When the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified in 1789, it set a new standard of personal liberty previously unknown in the history of the world. The basis of this document was a series of restrictions placed on the government to prevent it from impeding on the freedoms of its citizens. The United States was established as a democratic republic, a collection of independent states working together for the overall good of all. The recent trend of federal government interference in state and local issues would undoubtedly have the framers rolling over in their graves.

One of the most egregious of these government assaults on personal liberty is the Affordable Care Act, more commonly referred to as Obamacare. Imagine the reaction of James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights, if he were informed that the US would mandate it’s citizens to purchase a commercial product and to fine them thousands of dollars per year for choosing not to comply.

When the Affordable Care Act was proposed, we were assured that if we liked our current coverage, we could keep it. Soon after implementation however, it became clear that this was not the case at all. Citizens who had chosen to pay only for catastrophic coverage soon found that this very affordable policy did not meet the minimum required coverage level mandated by bureaucrats in Washington. Those affordable policies no longer were available because they did not meet the minimum standards for coverage and so those individuals saw their health insurance costs, double, triple or worse. If they opted not to purchase coverage at the new minimum levels, they faced fines imposed by the federal government of thousands of dollars.

Why would the federal government go back on its promise to allow people to keep the coverage they had previously selected? Why should the government want to force a young, health person to buy insurance from a private carrier well beyond the level needed or wanted by the consumer? Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with insurance coverage, it is all about redistribution of wealth. The extra funds provided by the forced purchase of this insurance by young, healthy people helps to offset the costs of policies provided for low income persons and persons with more immediate health care needs. While it is certainly nice to try and help those in need, forcing citizens to purchase commercial products under threat of fines seems at best covert and almost certainly unconstitutional.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the Affordable Care Act, however, is that it is destined to fail. More and more insurance companies are opting out of providing the coverage because it is economically unfavorable. If this trend continues unchanged, who will be left to provide this coverage? Could it be that the creators of this plan had as their goal that the US government would wind up providing this coverage as a national socialized healthcare system? One only has to investigate the history of misappropriation of funds associated with the social security program to see how potentially devastating that could be for our country.

Finally, it should be remembered that the Congressmen, Senators, President, Vice President and cabinet members who are involved in creating and maintaining policies like these are exempt from them. As federal employees they are all covered by federal programs and exempt from programs like Social Security and Affordable Care. Americans should certainly question policies made by government officials which are deemed good enough for the public, but not good enough for those who created them.

It is certainly very important that all people in our country have quality health care available to them when they need it. Our country has always shown itself to be among the most charitable in the world and as such we need to care for our own people. As important as this is, it is even more important that we maintain the personal liberties guaranteed to us by the Constitution. In order to achieve the former while protecting the latter, it is clear that the Affordable Care Act needs to be replaced.