BILL OF RIGHTS PART 5
"Residents have the right to affordable preventive healthcare. For residents otherwise unable to access such care, the City shall guarantee such access by coordinating with area healthcare providers to create affordable fee-for-service programs within eighteen(18) months following adoption of this Charter provision."
Note that general health care is not ordained a right, but only preventive health care. I take this to mean things like regular physicals, exercise programs, weight loss programs, stop smoking programs, and such. Now, these programs already exist in abundance. So, making them affordable seems to be the issue. Should there be a local law that forces providers to sell these services at a loss? I don't think so. Is the City to make up the difference, or what? The City doesn't have the money. Maybe the Bill's sponsors should have first spent their time on digging up some more revenue for the City, before they launched this leaden monster.
Affordable health care is one of the more important issues the nation faces. But it can not be solved by local action such as this. Perhaps I'm not seeing the implementation possibilities of these "rights," but if that is the case we are back to the pig in a poke problem.
"Residents have the right to affordable housing, the right to a safely maintained dwelling, an the right to be free from housing discrimination. The City shall ensure the availability of low income housing stock sufficient to meet the needs of the low income housing community. People and family may only be denied the renting or buying of a dwelling for non-discriminatory reasons and may only be evicted from their residence for non-discriminatory causes."
We have city laws, state laws, and federal laws that ban discrimination in housing. And these are laws which ban specific discrimination such as that on the basis of race. So, why bother with this redundant law and why no specificity? And we already have safety codes. Again, the Community Bill of Rights serves as a question machine. There is no way the City can ensure an adequate stock of low income housing. Though they certainly should do what they can to alleviate the shortage.
As I read through the remaining provisions of the Bill, I see nothing but more of the same. So, there is no point in more or less repeating myself. So, I'll finish with a statement of my overall view. The Bill either ordains rights we already possess under law or ones it has no authority to ordain. The Bill is so unclear as to leave the door open to tyrannical interpretation. This is especially so in the ecology section. A document such as this, written and conceived by intelligent men and women, yet so vague, invites speculation. I know that the people who I see as the authors but who proclaim themselves only facilitators conduct "Democracy Schools" which lay out many arguable evils inflicted upon our citizens since the founding of the nation. I speculate that each provision of this Bill has one of these perceived evils as a partially hidden target I guess that this fact is glossed over in the interest of getting votes. I draw my speculations in part from attending a coffee house presentation of the Bill early on and interviews with some people who attended the Democracy School.
Note that general health care is not ordained a right, but only preventive health care. I take this to mean things like regular physicals, exercise programs, weight loss programs, stop smoking programs, and such. Now, these programs already exist in abundance. So, making them affordable seems to be the issue. Should there be a local law that forces providers to sell these services at a loss? I don't think so. Is the City to make up the difference, or what? The City doesn't have the money. Maybe the Bill's sponsors should have first spent their time on digging up some more revenue for the City, before they launched this leaden monster.
Affordable health care is one of the more important issues the nation faces. But it can not be solved by local action such as this. Perhaps I'm not seeing the implementation possibilities of these "rights," but if that is the case we are back to the pig in a poke problem.
"Residents have the right to affordable housing, the right to a safely maintained dwelling, an the right to be free from housing discrimination. The City shall ensure the availability of low income housing stock sufficient to meet the needs of the low income housing community. People and family may only be denied the renting or buying of a dwelling for non-discriminatory reasons and may only be evicted from their residence for non-discriminatory causes."
We have city laws, state laws, and federal laws that ban discrimination in housing. And these are laws which ban specific discrimination such as that on the basis of race. So, why bother with this redundant law and why no specificity? And we already have safety codes. Again, the Community Bill of Rights serves as a question machine. There is no way the City can ensure an adequate stock of low income housing. Though they certainly should do what they can to alleviate the shortage.
As I read through the remaining provisions of the Bill, I see nothing but more of the same. So, there is no point in more or less repeating myself. So, I'll finish with a statement of my overall view. The Bill either ordains rights we already possess under law or ones it has no authority to ordain. The Bill is so unclear as to leave the door open to tyrannical interpretation. This is especially so in the ecology section. A document such as this, written and conceived by intelligent men and women, yet so vague, invites speculation. I know that the people who I see as the authors but who proclaim themselves only facilitators conduct "Democracy Schools" which lay out many arguable evils inflicted upon our citizens since the founding of the nation. I speculate that each provision of this Bill has one of these perceived evils as a partially hidden target I guess that this fact is glossed over in the interest of getting votes. I draw my speculations in part from attending a coffee house presentation of the Bill early on and interviews with some people who attended the Democracy School.
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