Healthcare – It’s about the power (not the $$)

That’s really what it IS all about – who gets to control how healthcare is dispersed among the citizenry.  While everyone is yammering about the costs, let’s not forget about one very important datum:

Hey folks, the US is ALREADY broke!

With a CBO rating of higher cost to the Feds of anywhere from $1 – $1.6 TRILLION buckaroonies, pushy this looney idea is just absolutely bonkers (yeah, let’s ignore the $50 or so TRILLION in the current hole for Medicare and Medicaid has given us – that’s just so inconvenient…)

And no, I do not buy into the silly notion that Obama is peddling that in order to get out of this current recession, we have to turn our healthcare system upside down for  3-6% of our population.  That’s merely a political canard. 

The real reason to fight this is exactly who gets to control healthcare.  Should it be the Government?  Should it be the individual?  This post from TCS Daily is a very good summary of the two differences in philosophy (emphasis mine):

So we have two factions slugging it out. The Obama team, representing the statist approach, insists that its plan will economically make the nation healthier. Free market advocates, the principled opposition to increased government intrusion, are convinced that Obama’s Health Care Reform will be extravagant and ineffective.

You might imagine that the way to resolve the conflict between the partisans is to find a fair way to forecast what health care spending would be with and without ObamaCare. But that would miss the point, because the dispute is not really about cost: it is about who will control health care. Statists yearn for a system where the government is in charge, while free marketers want individuals to make their own decisions...

…Consider the typical attitude of the ObamaCare advocate: he believes that people often make foolish choices and health care is an area where they need to be ‘nudged’ to make wise decisions. Of course, the assistance should come from experts who are empowered by the government to ‘assure the right choice is made.’ He understands that when the government becomes the major player in health care it has the power to control costs - by rationing services, if necessary. And rationing does not bother him because he feels that a lot of health care expenditures are currently wasted and there is a need for a more sensible way–other than the unbridled choices of individuals–to decide who gets treated and how.

If the ObamaCare enthusiast believed that total spending on health care would go down if the government refrained from fiddling he would not be impressed. A health care system that is allowed to go its own way, that relies on markets, that is not centrally planned is odious to him. It is worthwhile to spend more money on health care if the result is a system managed by progressives who are looking out for ‘the interests of society as a whole.’

And what is in the mind of the free marketer? He knows that each person owns his life and has a natural right to manage it for himself. He understands that the proper role of government is to protect natural rights – not to direct the lives of individuals. He appreciates that people have the capacity to make intelligent choices, and that when some people act imprudently, it is not a justification for a government takeover. He knows that when government extricates itself from meddling in the health care system the result will be more innovation, better services, and less expensive costs. But it is the importance of freedom, not saving money, that is the essential reason to proscribe government interference.

If the free marketer believed that additional government intervention in health care would result in reduced spending he would not be impressed. A health care system—and a human life—that is managed by a central authority is unacceptable. It is worthwhile to spend more money on health care if the result is a citizenry that is self-reliant and not subjugated to the will of the government.

If ObamaCare is enacted, the freedom of choice will be taken away.  Once Government is in control of what choices are left, freedom is eroded (you can tell where I stand on the issue, can’t you?  But you knew that already!).

Remember – a Government that is big enough to give you something (and in our current state, it has to borrow more and take more to do so) it large enough to take it away.  

My question is – am I not sufficiently an adult to make that decision for myself and my family?  I may believe that a procedure for Granny, who is suffering from dementia but needs a complicated heart catheterization, would be a family decision.  

Yes, an insurance bureaucrat may say "no, we’re not paying for that" – that still doesn’t rule out getting the procedure.  Under ObamaCare, as private insurance is wound out of existence (with a 5 year grace period or an automatic "if one benefit changes", it will), if an equivalent bureaucrat says no, no doctor or hospital is going to want to defy "them thats got the Gold".

So, are you willing to trade freedom for security?  Security today is as fickle as the whims of tomorrow’s politicians….