Whenever someone uses the term “slavery,” you can almost hear Lefties’ heads exploding–they get so apopaleptic. Immediately, they go into a frenzy, break open their Alinsky manuals, and attempt to ridicule the person making the point.

An example of this occurred just yesterday, when Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY] stated that those who believe that health care is a “right” believe in slavery. Yep. He used the dreaded ‘S’ word and, predictably, the whacky Left went bonkers.

Of course, his comments come on the heels of Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-VT] introducing a bill in the Senate for socialized medicine.

The fact of the matter is, and regardless how the Left wants to insipidly spin it, Rand Paul’s right. It is not an abstraction. It is the full realization of the principle the Left espouses when they claim there is a “right” to someone else’s labor.

Here is what Paul stated:

“With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to healthcare, you have to realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me,” Paul said recently in a Senate subcommittee hearing.

“It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses,” Paul said, adding that there is “an implied use of force.”

“If I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to healthcare, you have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free healthcare would be,” Paul said.

In hearing Paul’s argument, it is pretty clear that his definition of rights is that of individual rights, not collective rights, as defined here:

The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.

The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

When Rand Paul speaks of the Left’s use of the term “right” to healthcare, he is speaking about a concept where one man (or society) has the “right” to demand the labor of another. It is a collectivist argument and Paul is right to frame it as such, regardless of whether people cringe over his usage of the “S” word.

Paul is not alone in his beliefs either, as illustrated here:

The true nature of rights — the type of rights the Founding Fathers believed in — involved the right of people to pursue such things as health care, education, clothing, and food and that government cannot legitimately interfere with their ability to do so.

Thus, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as described in the Declaration of Independence, doesn’t mean that someone else is forced to provide you with the means to sustain or improve your life. It means that government cannot enact laws, rules, or regulations that interfere with or infringe upon your right to pursue such things.

There is no difference whether the collectivist is demanding his “right” to health care, a job, a house, or high speed internet–all of these are “rights,” according to today’s Left.

Ironically, for all the Left’s recent clamoring over the “right” of government workers to collectively bargain, they apparently do not see the hypocrisy in their demanding an entire profession to be under the yoke of governmental control.

Unfortunately, today, we have a society where it has become acceptable for the Left to demand as its “right” the labors of an individual* without well-deserved repudiation. However, that does not make it right.

Rand Paul is right. Health care is not a “right.”

“Do you know what a camel is?” It was a strange question, but since it came from one of my uncles who retired as a university professor, I knew the answer would be interesting. So what is a camel? “It’s a horse assembled by a committee of PhDs,” replied my uncle. Excellent point. Something happens when you assemble in a room a group of people who fancy themselves as the best and the brightest in a given field, something that in biblical terms is best described as a thing which, “passeth all understanding.”

Back in 2009, President Obama wrote to Senator Max Baucus and the late Senator Ted Kennedy that, “We should ask why places like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and other institutions can offer the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” The answer appears to be that the Mayo Clinic knows how to reject a 2,000 page camel when it sees one. Today’s in-box includes news that a group of medical providers has taken the measure of the President’s health care law and found it wanting in virtually every category except that of bureaucratic incomprehensibility and heavy-handed regulation. Describing it as an “unusual rebuke” (to which one answers, “why should it be unusual?”), the AP story reports:

…an umbrella group representing premier organizations such as the Mayo Clinic wrote the administration Wednesday saying that more than 90 percent of its members would not participate, because the rules as written are so onerous it would be nearly impossible for them to succeed.

Donald Fisher, President of the American Medical Group Association, representing close to 400 large medical groups who provide services for approximately 1 in 3 Americans said, “It’s not just a simple tweak, it’s a significant change that needs to be made.” I suppose someone can tell Nancy Pelosi that people have finally read the bill that had to be passed before anyone would know what was in it, and they have concluded that this monstrosity simply will not work. The courts may or may not ultimately rule it Constitutional. But the people who have to ultimately implement this thing want no part of it.

Describing the laws provisions as, “overly prescriptive, operationally burdensome, and the incentives are too difficult to achieve to make this voluntary program attractive,” the medical group association sees huge problems on the horizon in a law that, according to the story, “rapidly exposes them to potential financial losses.”

All of which begs the following question: Why were the rules fashioned to be so burdensome as to jeopardize the very survival of these entities in the first place? As Obama himself put it, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process.” Or, as Barney Frank said, “…we don’t have the votes for it. I wish we did. I think if we get a good public option, it could lead to single payer and that’s the best way to reach single payer.” Anyone want to wager that this “overly prescriptive, operationally burdensome” camel is designed to precisely to squash private providers and usher in the era of a benevolent government provider?

