What Does the Federal Government Have to Do With MAHA?

Reminder: I’ll be speaking at the JFK Lancer conference and also at the CAPA conference.  The Lancer conference is being held on November 22-24 in Dallas. The CAPA conference is now being held online. There is also another excellent JFK conference on the same weekend sponsored by the JFK Historical Group. All three of them are fantastic JFK-assassination-related conferences. I highly recommend registering for all three and then picking and choosing which sessions you would like to attend at all three conferences. The registration prices are moderate and it’s a great way to support three great conferences. I will have some of my JFK books at my presentations at the Lancer conference to autograph and sell at a discounted price. I hope to see you all there!

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Conservatives and some right-wing libertarians are very excited about the prospect of having Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., be appointed to a healthcare-related position in the Trump administration. Some of them are already referring to Kennedy as Trump’s “healthcare czar,” a term that conjures up images of pre-communist Russian czars who exercised omnipotent, dictatorial-like powers over the Russian people. In fact, in an indication that Trump might well vest Kennedy with unrestrained healthcare powers, Trump stated, “I’m gonna let him go wild on health. I’m gonna let him go wild on the food. I’m gonna let him go wild on medicines.”

The rationale for all this healthcare right-wing excitement? Their excitement is based Kennedy’s declaration that he intends to MAHA — Make America Healthy Again.

A question immediately arises: What authority does the federal government have to MAHA? Federal powers do not come from the president or the Congress. They come from the Constitution. If a power is not enumerated in the Constitution, then the federal government is prohibited from exercising it.

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If one does a very careful search of the Constitution, one notices one glaring omission: The Framers did not vest the federal government with any power to MAHA. In fact, the Constitution does not vest the federal government with any healthcare powers whatsoever, including the power to provide healthcare (e.g., Medicare and Medicaid) or the power to regulate and control healthcare (e.g., the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes for Health).

But don’t tell that to Kennedy. As a stalwart liberal Democrat turned ardent Trumpster, he has praised communist Cuba for its socialist healthcare program, one in which the national government provides healthcare for all. Thus, there is little doubt that RFK, Jr., would love to see the same type of fully socialized healthcare system for America — one with him in charge, of course.

What would a Kennedy healthcare czardom look like? Of course, it’s impossible to know for sure. But one possibility, which even some right-wing libertarians would support, is a reign of terror being unleashed on government officials and physicians who prescribed the Covid-19 vaccine to people. Some of Kennedy’s right-wing supporters say that the vaccine killed or injured people and, therefore, that government officials and healthcare providers should be punished for recommending, prescribing, or administering it.

Never mind that there is no federal criminal offense on the books under which officials and doctors would be criminally charged. In the right-wing mind, that is irrelevant. As far as right-wing healthcare proponents are concerned, they “know” that those officials and doctors are “guilty” and, therefore, should be punished severely, even if they have committed no federal criminal offense.

This is why conservatives loathe libertarianism, which is a philosophy not only of freedom but also one of due process of law. Libertarianism is no more anti-vaccine than it is pro-vaccine. For that matter, libertarianism is also not anti-mask any more than it is pro-mask. Libertarianism is simply pro-freedom, which means that everyone should be free to make these decisions for himself. If someone decides to take a vaccine, that is his right. If someone decides not to take a vaccine, that is also his right. The same applies to the wearing of masks or any other peaceful action, such as social distancing.

The same principle holds true for businesses. If they wish to require employees or patrons to wear masks or be vaccinated, that is their right, just as it is the right of people to work elsewhere or patronize other businesses. It’s all part of what living in a free society is all about.

By the same token, libertarians hold that before a person can be punished for a crime, his action must be defined on the books as a crime. To punish people for actions that do not constitute a crime on the books constitutes what one of the gravest violations of due process of law and sound criminal jurisprudence that one could ever find.

Appointing Kennedy to be a healthcare czar demonstrates the wide gulf that separates conservatives and libertarians. Conservatives want government to be involved in healthcare. They just want conservatives to be wielding and exercising the healthcare powers. In other words, they want right-wing healthcare czars rather than leftwing healthcare czars.

Libertarians, on the other hand, don’t want any czars at all, left or right. We libertarians simply want a free society, which necessarily means getting government out of healthcare entirely — at both the federal and the state level. In other words, unlike conservatives, we libertarians favor a separation of healthcare and the state, in the same way that our ancestors separated religion and state. It is only by ridding ourselves of government involvement in healthcare that we can achieve a genuinely free — and healthy — society.