{"id":10218,"date":"2009-12-13T22:10:03","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T05:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=10218"},"modified":"2009-12-15T08:16:33","modified_gmt":"2009-12-15T15:16:33","slug":"special-interests-undermine-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/12\/special-interests-undermine-the-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Special interests undercut the Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo by Kenny Miller\/flickr.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Our corrupt system gives corporations and other special interests\u00a0undue influence\u00a0that undermines the Constitution. The ongoing health-care reform debate in Washington proves the point.<\/h4>\n

Some people don\u2019t believe me when I tell them I don\u2019t get too worked up about debates in Washington and Santa Fe over hot issues like abortion, climate change and health-care reform.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s true. I\u2019m a registered independent partly because my views are all over the map and I have a difficult time reconciling my beliefs with those of the Democratic or Republican parties. But there\u2019s another, deeper reason I\u2019m anti-partisan. I believe both parties, and the system in general, are corrupted by corporate and other special-interest money.<\/p>\n

I think the genius of the U.S. Constitution is that it values the collective compromise of the whole over the beliefs of any individual. But our corrupt system gives corporations and other special interests\u00a0undue influence\u00a0that undermines the\u00a0Constitution\u00a0that created it.<\/p>\n

The ongoing health-care reform debate in Washington proves the point. This discussion has been hijacked by a Republican Party that largely doesn\u2019t want any reform \u2013 not because individual Republicans don\u2019t see the need for reform, but because too many elected officials from that party are in the pockets of the status-quo health-insurance industry. Certain Democrats who are also in the pocket of the industry have also hijacked the debate.<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

Our system is so corrupt that any debate on health care reform must take place within the framework of what\u2019s acceptable to the health-insurance industry. There may be liberal and conservative options within that framework, but Congress is still working within the box created by the industry.<\/p>\n

So, while the president wanted a debate on whether to enact a single-payer system, he was forced to accept a discussion that started with less — a public option. Even that has now been watered down into the creation of some new, bureaucratic federal agency that would oversee private insurance plans.<\/p>\n

Meaningful reform on hold<\/h3>\n

Meanwhile, meaningful reforms that the majority of members of Congress could easily agree to \u2013 such as legislation that would forbid insurance companies from rejecting claims on the basis of a pre-existing condition — are on hold.<\/p>\n

Instead, back-room debates about prescription drugs<\/a> \u2013 a sacred cow of members of Congress who are owned by the industry \u2013 and other issues are bogging down debate. And members of Congress are quietly slipping industry friendly provisions into the bill, including one that would, in the words of The Associated Press<\/a>, \u201clet insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer.\u201d That provision is deceptively hidden in the section of the bill entitled \u201cNo lifetime or annual limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m battling a life-threatening illness, I don\u2019t want a plan that is going to run out of money in September and not start covering my treatment again until January. Such a provision benefits the health-insurance industry\u2019s wealthy benefactors, not the American people.<\/p>\n

Congress has operated in a similar box on other issues. Certain viewpoints are off the table from the start.<\/p>\n

For example, instead of a debate on whether to try to reverse global warming, we\u2019re debating whether we should try to slow down the rate at which it\u2019s happening. For those who believe that humans are causing the planet to heat up, that means instead of debating whether to stop killing the planet, we\u2019re debating the speed at which we\u2019re going to destroy it.<\/p>\n

There are also proposals on the right that are off the table because of special-interest influence, such as Ron Paul\u2019s push to abolish the federal Department of Education. Why can\u2019t we have that debate? And why can\u2019t we have an honest debate about whether to actually pay off the national debt \u2013 and how we would do it \u2013 instead of just debating the speed at which we increase the national debt?<\/p>\n

Ethics reform is critical<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m independent primarily because I believe in the system of government the U.S. Constitution intends. Get a group of people with varying backgrounds and viewpoints together to debate the merits of a proposal \u2013 with all options on the table and without undue influence from groups that have interests other than the good of the American people at heart \u2013 and you end up with something closer to the truth than any of them can find by themselves.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just one person in a nation of hundreds of millions of people. And, because I believe in the truth that emerges from honest debate of the issues, I\u2019m more interested in seeing our system function as the democracy it should be than I am in seeing my beliefs enacted into law.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why I focus so much of my journalistic efforts on ethics reform. I don\u2019t think anything is more important in America in the 21st Century than finding a way to create the system of government our founding fathers intended.<\/p>\n

Until that happens, I don\u2019t believe our political leaders can have honest debates about the other pressing issues of our time.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502 Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502 Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our corrupt system gives corporations and other special interests undue influence that undermines the Constitution that created it. The ongoing health-care reform debate in Washington proves the point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[109,117,114,107,116],"class_list":["post-10218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-ethics-reform","tag-health-care","tag-public-corruption","tag-roundhouse","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}