History is replete with central planners who set out to make a better horse and instead brought forth a lopsided, smelly, obnoxious beast who spits and bites those who feed it while requiring more and more of them. Republican members of congress enjoy the trappings of office right now courtesy of an electorate that wants this law stopped, repealed, defunded, and killed. We may not be allowed to see Bin Laden’s corpse, but we’d sure like to see this odious law become fish food.

He‘s Glenn Beck’s pick for president. He’s loved by the Tea Party. And he’s not afraid to stand up to hecklers. But what you might not know about Rep. Allen West (R-FL), he’s also bucking his party on Obamacare. For example, he just voted against defunding it.

“What?” some just cried out audibly. It’s true. West not only was one of only four Republicans to vote against a measure that week that would strip $100 million in funding for the construction of school-based health centers.

And it wasn’t a mistake, slip of the finger, or accidental oversight. According to his office, he‘s questioning the GOP’s strategy.

He “believes there are bigger funding issues to be focusing on right now including the numerous developments in the Middle East, concerning Pakistan and whether there is a link to [Osama bin Laden] and the recent unity agreement with the [Palestinian Authority] and Fatah and Hamas,” West spokeswoman Angela Sachitano told The Hill in an e-mail.

“He voted to repeal Obamacare, and it was dead on arrival in the Senate,” she added. “He questions what the goal is of chipping away like this if it’s almost certain that the Senate is not going to take it up.”

But according to The Hill, West hasn’t been completely opposed to all defunding efforts. A day before voting against defunding the school-based health centers, he did vote to strip funds from the state-based insurance exchanges created by Obamacare. The Hill says Sachitano declined to explain why he voted for one measure and not the other.

Earlier this year, West did vote to repeal the entire bill, and explained his decision in an interview:

While Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey can understand (slightly) what West is talking about, he sees a lot of problems with the Tea Party leader’s position. The biggest one? It could get him voted out of office.

“Tea Party activists warned that they would focus their ire on Republicans who got elected and then attempted to moderate their positions on ObamaCare, spending, and taxes,” Morrissey writes. “I wonder if anyone thought that one of the first they’d have to address would be Col. West?”

The era of transparency has been taking some tricky twists and turns lately, and not all of the focus has been on the federal government. Unions, public broadcasting and others have come under scrutiny. The next subject of investigation, if certain Republicans have their way at least, will be AARP.

House Republican tax-writers want the IRS to investigate whether AARP should lose its tax-exempt status.

In a letter sent to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman Friday, Reps. Wally Herger (R-Calif.), Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) and Charles Boustany (R-La.) say a recent congressional probe “gave rise to a number of serious concerns regarding AARP’s organizational structure and activities, and it raised questions about whether AARP continues to qualify as a tax-exempt organization under Internal Revenue Service Code (IRC) 501(c)4.”

A 40-page report recently released by the trio of lawmakers accuses AARP of refusing to provide information about its practices.

We can either dance around what we’re supposed to say when politicians get up to activities such as this or we can refuse to pull any punches and just tell it like it is. On the surface, every organization in the nation has to follow the existing rules regarding taxation. If you find tax exempt groups skirting those regulations they need to be brought into line or have their status changed.

But that’s not what’s really going on here, is it?

AARP is huge, with nearly 36 million members, and they’ve been around for so long they’re practically an institution. (Full disclosure: Yes, I’m a member. Yes, I think they provide some terrific services and programs.) And they’re operating pretty much as they always have. But a number of prominent Republican leaders are still upset that AARP supported Obamacare. And it’s been made clear already that AARP isn’t going to sign on for any major cuts or restructuring in Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security if seniors view it as endangering the benefits they receive or those still to come to their grandchildren. So now the GOP is considering taking the whip to them.

AARP is probably a lot more leery of playing ball on any entitlement changes this year. The last time they endorsed a move to make changes to one of the programs nearly 50,000 of their members quit in protest and they were left to deal with the backlash. It’s not just a “third rail” for politicians.

This is one tactic which the Republicans should look long and hard at before moving forward. If they wish to ride the white stallion of purity and say they simply want all non-profits to follow the law, then fine. It’s a noble sentiment, but they had better be ready to pay the price. Politically it looks like a suicide play. In case the leadership needs reminding, seniors vote at a more consistent rate than any other age group, and they are also the demographic group most likely to skew conservative and vote Republican. And for the most part, they like AARP.

