Proof Positive: Obama's Vision of Health Care Inconsistent with Liberty

President Obama said,

“the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out there.” He added: “It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. That is why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.”

Yet, President Obama is on record as saying he would have paid for his grandmother’s hip replacement out of his own pocket, had it been necessary.

The essence of Obama Care, is that you would never be allowed to make that decision for yourself ever again. “Some independent group” would evaluate granny and see if she has enough quality years left in her to potentially “waste” limited and valuable resources on her. Liberty be damned!

“It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions…” Why is “the country” making those decisions at all? Why isn’t it granny and her family and her doctor? Some might toss out the red herring of the insurance company, but even if insurance doesn’t cover it, what’s to keep son or grandson or husband from reaching into their own pocket (as Obama suggested) or taking out a loan, selling the house or the family jewels to finance the medical care they want?

Food is more necessary to life than health insurance. Would we want to government to nationalize the food industry? Take away all of those obscene profits (I think most grocery stores make around 2%) and make sure that no one among us starves to death?

Can you imagine your local grocery store providing you with more goods and better services on a model based on, say, the DMV?

You walk into the store and take a number and are seated with several dozen of your fellow citizens who merely needed to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work.
When your number is finally called, you take your list up to a bored and harried clerk who will give you what he thinks you need, not give you the luxury of actually selecting the brand of item you wanted.

And since the state knows that everyone needs protein, perhaps they will issue protein vouchers, to make sure that the now limited choices are spread equitably? You hand the clerk your protein voucher and maybe you’ll win the lottery of life and get a t-bone or a porterhouse steak, but much more likely, some overly fat hamburger, tofu or soy (most of the steaks having mysteriously disappeared in the direction of Washington D.C.)

The “country” doesn’t and shouldn’t decide whether or not I buy steak or hamburger. The “country” doesn’t and shouldn’t decide whether or not I buy fruit and vegetables or Fruit Loops® and Ho-Ho®s.

If “the country” decided what clothes we would all wear (that cunning little Chairman Mao jacket comes to mind!), I doubt that anyone would be allowed to buy $800 designer belts and buckles any more than they would let anyone own more than one surfboard. (Surfboards? Way too dangerous! Make those guys wear helmets so they don’t use up any more of our precious health care!)

In a free society, people have the liberty to make decisions that other people would not necessarily make for them. Even stupid ones. I do not need the state to be my nanny. If a small portion of the populace needs and does not have access to health care insurance, I have no problem with a needs based voucher, much like we have with food stamps.

But as an excuse to take over the entire health care system, it is a poor one. One that will make us all poorer as it slowly destroys the finest health care system on the planet.

Liberalism cannot make us all equally rich, but it can make us all equally miserable.
With the possible exception of those elites who have exempted themselves from the system. The last thing I heard from them was: