The Criminal Intent of ObamaCare

From:  The American Spectator

The Criminal Intent of ObamaCare
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/10/08/the-criminal-intent-of-obamaca



A couple of weeks ago the President and his allies in the press made much of ObamaCare's six-month anniversary, using the occasion to tout a selective list of minor provisions that went into effect on September 23. We heard a lot about dastardly insurance industry practices, such as the fiendish refusal to insure people against maladies they have already contracted, from which we are now shielded by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). There was no mention, however, of a more important provision that has also gone into effect. This obscure provision of PPACA, buried deep in Section 6402, has received little attention from health policy wonks and even less from the "news" media. Nonetheless, it has very serious implications for the legal rights of health care providers, the American justice system and ability of many patients to access medical care.


A fundamental principle of our justice system holds that a person cannot be convicted of a felony unless it has been proven that he acted with "criminal intent." It must be shown, in other words, that he intentionally engaged in conduct he knew to be illegal. This is a venerable legal principle whose pedigree reaches back to the beginnings of Western Civilization, and it was an important element of the English common law upon which the American justice system is based. The requirement to prove criminal intent has, however, been something of a nuisance to Beltway bureaucrats seeking to bend private industry to their will. And it has been particularly inconvenient for federal prosecutors trying to throw doctors and hospital executives in jail for violating hopelessly obscure and Byzantine regulatory statutes. But that pebble has been removed from the federal shoe by ObamaCare. . . . .