A Republican attack on AARP for blatantly obvious partisan, political reasons could blow up in their faces. And doing this would probably just open the door for their opponents to begin calling for similar “purity driven” investigations of other non-profit groups who Republicans might not be so excited to go after, such as the Chamber of Commerce. Oh, wait… it’s already happening.

One of the more intriguing parts of the budget deal announced late last night was a commitment from Harry Reid to allow two floor votes on Republican legislative priorities, both of which would never have otherwise seen in the Senate chamber before 2013.  The first is the effort to defund Planned Parenthood, a rider that got stripped out of last night’s final compromise, which would have an uncertain future in the Senate anyway.   The second, though, holds a great deal more promise, and a great deal of political risk for Democrats:

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, agreed to remove the Planned Parenthood provision in exchange for an agreement that would allow Congress to take up the funding issue separately.The Republicans also won inclusion of a provision that will require the Senate to vote on a bill to de-fund the health care reform law.

This codicil didn’t even get a mention in other news reports, but could be one of the more significant aspects of the agreement.  The House has already worked on a bill to repeal ObamaCare, which before now had absolutely no chance of consideration while Harry Reid ran the Senate.  As we repeatedly pointed out during the election, repeal of ObamaCare will be impossible until at least 2013, when we have an opportunity to elect and install a new President who will sign such a bill, even had we won control of the Senate.

So this isn’t important because it holds some new hope for a quicker repeal.  Rather, it forces Democrats to defend the massive government expansion of control yet again, this time closer to the 2012 election.  Democrats didn’t run on ObamaCare in 2010, except in reliably liberal districts for House races, and the last thing they need in an already-difficult cycle is another reminder to voters of the unpopular program.  By forcing a floor vote in this agreement, Reid will have to get his caucus — now reduced to 53 rather than 59 — to entirely back ObamaCare in a new vote.

Read the rest at Hot Air.

Greg Hengler at Townhall puts together this stylized, noir-detective look at the “mystery” of AARP’s political support for ObamaCare.  Call it The Mystery of the Senior Swindle if you will, or How To Make A Billion Dollars Without Really Trying. All you need to do is get Congress to create a market for you by swinging a lobbying hammer around Washington DC, and let the Democrats do your dirty work for you:

Interestingly, the Left erupted in outrage when GE’s tax breaks became public (and inaccurately reported by the New York Times). Where’s the outrage over AARP pushing a massive government expansion over the health-care market that puts a billion dollars into their pockets? Forget it, Jake; it’s Leftytown.

The Alliance for Retirement Prosperity warned about this back in November:

Because of the way Medicare is structured, seniors have to purchase an insurance policy that fills the gap between what Medicare covers and what it doesn’t. Bigger gap, less coverage; less coverage, greater need to purchase Medicare Supplemental insurance; greater need for Medicare Supplemental Insurance, bigger AARP profits.

For years, AARP made a fortune selling Medigap insurance to fill in those gaps.  Then, Congress created Medicare Advantage, an alternative to the Medicare Supplemental Medigap policies sold by AARP.  That cut into AARP’s Medigap business.

If ObamaCare is allowed to undermine Medicare Advantage plans, as the Congressional Budget Office confirms it will, AARP stands to benefit enormously as seniors are forced to return in droves to purchase AARP’s Medigap Supplemental plans.

There you have it.  While no one can read the mind of AARP executives to know their motivations in joining forces with the White House to jam ObamaCare into law, the observable indicators are unambiguously clear:  AARP appears to have betrayed its members to feather its own corporate nest.

If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

Expect to hear more about this in the weeks ahead.

Ever since the passage of ObamaCare, I’ve been perplexed by a lingering question: Why did AARP so aggressively lobby for passage of the law? After all, the plan was built on $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. Even in Washington, half a trillion dollars is still a ton of money. Medicare is sacrosanct among America’s senior citizens. It was unfathomable to me that the nation’s largest membership association of seniors would, not just not oppose the cuts, but would actively lobby for them. It didn’t make any sense.

Mostly, I just chalked up AARP’s actions to its general leftist, partisan leanings. Medicare cuts by Republicans are bad, but cuts by Democrats to increase government involvement in health care are okay. Boy, was I wrong.

