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Editor’s Note: Freedom First Society commissioned a series of interviews with Dr. Max Stanley Chartrand, who formerly served on the DC-based Healthcare Equity Action League. In this segment, we are interested in his insights into the potential repeal of what is fast becoming the single largest government takeover of private enterprise in the history of the United States.

Q: Hello, Dr. Chartrand, as you know, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010, in total disregard of the will of the people. Why do you feel such an unpopular form of healthcare reform was able to pass in the face of unprecedented public opposition?

A: Well, Paul, what many Americans are beginning to sense is that this horribly convoluted legislation has very little to do with providing equitable healthcare. Rather, it is part of much larger schemata. Certainly, with about 25 million still without coverage under ObamaCare, its passage wasn’t about universal coverage; its passage was about universal government regulation. Every objective proforma on this legislation shows it will run healthcare quality into the ground, while costs continue to rise from 16.5% of current GDP to more than 24% of GDP by the time it takes full effect in 2017.

Instinctively, many people understand that anything requiring illegal bribery, backroom strong-arming, and political threats in an already rabidly liberal Congress cannot possibly be a good thing. The people have made no secret about their steadfast opposition, and yet their elected representatives doggedly ignore their desire to prevent this awful government takeover.

Cap and Trade legislation, as well as the Finance Reform legislation now sitting before Congress, are going the same route: bribery and skullduggery, in an effort to force through economy-crushing bills against the will of the people. The same applies for just about everything the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Triumvirate has pushed down the throats of Americans to date.

Instead, as Americans suffer through the incredible shrinkage of the private sector and explosion of the size of welfare and government, they see that there is a sinister effort to bring the great middle class of this nation to its knees. One little girl recently said, “I can’t wait until I’m old enough for disability.” Thus, dependency is spreading faster than the government can handle it, while freedom is hijacked by a gang of men and women who despise the Constitution and free enterprise and have little respect for the Supreme Being that inspired the largest experiment in freedom in human history. Patient gradualism, the modus operandi of the past to bring this country to its knees, is no longer enough. The people are awakening, and those whose agenda is to erase state rights and the Constitution are getting desperate.

What careful research will bear out is that this has been going on a long time, long before even the Constitution of the United States was pounded out by the Founding Fathers. In uncovering the historical context, it would not take long for an astute researcher to discover, for instance, that Hitler was financed by American and European capitalists who prospered from the blood and war he created, or that busloads and planeloads of demonstrators are regularly paid to disrupt events all over the world. The impoverished men of Al-Qaeda are simply doing the bidding of their paymasters, who may reside in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada as easily as Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Russia. Likewise, Obama and Pelosi and Reid are mere actors in the larger scheme. They all are doing the bidding of the interests that finance them. Americans are caught in the drama, largely unaware that nearly all of it is contrived.

Q: So you think that ObamaCare was not pushed through because of genuine concern over the uninsured and skyrocketing insurance premiums?

A: Let’s take the premise of your question that ObamaCare actually addresses skyrocketing insurance premiums. The real reason premiums of private policies have skyrocketed is becausegovernment third-party payer programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, underpay the system by at least 41% of actual costs. Someone has to pay the bill, and private payers end up covering the lion’s share of it. The fact that a sizable number of private hospitals are expected to go under as the gut-wrenching power grab of ObamaCare takes hold will be another area where somebody will have to fill the uncompensated gap. Politicians who trumpet “Medicare Reform” are really just taking the expedient route of cost-shifting to the private sector. Nothing substantive is ever done about the real underlying costs of healthcare: dwindling incentives for the consumer to control his cost and to be healthy at the personal level, and a system bogged down in John Edwards’ style litigation, lack of competition across state lines, and cost-shifting from public underpays.

But let’s take the argument on its face that this really is about reducing costs. I mentioned earlier that ObamaCare will cause the cost of healthcare in the United States to soar from its present 16% of GDP to at least 24% by the year 2017. How is that possible? Simply by giving us more of what is already wrong with the system: Someone else paying the bill shields people from the consequences of behavior.

Who, upon being discharged from a weeklong stay in the hospital, bothers to scrutinize their 1,000-page hospital bill? After all, someone else is paying for it. Routinely, we hear seniors tell us that they don’t worry about the skyrocketing cost and overprescribing of medications under Medicare, because “it doesn’t cost me anything.” This scenario applies to a majority of the current broken system. But, under ObamaCare, it will apply to 100%, as there will be nobody left to whom these costs could be shifted. In other words, personal responsibility for one’s health — the main driver for cost under free enterprise — becomes virtually passé under ObamaCare.

