Gun owners believe their Second Amendment rights will be compromised if the health care bill sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus is passed.
The Baucus bill dovetails on a provision in President' Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package last spring that requires all gun-related medical data to be funneled into a national health database.
“This is going through because the hard left and the Democratic Party are intent on a government takeover of medicine, and that’s what Baucus’ bill will do,” says Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. “It’s certainly not something that gun owners want to see at all, because the privacy invasion that this will compel is a danger to gun owners in terms of registration and in terms of people having medical records used as a flag to deny their right to keep and bear arms.”
The Baucus bill doesn’t mention guns, but the omission leaves room for subsequent "interpretation."
“The very fact that the word gun is not in the bill should give us all concern, because there’s nothing to stop them. They really intend on controlling a lot,” Pratt says. “This is a control bill; this is not a health bill.”
A provision in the bill would allow Americans to decline the government plan, subject to a fine of up to $3,800.
“Let me get this straight. If you choose to exercise your Second Amendment rights under Senator Baucus' proposed healthcare law, you have to buy your right to medical privacy?” Pratt asked.
Pratt's GOA is lobbying to stop the bill.
“We have had a staccato of legislative alerts going out, and people can go to gunowners.org and they can target what exactly is before the Senate and what needs to be requested,” Pratt says. “This is one way we try to counteract the enormous pressure being put on these so-called moderate Senators, because really the success or failure is going to depend on whether or not one Senator from the Democrat side is willing to hang tough and break from their party. People can help us keep the heat on.”
