Vaccines: You can't say No. But they're free

It is interesting... in the days when Americans paid for vaccines ourselves,  in cash, we were allowed to choose them for ourselves.  We did so, judiciously and appropriately.

No, I'm putting the wrong slant on this:  there was no "allowed" about it.  Back then, who ever imagined a future US government inserting itself into our health decisions, phones and every online click?

When I was a young adult, we thought only a Soviet gulag would treat its citizens like this.

We thought we had a Constitution that was the ultimate law of the United States.  We thought the job of the Supreme Court was to guarantee that US laws complied with our Constitution.

That was the world I knew.  My children know a different world entirely.  The Surveillance State, the corporatization of our public institutions, and endemic political corruption is all they have ever seen. 

They also grew up when health insurance and the Vaccines for Children program started covering the cost of American childrens' vaccinations.

Then came Obamacare, which was going to improve our health and save us money (ha!) by paying the costs for disease prevention.  "Prevention" under Obamacare turned into a few measly tests (which my ACA insurer is unable to identify) and a whole lot of vaccines--covered 100%! Several thousand dollars' worth of vaccines. The Affordable Care Act required all new health insurance policies to cover all vaccines recommended by CDC.  

And the 21st Century Cures Act, passed by the House in 2015 and pending in the Senate, will require CDC/ACIP (CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) to rapidly consider for addition to the recommended list of vaccines every newly licensed vaccine. Many states automatically require every CDC-ACIP listed vaccine in order to attend school. This is one way the federal government manages to insert itself into our healthcare, an area legally excluded from federal control by the 10th Amendment to the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Last spring, in the blink of an eye, a sprinkling of measles grew a bumper crop of legislation in states throughout the US, informing parents the state would no longer educate their children, unless they let the state doctor them, as well.  

According to FOX News analyst (and retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge) Andrew Napolitano, if you don't give your children all state-mandated vaccines, the state can take your children from you, and the state--New Jersey--will educate them, doctor them and raise them for you:

New Jersey law... shows no deference to parents’ rights and permits exceptions to universal vaccinations only for medical reasons (where a physician certifies that the child will get sicker because of a vaccination) or religious objections. Short of those narrow reasons, in New Jersey, if you don’t vaccinate your children, you risk losing parental custody of them.