Health Care Disaster, Let us Count the Ways

Current, proposed Health Care Reform is poised to

1) add 111 new bureaucracies

2) levy at least 17 significant new taxes --primarily affecting the middle class.

3) enact "an unprecedented form of federal action through its "imposition of an individual mandate, or a combination of an individual and an employer mandate." [CBO, "The Budgetary Treatment of an Individual Mandate to Buy Health Insurance"]

4) give the government defacto control over 17% of our nation's economy

5) further sever the consumers of health care goods and services from the costs of their expenditures--thus increasing demand, encouraging waste and driving prices even higher

6) institutionalize burdening the young and healthy with the misfortunes of the sick, while at the same time undermining responsibility for one's own health and life-style decisions

7) violate the spirit, it not the letter, of the Constitution.

Congress is determined to shove this legislation down our collective throat, in spite of the fact that a majority of citizens oppose this legislation (52% are against--and 43% are strongly opposed, while 42% are in favor, and only 22% are strongly so)-- even going so far as to by-pass the usual debate and conferences which are normally part of the processes to reconcile bills between the Senate and the House.

At stake is nothing less than our freedom.

Will we allow Congress to push our mixed economy further towards the failed policies of socialism (government-owned businesses and the redistributive welfare state) and fascism (government control of the economy through a myriad of laws and regulations) or will we reassert our rights to freedom of association and contract, to private property, the rule of law and the ownership of our lives and the fruits of our labor?

Wanting others to share in our bounty is laudable. I too want to live in a community which cares for the less fortunate, and makes provisions for those who are truly unable to provide for themselves. But to attempt to achieve those goals through the coercive power of the state will not only fail to care for the sick and the poor, it will lead to the shriveling of the wealth we have to share. The very act of using government coercion, even for a desirable end, will destroy the basis of good will between men. Mutual respect of each man for each other man's life will not survive in a society that accepts the violation of individual rights. Any sustainable, long-term solution must be predicated on the absolute ban of the initiation of force between men---and by government most of all.

The current health care reform bills invoke the initiation of government force in every single section.

Let us use our strength, wealth and creativity to find ways to expand access to medical care, but let us not abandon our recognition of the sanctity of individual rights, and with it all chance of lasting peace and prosperity.



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