The Undisclosed Danger of Government Health Care

Government health care is not concerned with patients. Politicians' interest is primarily focused on the productive---in the U.S., about one-third the population. Government has no income other than what it confiscates from the productive. So, promises of "affordable health care" depend on the able while devouring life from them. In other words, parasitism.

Some people seem oblivious to this. A man wrote on Twitter, "I'm a socialist and proud of it." Whatever he may feel about being a socialist, pride is not a virtue possible to a looter and a parasite. Blood lust is.

State planning demands obedience. For example, Organizing for America held a meeting in Belen, New Mexico on government health care. OFA would not allow any expression of opposition. They told dissenters to "Sit down!"-meaning: "and shut up!" They became angry when questioned. They spoke to one of the dissenters using coarse language. They put obscene notes in other dissenters' vehicles and ignored those who complained about such conduct.

Such creatures abound in government health care. It is common knowledge, for instance, that those in state-run sanitariums, asylums, and senior care centers are sickeningly abused. Little is done about it. The government is in charge.

Interfering with impunity in other people's lives and property is characteristic of those who advocate government health care. Some time ago, Wal-Mart announced its support of socialized medicine. It wrote, "[T]he best way to lower costs is by managing the supply chain [meaning the medical professions] and encouraging efficiencies of scale [meaning medical rationing]."

"Managing" those who aren't employed by you is a euphemism for violating others' individual rights. Those who took over Sam Walton's extraordinary achievement are helping to destroy what made it possible. They are evading the importance of individual rights, which protects private property and promotes innovative thinking.

They're not the only ones evading facts. The AARP declares "need is a right," while seeking to deny rights to those they plan to force to fill those needs. But need is not a right. No one has a right to other peoples' work and effort wrested from them by force-legalized or not. Yet the AARP says force is a proper means of dealing with individuals. They say might makes right.

So does Mr. Obama. He declared that he will set doctors' fees based not on how many patients the doctor treats, not on his specialty, not on how many hours he works, but on the patient's improvement. Mr. Obama evidently does not grasp that medical problems characteristically are replete with numerous variables and that results of medical treatment are not as predictable as sunrises. Should we trust such stupefying ignorance?

Mr. Obama has no understanding of the free market. In a free-market, the patient judges a doctor's performance, not a politician. If the patient is dissatisfied with the doctor's performance, he can sue for malpractice. He can seek out another doctor. He can persuade others to boycott the doctor and drive him out of business. He can write to newspapers describing the doctor's performance. He can complain to whatever associations the doctor is a member of.

Government health care offers no alternatives. The state dictates. The doctor must obey. And so must the patient. Like the doctor, the patient under government health care is frozen into a system that is riddled with irrational requirements dreamed up by politicians and their lackeys. The dream revolves around control of the able.

Whether doctor, businessman, blue or white-collar worker, it is the able that make life worth living. It is the able that stand with the facts of reality against fallacies and falsehoods. It is the able that earn the money that pay politicians salaries. It is the able that politicians seek to control.

Government officials seek to force their edicts between doctor and patient, declaring that their force is superior to your choice. They seek to insert ignorance and suspicion between knowledge and trust, declaring that their say-so is superior to a physician's knowledge and judgment honed by medical experience, and to a patient's evaluation and decision.

But the mind cannot be ruled by force. Those that can, are incapable of creating anything. They can only destroy. Such minds are those of thugs and goons, the lowest ranks of society.

Thought does not function efficaciously under threats. Minds that are able, shut down under force or the threat of force. In medicine, force discourages interest in a medical career. The number of doctors declines; the quality of medicine follows suit. Research and development becomes sluggish, eventually ceasing altogether. This is the undisclosed danger of government health care.

Destroying another's rights does not guarantee health care. A right yoked to a bureaucrat's whim is not a right. "A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context." (Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights.") To destroy one man's rights is to destroy all men's rights. To destroy the rights of doctors and patients is to turn a nation into warring camps and those needing medical attention into numbers on a waiting list.

Either doctors are free to work unfettered by government edict or they are not. Either we are free to choose our doctor or we are not. Either each of us is free to earn our own way, keep what we earn and decide how to dispose of it, or we relinquish that freedom to government officials---which means, we relinquish our individual rights of life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.