WARDEN PELOSI

WARDEN PELOSI: "Failure to buy health insurance in the just-passed health care bill could get you five years in jail with a $250,000 fine. How can violating a law that's unconstitutional be a felony, asks Investor's Business Daily (IBD)?

The passage last Saturday night of the House health care measure by a fragile 220-215 margin may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. In polls, townhall meetings and tea parties, Americans have shown they don't want a 'reform' that costs a staggering $1.2 trillion yet fails to meet the left's desire of insuring all the uninsured. And they certainly don't want a bill that threatens them with incarceration if they don't comply, says IBD.

* This monstrosity would raise insurance premiums and taxes to prohibitive levels and add unconscionably to the national debt.
* It will force physicians to leave the medical profession in droves, exacerbating an already perilous doctor shortage; this and so-called cost controls will lead to rationing.
* The mechanisms for deciding who gets what, if any, care -- and even what care will be available -- are already in place; some, like a cost-effectiveness board, slipped into the failed stimulus bill.
* Under sections 7201 and 7203 of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill, Americans who don't maintain acceptable health insurance coverage and who choose not to pay a fine/tax of up to 2.5 percent of income are subject to fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

As Dave Camp (R-Mich.), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, observed, 'This is the ultimate example of the Democrats' command-and-control style of governing -- buy what we tell you or go to jail.'

Evading the income tax is punishable by jail time. But the income tax required a constitutional amendment; it was not imposed by judicial fiat, notes IBD."