The Thugging Has Already Started
Dr. Paul Hsieh’s op-ed in this morning’s Washington Examiner paints a rather grim picture of the future of the American health care system:
Suppose the mafia came to your town and forced everyone to purchase all their meals at mob-approved restaurants. The mafia would also select the menu items.
If you liked broccoli but their vegetable choice was spinach, then tough luck. Everyone would also have to purchase dessert, whether they wanted it or not. And if some customers couldn’t afford the high-priced meals, the mafia would force you to “contribute” to cover their bills.
Most Americans would be outraged at such violations of their basic rights. But this is precisely what the president and Congress want to do with health insurance.
The sad part is that past presidents and past congresses already have forced their wishes upon us. They’re called mandates. Minnesota has 68 of them that they impose on insurers and health care providers. Still, this is a beefier mandate than anything Minnesota has passed.
This is Chicago machine-style politics at its worst, with the SEIU thugs, not the police, providing this administration’s enforcement. This is what’s at stake:
Under any system of mandatory insurance, the government must necessarily determine what constitutes an “acceptable” plan. Hence, this creates a magnet for special interests seeking to include their pet benefits on the required insurance menu.
Massachusetts residents must purchase numerous benefits that they may neither need nor want, such as in vitro fertilization, drug abuse therapy and chiropractor services. If you’d rather purchase low-cost catastrophic-only insurance without those options, tough luck. Mandatory insurance thus violates the individual’s right to spend his own money for his benefit according to his best judgment.
In addition to being unconstitutional, this legislation tells families and doctors that the government knows best, that doctors and families won’t act in their financial and health care best interests. That’s arrogance at its worst. That type of behavior can’t be tolerated. This legislation must be defeated ASAP because our liberty is truly at stake.
Technorati Tags: Mandates, Health Care, Obamacare, President Obama, Chicago Politics, SEIU, Corruption, Democrats
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
November 17th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Sacrifice for the greater good is noble. At least it is when that sacrifice is a personal decision, not the government’s. When the government makes it, it is called, at best, oppression.
The report out yesterday on mammograms is simply the first step of many designed to remove choice from the people, and when that report’s been given full authority by the bureaucracy (i.e., it will be the dominant position when authorizing mammograms), then panels such as it will truly become “death panels” not because they in fact cause a bullet to be put to the patient’s head but because they’ve lost any sheen of humanity they may have had and are simply telling “the people” who’s worthy of living and who’s got to die.