Government Health Care is Hazardous to Your Health

On June 25 a town hall meeting was held in Rio Rancho, New Mexico to discuss Obama's health care plan. The meeting opened with a televised study of the Canadian and UK's health care plans. Afterwards, a factual report of the Obama plan was presented. Listening to it, I felt like I was in 1938 Germany listening to someone explaining Nazi proposals to crush everyone under an iron boot.

The Obama plan is a full-scale collectivization of America, of our lives and of our relationship with our government. It is the undiluted destruction of our individual right to life and property, a denial of the right to choose what to buy, from whom to buy it, how much we choose to pay and at what time we choose to pay it.

It proposes to tell doctors and others working in the medical industry what to do, and what to charge, what treatments to offer, and what prescriptions are permitted. It proposes to tell patients who they may have access to, what treatments they may have, how long they must wait for treatment and whether---as in the case of those over 70 years of age---they will be treated at all. On top of all that, it forces earners/producers to pay for what they do not want.

It spreads its fetid breath over every aspect of health care. The result is total control of every citizen's well being and ultimately of every citizen's life. It is not a health care plan. It is the destruction of individual rights and the transformation of our nation into a socialist state. This is the "change" Obama promised. He meant it then. He means it now.

Obama's universal health care plan proposes to force American earners/producers to pay the medical bills for every United States resident, whether a citizen or not. The same idea in principle was tried in New York City many years ago with welfare checks. Every moocher, looter, free-loader, malingerer and other form of parasite dwelling elsewhere, moved to NYC to take the checks that New Yorkers were forced to pay. Within John V. Lindsey's first term, the city was swamped with "migrants" who lived on welfare, cluttering the city's streets, esplanades and parks. With Obama's "medical care for every resident," the result will be the same and very likely considerably worse.

Additionally, the plan requires by law that everyone have health insurance whether they want it or not, making the government the single, sole payer. The single payer concept means there is no alternative the citizen may choose from, there's no way to redress a wrong. There's no way to seek a different opinion, there's no way to select a doctor you feel more comfortable with or a treatment you prefer. Doctors and patients alike will be under the command of government bureaucrats.

Most important the single payer concept effectively eradicates competition and makes health care into a monopoly. In private enterprise, monopoly doesn't exist for very long because competition eventually finds a way to get a foot into the market---by lowering prices, improving products, offering different products. But a government monopoly is enforced by the gun. A government monopoly guarantees ruinous practices, lower quality goods, decreasing competence and efficacy, higher prices and, therefore, higher taxes. The best example of this is the U. S. Postal System.

The self-employed doctor will be effectively eliminated. Those working at health care facilities, clinics, hospitals and other voluntary associations will be government employees. Without any competition to make money in medicine, loaded down with government paperwork and bureaucratic "watch dogs," doctors will not be able to see as many patients as they might like. They will not be able to improve their skills and discover new treatments or develop better, more effective skills. Without competition to make good money, interest in the field will decline and the quality of care will deteriorate while political pull-peddlers will replace skilled medical personnel.

Do not make the mistake of attributing to this health care plan and its sponsors the currently fashionable bromide of "good intentions with unforeseen consequences." There are no good intentions in this bill. The government knows exactly what it's doing. Here's one telling piece of evidence: All members of Congress and all of their staff will be exempt from the plan.

Like the stimulus bill, Congressional representatives have not read the health care bill. They will vote on it without knowing what they are voting on. And like the stimulus package, it is expected to pass. In 2 weeks.

Please call your representatives in Congress and insist they vote against all the government health care plans pending.