R AND R

The Greatest Generation invented the term: R and R meant Rest and Recuperation. Or Rest and Recreation. Or Rest and Relaxation. It didn’t matter. It was just R and R. Or maybe even “Rock and Roll.” Everybody knew what it meant.

But times change and words change and even slang and abbreviations change. Google R and R today and you might find an article about “Repeal and Replace.”

Nancy Pelosi says the only good thing about Repeal and Replace is that it is alliterative. I don’t often agree with Nancy, but I’m with her on this one.

After all the thundering promises to repeal Obama Care, Congressional Republicans have jumped on board the Pander Train and promised to enact a new National Health Care Law to replace the discredited ACA.

Early in his campaign, Donald Trump had a simple answer to the Obama Care question. He said: “Just let the Insurance Companies sell across state lines.”

Hello. What a drastic idea? For more  than 200 years, health care has been a matter solely within the jurisdiction of the States. Every State has some sort of regulation of health insurance companies. Some, like Massachusetts, have a system very similar to the Affordable Care Act.

The result over the years has been that some States have more inclusive, more affordable, more desirable health care providers than other States.

But they also have licensure requirements that keep foreign companies out or put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Mr. Trump is a businessman. He understands the free enterprise system. He knows that “affordable” is a slippery word. It is certainly not a standard that can be written into the law. What is affordable for one person is exorbitant to another.

The Republicans in Washington have lost their nerve. They are backpedalling on their brave and bold promise to repeal Obama Care.

And why? Simply because there are some features of the law that are popular and they don’t want to be pegged with killing things like coverage for pre-existing conditions, extended parental coverage for children to age 26 and the large number of people who are simply getting health insurance as a welfare benefit.

Surely there are many in Washington who hope that the law can be replaced with support from both sides of the aisle. After all, Bill Clinton said the law is crazy, didn’t he? And Hillary conceded that it needs amending. The D.C. establishment of store bought politicians – the “swamp” as Trump calls it – will be working hard to mesh the ideas of “fix” and “replace” in order to claim a bipartisan solution.

The real tragedy is that nobody is speaking for the Constitution. Both Parties are committed to a national health care system, dictated from Washington, D.C. and mandatory from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson and Washington would be appalled. There is nothing in the Constitution suggesting that health care is a proper function of the national government.

Health care in America, before Obamacare, was the envy of the world. It was built on the free enterprise system; the sum total of the free choices of a free people.

Health care is a human necessity, like food, clothing, shelter and liberty.

Like these other essentials, health care cost varies from State to State, often from town to town. The history, the weather, the culture, the terrain, all these things affect affordability.

One size does not fit everybody. The last thing we should want to do in America is to kill the spirit of initiative and enterprise. The Republicans have the gavel in Congress. They should repeal Obamacare, every word of it. Make it effective in two years to give everyone time to adjust.

Then forget about replacing it with another federal program. Just let the fifty States do what they are supposed to do under our Constitution.