According to this blockbuster report, released today by the House Ways and Means Committee, AARP’s support of ObamaCare and, specifically, the Medicare cuts was entirely rational and self-serving. The Committee found, after an 18 month investigation, that AARP stands to reap an extra billion dollars in profits from ObamaCare. (Yes, that is billion with a B.) Worse, this extra profit is largely BECAUSE of the Medicare cuts.

AARP’s members may face uncertainty over their future health care because of the cuts, but AARP faces certain windfall profits for itself.

Read the rest at Big Government.

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Stutzman (IN-03) voted to end the burdensome 1099 provision of ObamaCare.  H.R. 4 the Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011 was Cosponsored by 273 Members including Congressman Stutzman.  This repeal found strong bipartisan support and passed 314-112.  The repeal will remove regulations on business and individuals that incur business expenses in excess of $600, saving time, energy and money that can be better used in this tough economy.

“The House today voted to end a government regulation and improve job creation by giving employers a sign of stability.”  Stutzman said  “The 1099 provision of the ObamaCare Bill is an example of ‘pass the bill to find out what is in it.’  The purpose was never explained and could be the gateway to a Value Added Tax, which would continue to stifle economic growth.  Business owners, farmers and sole proprietors in Northeast Indiana should not be forced into increased costs due to IRS bureaucracy.  This is an additional stride in recalling the job killing ObamaCare Bill.”

More information on H.R. 4 can be found at: www.Thomas.gov

Congressman Stutzman represents the 3rd Congressional District of Indiana and serves on the House Committee on Agriculture, the House Committee on the Budget and the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity.  Indiana’s 3rd District contains all of DeKalb, Kosciusko, Lagrange, Noble, Steuben, and Whitley counties; as well as parts of Allen and Elkhart counties.

Several members of Congress, like Rep. Denny Rehberg (R, MT) and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R.-Wash.) are offering amendments that would prevent any new spending from being used to implement Obamacare.

Good for them.  Those are important additions to the big spending bill pending in Congress.

But here’s the dirty little secret:  Much of Obamacare is being implemented with money that was already appropriated last year.  These billions are already available for bureaucrats to put Obamacare into force.

Denying additional funding for Obamacare does not de-fund the huge amounts it already is using for implementation.  That requires additional action.

Even though the last Congress failed to pass other appropriations bills (creating the need for the currently-pending spending measure), that former Congress DID provide billions to get Obamacare launched.  The money was directly appropriated as part of the health care legislation, rather than included in a separate appropriations bill as is the normal practice.

The details are in a Congressional Research Service report issued last October, “Appropriations and Fund Transfers in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).”  CRS devotes seven pages to describing the billions of dollars already appropriated and which the Obama Administration even now is spending to promote that law.

 Conservatives agree with the American people that Obamacare should be repealed.  Short of outright repeal, leaders from 32 conservative groups in the Conservative Action Project have unitedly stated that the next-best strategy is defunding.  As their report states, “The safest route for legislatively combating Obamacare is to defund it. Now that the statute has been declared unconstitutional, Congress should use the power of the purse to deny funding for the individual mandate, employer mandates, and writing the 100s of regulations need to impose Obamacare. Such legislation will not in any way jeopardize the ongoing litigation efforts.”

It’s good that a federal judge has declared Obamacare unconstitutional, but the White House insists it’s going forward anyway.  It’s good that the House may cut off any new money to implement Obamacare.  But unless Congress deals with the pot of money already provided, we won’t meet the goal of defunding Obamacare.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Gov. Sean Parnell took a defiant stand Thursday against the federal health care overhaul Congress passed last year, declaring that he will refuse to implement a law he views as blatantly unconstitutional.

Parnell is the latest Republican governor to lash out against the law as the courts weigh the constitutionality of the overhaul. More than half of all states, including Alaska, have sued or joined lawsuits against the government over the health care plan pushed by President Barack Obama.

It’s not immediately clear what impact the unusual, rather bold move would have on Alaskans, an estimated 14 percent of whom are uninsured year-round.

Several experts believe Parnell is on shaky legal ground and that his comments are little more than symbolic. The law won’t fully take effect until 2015 – just after his first term will have ended – and the constitutionality question will not get settled until the U.S. Supreme Court decides it.

Until then, in Parnell’s view the decision by a federal judge in Florida, striking down the law as unconstitutional, “is the law of the land, as it pertains to Alaska.”

Alaska was one of 26 states party to that case. In other cases, two federal judges have upheld the law and another judge ruled a provision requiring citizens to buy health insurance or face penalties – a major point of contention in the Florida case – is unconstitutional but did not strike down the rest of the law.