Q: What about the MSA model to which you referred in past interviews? How does that stack up against ObamaCare?

A: Like night and day, Paul. Under the Medical Savings Account/Major-Medical model devised by the HEAL Committee back in 1990, the pilot study showed that most people stopped smoking, started exercising, ate healthy, and took better care of themselves. This was because the economic incentives were to get and stay healthy. The healthy were rewarded by not having to spend the deductible portion of the program. The heart of the program is what Obama derisively calls a “Cadillac policy.” But guess what, under the MSA model, the cost is about half what a standard policy costs today. That is fact, and the data is impressive.

ObamaCare is based on a static model that bad health is rarely a consequence of personal lifestyle choices. Therefore, with someone else footing the bill, there will be no reason for the millions of substance abusers, junk food junkies, and those exhibiting high risk behaviors to worry about the costs of those behaviors — that number will surely explode under ObamaCare. As said before, the object of ObamaCare is not cost savings, but instead control over the market. If Obama — himself a heavy smoker — does not care about the MSA vs. ObamaCare data, will he care about whether Americans have incentives of personal responsibility over their own health? Obviously not.

Q: But don’t insurance and corporate executives and their boards know this? Where were they while politicians blandly repeated the mantra about needing reform because of private care inflation?

A: That is a good question: Where were they? Well, some did protest vehemently, and then slinked off into silence as regulators and legislators threatened them, and then waved the false image of a huge new market that can be theirs if they play nice. The skullduggery Americans saw out in the open on Fox News, for instance, was child’s play compared to the strong-arming and wimpy caving in that occurred off camera. The same happened to corporate interests, who, after being cajoled and ridiculed before the public, were given false images of someone else paying their humongous employee healthcare bills. The executives would only suffer a bit of a nuisance with the “Cadillac policy” tax, while their employees were to be treated like welfare recipients under the new system of government care.

Q: What is happening on the movement to repeal ObamaCare, and what do you think the chances are that it can be repealed?

A: I am asked this all the time nowadays. But usually the question is prefaced with the opinion that ObamaCare cannot be repealed. But as sure as I stand here, I know it can and must be. If we care about the state of the nation, the economy, our families’ wellbeing, our freedom, the Constitution (the only thing standing between freedom and despotism), we must repeal. In my last interview with you, you might recall that I was among some others who called on the state governors to step forward and block this illegal usurpation of power. To date, more than 20 states have filed lawsuits with the Department of Justice and/or passed legislation to prevent ObamaCare from pre-empting state laws and regulations. This is progress, but it will not be nearly enough.

Immediately following the passing of the bill, a number of politicians postured over repeal, but it is the citizens that oppose ObamaCare that will make it happen. For that reason, they must be informed, especially within the framework of the Constitution. A good place to start is for your readers to turn to the “Say ‘No’ to Socialized Medicine” campaign page at the www.freedomfirstsociety.org website.

Without an informed and determined electorate — if past is prologue — we will see a bipartisan sellout at the last minute, and those who “represent” us will once again give up one final chance to restore states’ rights, bring true reform to the politician-created healthcare mess, and protect our nation’s economic freedom.

This November, we should settle for no less than men and women who will vote according to the Constitution. Then, after the election, regardless of party label, we must hold their feet to the fire of that sacred document, for it is the only thing standing between tyranny and us.

Moreover, I would that it will someday be said of the struggle over ObamaCare, as it was once said by the enemy’s general about Americans’ response after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “I think we awakened a sleeping giant.”

Dr. Chartrand serves as professor of behavioral medicine and is a widely published author and health researcher. He is also a Constitutional conservative who advocates workable, free-market solutions to the current problems within the U.S. healthcare system.

Q: Hello, Dr. Chartrand. So much has happened since our last interview…

A. Paul, it almost seems strange that we’re up against an even more formidable final push toward ObamaCare today than when we visited this topic earlier, until one stops and realizes the reasons why this threat came about in the first place.

We have known for some time, and it is increasingly more obvious, that what we are dealing with is not a drive to improve healthcare, but instead a drive to concentrate power and control in the federal government. But it goes further than that, and this is the point I hope to drive home today: The threat we now face on all fronts — healthcare, energy, economy, religious freedom, education, culture, the list goes on — are merely pieces of a much larger push to destroy the U.S. Constitution and the freedoms it grants.

