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"Going Postal" with Healthcare

Posted by Tim Dotson on Aug. 5, 2009

Taxes, Obama, Freedom, Unemployment, Tim Dotson

Has anyone got the emails likening Obamacare to Hitler?  As a good friend pointed out to me, there is a lot of sensationalism going on from both sides of this issue.  These emails point to one single line, even one single word as damning proof that this idea of nationalized healthcare is either evil or an absolute necessity.  While I have read a number of parts of the bill, I told my friend I need not even reference it to make the case against it in three quick points.  Here they are.

1. The government never runs anything well.  Anyone who has stood in the atrocious lines of the Post Office or DMV can attest to the fact that when bureaucrats make decisions, it it rarely for the customer's benefit.  It is all about contolling cost regardless on the effect of service delivery.  Given the enormous cost of health care, this will be magnified.  Besides, we already have government run health care.  It's called Medicare and Medicaid.  There is no one clamoring to get these services.  Anyone who had had to use them can attest, you have to go through hoops just to get the absolute minimum care, and they fight you every step of the way.  Why would this new plan be any different?

2. We don't have the money.  Because of the economy, we have experienced the biggest drop in tax revenue since 1932.  There is much less money to pay for what the government planned to spend at a deficit than they imagined when they approved the last budget.  Add to that the billions in unplanned bailout money that has produced no negligible effect and you have a unmanageable debt with no way to pay for it.  This is not the time to be adding a giant expenditure.  This would be like taking a vacation to Vegas the day your house is being foreclosed on and your declare bankruptcy - completely irresponsible.

3. Working for something is always better than getting it for free.  In a free market economy, giving out free health care takes one more incentive away from participating in the system.  The more incentive there is to work, the more people work.  The more people work, the more tax revenue there is - without the need to raise taxes.  This has been proven time and time again.  By making healthcare a right instead of an incentive, we weaken the free market economy.  My favorite Thomas Jefferson quote is "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."  He couldn't have been more right.

I don't want a bureaucrat making my health care decisions.  I don't want to add to this country's crippling debt.  I don't want to get something for free that I should work for.  I don't want Obamacare.