Posted by
Patrick Henry on Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:52:40 PM
Since Barack Obama's ascent to the White House and the Democrats' seizure of near absolute power in
both houses of the legislature, we have seen a constant reign of intrusion on business and industry in the guise.
of bailout. Banks and automakers have been seized and virtually nationalized. An ever expanding
net of government regulation has blanketed for-profit enterprise and lawmakers have proposed new taxes
on businesses and individuals making over $250,000 annually. The theme of Obama's campaign was that
of "re-distribution," by which he meant taking from those he deemed to be rich, and giving to those he
deemed poor. These and other developments have led to renewed charges that Obama and the Democrats
are socialists whose goal is to remake America in the likeness of the socialist democracies of Western
Europe.
Theses related events have attracted scant attention by comparison with the raging debate over healthcare
reform which, in most of the pending bills propose a virtual government takeover of the medical and
health insurance industries either through regulation, or by a combination of regulation and competition
that makes the for-profit insurance industry untenable This, in effect, is a government takeover of one
seventh of the nation's entire economy.
Great promises have accompanied the much ballyhooed reform package. It would reduce national health-
care costs, add nothing to the deficit, make affordable universal coverage available and reduce healthcare
premiums. That's what we were told. Now, according to a number of studies, we see that in fact national
healthcare costs will rise 2.1% even if the trillion dollar bills become law, premiums will skyrocket almost
immediately, millions of Americans will still not be covered (under any version) and while some of the bills
are deficit neutral over the first ten years, all of them will increase deificit to unsustainable levels (a la
Mediacare) during the second decade. Additionally, while benefits would be four years in coming, tax
increases required to pay for them would be immediate, and there would be an enforcible mandatethat all
Americans must purchase insurance.
All of this begs an important question. If reform is not going to cut costs or be long-term deficit neutral,
and if it still leaves some citizens without coverage, then what is it really about? What if it is only a link
in the chain of a massive government takeover of the enture national economy? What if, as Democratic
Representative Barney Frank has stated, the "public option" is really the doorway to a single-payer system
by which the government pays for and thus controls all aspects of healthcare (socialized medicine)? What
if a Democrat victory in passing healthcare reform is simply a springboard to the next link in the chain, the
passage of the cap-and-trade government takeover of the energy industry.
In the heat of debate, with numbers, cost estimates and methodologies flying randomly back and forth, it
is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Healthcare reform is just a swell. The brick-by-brick
deconstruction of capitalism (as one of Obama's "czars" put it) is the tsunami. Does healthcare need to be
reformed? Of course! Do American families need accessible, affordable coverage. Undoubtedly! But do we
need to burn down the best healthcare system in the world and replace it with a bureaucratically run
entitlement boondoggle that jeopardizes our national economy, heaps an additional burden on taxpayers
and projects the spectre of rationed care that we see in other scocieties that have adopted it? By no stretch
of the imagination UNLESS it is simply a steppingstone to something bigger and more insidious. Despite
the derogation of America that the country is "too racist for socialism" by Obama czar Cass Sunstein, one
cannot help but wonder if that is not Obama's goal. To paraphrase Socrates, "The unexamined bill is not
worth passsing."