A.  Like many individuals, I watched the five-and-a-half hour staged play billed as “The Bipartisan HealthCare Summit.” The President gave his much anticipated oratory of distortion, disingenuity, and emotional appeal and did his best to squelch any opposing arguments. I was embarrassed that a man of that level of power in the world could display such arrogance and treat with such disdain the arguments of those who are considerably wiser and more experienced on such matters.The Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, presented their usual fact-challenged arguments in favor of a government takeover, as well. But the biggest disappointment came from the Republicans who had a rare opportunity to present the real threats to freedom and to the citizens of this nation. Instead, they tiptoed around the elephants in the living room and allowed the opposition to go essentially unchallenged.

A.  Well, I will preface this by stating that I felt that many of the arguments presented by the Republican Senators were well reasoned and actually quite good … as far as they went. But they tiptoed around the much more important reasons that this monstrosity should be stopped. Had they brought out the most salient and disturbing issues relative to ObamaCare, enough of the public would have likely turned against it that we would be seeing headlines proclaiming defeat of the erstwhile measure by now.  For instance:

• The National ID Card provision stipulates that citizens’ financial assets and property will be made accessible to the federal government, in case of unauthorized use or overutilization of government-approved healthcare services. Put into practical terms, this means that the federal government would have the power to reach into one’s bank account without permission and withdraw funds anytime they feel you stayed in the hospital too long or if your doctor decided to save your life without first consulting the governing panel ahead of time. Few citizens would willingly hand over that kind of power and control over their lives to the political class. But after it becomes the law of the land, their disagreement to this kind of chicanery would be meaningless. This is perhaps the most onerous of all provisions of ObamaCare, because it is a direct assault on individual liberties — privacy, due process, and private property. Yet this terrible threat to the citizens of this nation was not brought up once during the so-called healthcare summit.

• There will be government appointed “panels” to decide which age groups, populations, and conditions receive public resources. This will, by necessity, lead to both rationing and passive euthanasia. The “death panel” analogy painted by Sarah Palin is very much a real part of ObamaCare when it finally takes over and ultimately destroys private healthcare. In reality, such panels in limited form now exist in both MediCare and Medicaid. With ever-dwindling resources relative to demand, their mission is to decide length of hospital stays, limits of care, and approved treatment regimes based on cost (not quality). Transposed into a “universal” program designed to drive out private market competition, these panels would hold life and death control over what treatments individuals are allowed to receive within their purview. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of such oversight panels?

• Public-funded abortion will become the law of the land, no matter the show of opposition staged by a few politicians now. From past experience, we expect to see this administration and legislative leaders bribe, threaten, and otherwise pressure fence-sitters into voting for this bill. Saying anything and doing nothing that was promised, this administration is pulling one fast one after another to remake this nation into their own or their masters’ image.

• Obama & Congress pretend that they have legal authority to sweep away hundreds of state regulations and mandates. However, States Rights are still very much the prevailing law of the land, except in well-defined cases of interstate commerce. Where are the governors in all this? By simple decree almost any one or two governors can stop Congress from overstepping that which is within the purview of state government! We should be challenging state governors to take back states’ rights and powers in this debate and tell the federal government that it has overstepped its constitutional authority.

• The most important aspect of true reform would be in incentivizing good health practices and an emphasis on individual responsibility. Instead, ObamaCare carefully shields the consequences of poor diet, lifestyle, and personal choices from consideration. Republicans could have cited important studies on the positive behavioral changes that routinely occurred under the Medical Savings Account model. Under such shared employer/employee plans (and their private counterparts), workplaces become safer, workers make better health and lifestyle choices, quality of care improve, and the cost of healthcare plunges. Instead, Republicans allowed unchallenged Obama’s scoffing disdain toward “high-deductible insurance” (which is not the MSA model!) to carry the argument.

• Other consequences of ObamaCare will involve en masse closures of private hospitals, rampant job loss and job dislocation, sharp reductions in eldercare services and certain specialty services, such as cochlear implantation to deaf adults, etc. These all add up to loss of freedom, reversals in scientific progress, and loss of empowerment for the most debilitated individuals in our society. It is and has always been the private sector that has given us innovation and advances in healthcare.

Likewise, with up to 30% of physicians vowing to retire if ObamaCare passes, we will see an almost instant shortage of physicians, reduced quality of care and accessibility. It is pure fantasy that ObamaCare or any modification of it will enjoy a smooth transition without having gut-wrenching effects upon the economy.

