Rant

A comment was made in my hearing to the effect that "I could support a National Health Care Plan if only my money didn't cover xxx", "xxx" standing in for a demographic which is widely held to be at great risk for various health issues, largely due to poor decision making.

Here, more or less, is my response:

So, you make that deal, except that they won't not cover anyone you consider to be xxx, but they'll make you a member of their Reichs Federal Collective Health Board for Designating Xxx's, and they pay extra.

And MADD has a panel member to ensure drinkers pay through the nose.

The AMA has a hard-on for tobacco users, so they get theirs.

PETA gets to pick on meat-eaters.

Motorcyclists, skydivers, SUV drivers, homosexuals, people with tattoos, religious fundamentalists, overweight people, out-of-shape people, sports car drivers, people with piercings, muscle car drivers, people who play with guns...

Because some special interest group will sell out their own birthright (AKA the Constitution of the United States) in order that some other group they hate will get the shaft. If they have to frame that other group as a "health hazard", fine.

Despite the fact that the "private choice option" is there, this is still Socialism––it uses the National Socialist (AKA Fascist) economic model, whereby private enterprise exists, but the government sets all the rules. In the case of manufacturing, for example, what gets made, how many get made, to what standards are they made, what price can be charged... The pattern as it applies to health care is obvious in the bill the House of Mis-Representatives passed, and in the various options the Senate is considering.

Note that Obama's "Science Czar" seems to like the idea of forced abortions, sterilization, and children being forcibly taken away from parents. His Imperial Majesty's Science Adviser will probably have some sort of input into the decisions of the Bundes Peoples' Federal Health Board, don't you think?

To the extent that the American Health System is "broke" or "in a crisis", it is

1. Because of exorbitant malpractice insurance rates
2. Because of excessive regulatory requirements, which create a labyrinthine administrative burden
   
3. Because we are already paying for the medical care of people who cannot, or will not, carry their own health insurance. (Medicare, Medicaid)
   

And yet, countries with medical "systems" that the communists in DC seem to want to emulate––Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom––routinely send patients here for care they cannot receive at home, either at all, to standard, or in a timely fashion.

WHY?

Because US health care is the best in the world.

SO FAR.

The Federal Government cannot run a passenger railroad for profit, or even a brothel, the Postal Service is a byword for inefficiency and waste, and I am far from the only veteran here who can tell you about the VA.

People complain about the IRS, the TSA, the DMV, the VA, USPS, Customs and Immigration... And we're supposed to believe that the government can turn the minor annoyance of going to the doctor into an efficient success story?

Get those god-damned reindeer off my roof.

And people in that forum are still saying "I could support it if only..."

If only "The government was limited to regulating and funding."

As long as "The health care industry has no say."

And this in an online forum which one would think was frequented by people who would agree more with Billy Beck than with Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid!

But some people still need to be hit upside the head by a clue-by-four: As long as they don't see how their ox could possibly get gored, they don't care how much their taxes get raised, or who else's freedom is infringed...

Write your Representatives.

Write your Senators.

Go to a Tea Party Rally.