The USPS never offered overnight delivery despite the demand. They said for years and years it was impossible. Then Fedex said “F— you Post Office” and did it. And now, lo’ and behold they offer overnight delivery. The problem being is that what if the Feds forced Fedex out of business before they started doing overnight delivery? We’d never have it.

There is no guarantee that the legislation will force private insurances under, but there are several clauses in it which raise that concern for me. When private insurers are gone, where will the innovations come from?

If people were created in the image of God, then we are creators. Creativity ends when limitation occurs. Dependency evolves into limitation. When the mind gets enveloped in limitation, slavery occurs. If the government dictates what you can and can’t do, it becomes the master, you become the slave. It’s more than laws and regulations. It’s what happens to the mind and therefore the soul.

When are you the happiest? When you are creating something. You have a sense of purpose. If you work and earn money and buy something with it, you have a sense of value. You earned it. Handouts from the government breeds entitlement. We have gotten close to the edge of the cliff already. Look at society today and see how much of an entitlement mentality already exists. That’s how Obama got elected. He promised the world, and they believed. They still do.

BHO-WHO has this damnable utopian dream that if you kill the rich bastards a level playing field will be the result. Not so. The rich will still be there, but fewer in number. The poor will still be there, but higher in number. You can’t keep taking from the rich and expect their ability to keep employing the middle class to continue as has been the case for lo these many years. How many jobs are created by poor people? NONE!

That slavery point is not insignificant. Yes, it sounds like hyperbole, but what else is it when I am forced, by threat of incarceration, to work so that the government can take the fruits of my labor and give my wages to somebody else?

This goes back to my earlier post about the government trying to fix the wrong problem. BarryO thinks health care is too expensive. If that’s the case, do as you write, and attack the areas that are driving costs up. “Government” cannot do that. “Government” is nothing more than a group of U.S. citizens doing a job. We have the same pool of 300 million citizens to choose from. Why will people work better and smarter as part of a government agency than they will in the private sector? Unfortunately, the opposite is all too often true, but even if it weren’t, even if folks do the same work in the public or private sector, how can taking the employees from private sector health care, and shifting them to the public sector make them work cheaper, or better? It’s the same pool of people.

Basically, more government is less freedom. Less freedom is slavery. Government giving handouts is the worse thing it can do to a person. It causes them to become dependent. Dependency erodes the mind. We are truly headed in the wrong direction.

You write, “We want affordable options. These options are not provided in the current structure of health care.”

First, how can adding another layer to the system, a government bureaucracy, lead to better efficiency? If you truly believe the private market has not driven prices down to their lowest possible levels, how does adding more employees to the puzzle lead to lower prices? We’ve got hospitals, doctors, nurses, orderlies, claims adjusters, pharmacists, medical equipment, beds, syringes, bandages…. now. We’ve got all the components we need to provide health care, and all those components are competing now for patients’ money. If the bandage company charges too much for their product I, and the hospital and the nurses will switch to a cheaper bandage of the same, or better quality. That’s all in place now. So how does adding an extra layer of employees to the system make any of those things cheaper? Now we’ve got to work their salaries into the cost of all those items. If you truly are interested in bringing costs down (and I believe you are), you should be lobbying to take the insurance companies out of the system so patients are dealing directly with health care providers.

Second, we are not all going to be able to afford great health care. You use the term “affordable health care.” What is “affordable health care?” When I was starting out on my own, paying for College and working nights at minimum wage jobs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Swanson pot pies, Ramen noodles and Kraft macaroni and cheese were affordable. That’s what I lived on. Now I can’t believe how inexpensive those items are! They are no longer affordable, they’re downright cheap. I understand that Warren Buffet is going to get better health care than I do. If he and I get the same, terminal illness he will live longer. He has A LOT of money and he can afford things I cannot. So, what is affordable, and why is it the government’s job to ensure all U.S. citizens can “afford” something?

Excellent point about us already paying for the uninsured. That is true, and that gets left out too often in discussions on this topic. I’ve got two main concerns about this. The first is what a large government plan will do to competition. Most of the civilized world is already on socialized medicine. The U.S. is the last, great, free market where an innovator can make a new drug or invent a new piece of medical equipment or procedure and still make a personal fortune. What will happen when this market goes away? Research and Development will be planned by the government. That will have a huge, huge, negative impact on innovation. Second is the simple issue of freedom. Being free means we are also free to screw up our own lives. Here is an old post I did on the topic, http://www.threedonia.com/archives/617 If you get a chance, read it. Here’s another one that deals with it from the angle of Economics, http://www.threedonia.com/archives/459

Our country is built on some fundamental principles and individual freedom and responsiblity are foremost in those ideals.