• Cost-shifting from public short-pays to the private-pay sector is the main reason for the recent private market premium increases. In the past, each time there is “reform” to control runaway Medicare, VA, and Medicaid costs, short-pays shift over to the private sector. Now the private sector of health care has shrunk to little more than 40% of the entire U.S. healthcare system, so that the vast majority of cost overruns, waste, fraud losses fall squarely in the lap of the public sector programs—and if Obama and Company have their way there will be no place for these inherent weaknesses of politically controlled healthcare to go. Senator Coburn’s (R-OK) suggestion to send out undercover patients to entrap unsuspecting physicians was a serious error. After forcing All-ObamaCare-All-The-Time onto the private market, the next step would be to eliminate the political opposition by unleashing a small army of undercover agents to put them out of business.• A final point is that many Republicans are well aware, as are the Democrats, that the push for socialized medicine has nothing to do with improving or genuinely bringing down the costs of healthcare. Instead, it is all about loss of freedoms, all-powerful central government, and is ultimately about merging this nation into a one-world government structure much like what has happened to Europe and the Mediterranean nations. This last point may be seem outlandish to an uninformed observer. But everything we have seen for some time now, efforts to destroy the U.S. currency, exploding foreign ownership of U.S. assets, killing of private sector jobs in the face of exploding jobs in government, and a drive to regulate everything but government spending and behavior, all point to a destination that ultimately leads to a loss of Americanism and the rise of One-worldism.

A. No, I didn’t. The more peripheral points were fairly well stated by Republicans during the so-called summit (i.e., competition across state lines, tort reform). But, while excellent points, these only constitute the tips of the proverbial icebergs lurking below the surface. The fact that the President and liberals in Congress are still pushing ObamaCare in the face of the most opposition in public opinion in recent memory to any bill of the past should inform any astute observer as to the purpose behind such a push. Taxes will by necessity rise by more than $100 billion per year, large fines will be imposed for non-compliance (except for the governing elite and their union supporters), and there will still be millions of uncovered individuals. It is amply obvious that the purpose behind tearing up the current system is to: 1) make a free people less free, 2) destroy private sector employment and commerce, and 3) make the population more dependent upon the federal government for everything, cradle to grave. Passage will also promote the bankruptcy of U.S. currency (and enable it to be “saved” by joining an international currency). To do all of this, of course, they must first destroy every vestige of the United States Constitution and its clear delineation of rights and powers.

A. First and foremost we should become well informed about this and all such legislation against the backdrop of the U.S. Constitution. One will quickly find that at least 75% of today’s topics of legislative discourse are straw men, for there are simply few legitimate federal solutions for these real or imagined problems. One will also find that most of the serious problems of the current healthcare system (lack of personal responsibility, rampant fraud and waste, and politicization) exist primarily because of federal programs. So, the only reason for pushing for more of the same are blatant attempts to concentrate even more power in Washington.Secondly, once informed, we become obligated to act. Awakening family, friends, and community is a good place to begin. Share all of the FFS interviews by this author, and The Marxist Attack on the Middle Classby G. Vance Smith and Tom Gow, as well as Don Fotheringham’s excellent essays on the Constitution found at www.freedomfirstsociety.org. Never has there been a time in our lifetime when so many people are so receptive to the hard truths of today’s drive for all-powerful government.

Third, keep an open public discourse on relevant topics and issues in letters to the editor in local and regional newspapers and publications.

Fourth, while Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are asking legistlators to commit political suicide, I feel these legislators would much prefer to go on living (politically). Write and call them—there are a number of websites now that feature direct links into congressional offices. Even though few of the emails received are actually read (some are), all are tallied into “for” and “against” columns on each issue.

Finally, we must stay focused. One’s greatest influence is local. Typically, legislators take more seriously letters from their constituents, editors are more likely to print locally-generated letters in newspapers, and those with whom we may have the greatest influence are those who know and trust us within the community.

Q: Any parting thoughts?

A. It is entirely possible, after all our best efforts, that this legislative nightmare may pass in the present Congress. We should never underestimate the depths of legal, ethical, and, yes, criminal activity that will be expended by those intent on forcing such sweeping control over the citizens of this nation. If they do succeed in passing ObamaCare, we must work hard toward throwing the rascals out of office and drive this and other bad legislation into the repeal process. In doing so, we may find welcome support from many of those we know.

Dr. Chartrand serves as professor of behavioral medicine, and is a widely published author, and health researcher. He is also a Constitutional conservative who advocates workable, free market solutions to the current problems within the U.S. healthcare system.