Monday, October 12, 2009


ObamaCare could be used to ban guns in home self-defense
...in addition to an extensive list of statutorily mandated coverage, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be empowered to “define and update the categories of treatments, items, and services…” within an insurance plan which would be covered in a policy constituting “required minimum health coverage.”

ObamaCare and gun control

It is nearly certain that coverage prescribed by the administration will, to control costs, exclude coverage for what it regards as excessively dangerous activities. And, given Sebelius’ well-established antipathy to the Second Amendment — she vetoed concealed carry legislation as governor of Kansas — we presume she will define these dangerous activities to include hunting and self-defense using a firearm. It is even possible that the Obama-prescribed policy could preclude reimbursement of any kind in a household which keeps a loaded firearm for self-defense.

The ObamaCare bill already contains language that will punish Americans who engage in unhealthy behavior by allowing insurers to charge them higher insurance premiums. (What constitutes an unhealthy lifestyle is, of course, to be defined by legislators.) Don’t be surprised if an anti-gun nut like Sebelius uses this line of thinking to impose ObamaCare policies which result in a back-door gun ban on any American who owns “dangerous” firearms.

After all, insurers already (and routinely) drop homeowners from their policies for owning certain types of guns or for refusing to use trigger locks (that is, for keeping their guns ready for self-defense!). While not all insurers practice this anti-gun behavior, Gun Owners of America has documented that some do — Prudential and State Farm being two of the most well-known.

The good news is that because homeowner insurance is private (and is still subject to the free market) you can go to another company if one drops you. But what are you going to do under nationalized ObamaCare when the regulations written by Secretary Sebelius suspend the applicability of your government-mandated policy because of your gun ownership?

All of this is in addition to something that GOA has been warning you about for several months … the certainty that minimum acceptable policies will dump your gun information into a federal database … a certainty that is reinforced by language in the summary providing for a study to “encourage increased meaningful use of electronic health records.”...