whatever comes out of the D.C. sausage mill will be watered-down, distorted, and ineffective.

If Conyers wants to be a true champion of the Constitution, he can’t pick and choose which limits he wants to enforce.

[Letter to the Editor - Metro Times. Submitted 02/01/2007.]