On Ending The Department Of Health And Human Services

From The Patriot Word:

Friday, October 8, 2010Patriot Paper #8 End the Department of Health & Human Services a Healthy Choice


Patriot Paper #8



U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS)

By

Walter L Brown Jr



The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services FY 2011 budget of $911 billion in unconstitutional outlays comprise 24% of the total federal budget ($3,824 billion) and consumes 35% of all federal taxes collected.



The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Budget, consistent with the President’s goals, invests in health care, disease prevention, social services, and scientific research. These investments will enable HHS to protect the health of all Americans and provide essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves.



There is no authority in the Constitution for either Congress or the President to establish goals for spending on health care, disease prevention, social services, or related scientific research. The typical incompetent arguments for justifying such benevolent expenditures involve the phrase “promote the general Welfare” in the preamble of the Constitution, which carries no legal force and generates no legal authority a well understood and universally accepted tenet of contract law. The phrases “pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States” appearing in Article 1 Section 8 also doesn’t provide authority for either any specific form of Defense or general Welfare any outlays. The general Welfare must be for the benefit of all members of society, not just the young, old, sick, or poor; these subgroups are by definition not all members of society as they are subgroups.



On closer inspection, we recognize that not only doesn’t HHS serve all members of society, but it is actually nothing more than an unconstitutional endeavor in supposed benevolence. While the cloak of benevolence is an extraordinarily beautiful thing, “benevolence” conducted with the property forcibly taken from others is nothing more than the immoral and illegal practice of wealth redistribution. Wealth redistribution deprives rightful property owners of the liberty to choose if and which charity they support, and also destroys the natural efficiency of competition. Perhaps a State or Local Government, University, Church, Private Citizen, Professional Organization, Family, or a for-Profit Business is a better means of invests in health care, disease prevention, social services, and scientific research. There are literally hundreds of millions of possible solutions to the equally varied challenges which unleash the suffocated creativity of our people and limit us to ever fewer options.



With the passing of time, government infrastructures accumulate to themselves ever more authority, it is as natural as gaining weight as you get older. What began with a seemingly harmless act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen in 1798, that established a federal network of hospitals for the care of merchant seamen, has grown to control virtually every aspect of health care in the United States.



Any project with 200 years of history is likely to have stumbled onto a few acorns along the way but that doesn’t justify eliminating all of the other possible options for accomplishing the economic activities that they have prevented or the charity they have suffocated.



If the inefficiency and illegality weren’t enough already, recently revealed National Institute of Health experiments where NIH researchers intentionally infected hundreds of people in Guatemala, including institutionalized mental patients, with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or permission, is more than sufficient reason to close the whole operation.



The path we are following with HHS rapidly expanding to control all aspects of healthcare is well trodden. First comes universal availability and the lie of economies of scale, and other savings. The now free services generate an enormous spike in demand which overloads the system causing shortages, and trivial services displace real needs. The demand spike quickly consumes the extremely unrealistic and misleading budgets placing lawmakers in the position of cutting costs and raising more revenues. Taxes go up, and price controls, and medical evaluation boards are implemented. The healthcare industry now provides very little or negative return on investments and additional shortages appear as fewer and lower quality people enter the sector. In response the government takes steps to nationalize outright or effectively the industry causing strikes, slowdowns, etc. After a few years our hospitals will start to look like second world hospitals, rundown places with no doctors, a few years later there will be no hospitals at all, at which point everyone will have exactly the same access to healthcare. Socialized medicine doesn’t work, it only destroys the infrastructure which free enterprise and free markets create.



All of the activities engaged in by the following 12 operating divisions require powers that were never ceded to the federal government and as such are specifically reserved to the People and the States as recognized by the Tenth Amendment.

HHS is composed of the following operating divisions serving a variety of special interest groups:

1. Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

2. Administration on Aging (AoA)

3. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

4. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)

5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

6. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

7. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

8. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)

9. Indian Health Service (IHS)

10. National Institutes of Health (NIH)

11. Office of the Inspector General (OIG)

12. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)



These 12 divisions combined with a 6500 member HHS uniformed officer corps comprise the United States Public Health Service.





About HHS



The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the United States government’s principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves.

HHS represents almost a quarter of all federal outlays, and it administers more grant dollars than all other federal agencies combined. HHS’ Medicare program is the nation’s largest health insurer, handling more than 1 billion claims per year. Medicare and Medicaid together provide health care insurance for one in four Americans.



HHS works closely with state and local governments, and many HHS-funded services are provided at the local level by state or county agencies, or through private sector grantees. The Department’s programs are administered by 11 operating divisions, including eight agencies in the U.S. Public Health Service and three human services agencies. The department includes more than 300 programs, covering a wide spectrum of activities. In addition to the services they deliver, the HHS programs provide for equitable treatment of beneficiaries nationwide, and they enable the collection of national health and other data.



Departmental leadership is provided by the Office of the Secretary. Also included in the Department is the Office of Public Health and Science, the Office of the HHS Inspector General and the HHS Office for Civil Rights. In addition, the Program Support Center, a self-supporting division of the Department, provides administrative services for HHS and other federal agencies.



There is nothing in the HHS that private and state organizations couldn’t do better. The enormous size of this organization and the number of claims and grants it processes annual make it a prime target for fraud, which further reduces the already terrible inefficiencies of a department that distorts the free market for health care services, stifles charity, and inhibits innovation. Cut this program and stop forcing us to pay for the destruction of our healthcare system..

Posted by Walter L. Brown Jr. at 8:36 AM