The Great Healthcare Scam of 2009

Slowly but surely, in America, a strong state is creating a weak people. When the state begins to rule over its subjects rather than protect rights, the people are no longer free. It appears that Democrats, Republicans and the American people are going to accept a mandate to buy insurance. There is some resistance to a public option - however, that will be compromised to something softer which can be hardened later, but it appears most everyone is accepting the inevitability of a mandate, despite some squawking about possible prison terms for egregious violation, whatever that means -- you either buy insurance and obey the law, or you don't and break the law.

 

A mandate to buy healthcare insurance is a violation of individual liberty, no matter how it's rationalized. It's a national confiscation of private property by the state. What we receive for our labor, usually money, is private property, and the state has no right to force us to give that property to someone else. Income tax falls in the same category, and this is one reason which explains how people have been trained to ignore these violations of our rights.

 

How much more government intervention can we take before the whole nation is too weak to resist? The government is in pursuit of more power, and control of healthcare is the gateway to achieving this control. Frank Chodorov was right 60 something years ago when he wrote about the income tax being the root of all political evil. The 16th Amendent sent America on a crash course which is now becoming evident as producers are mere cash cows to pay for statist schemes. The senate healthcare reform bill has many new taxes which are just the beginning of the confiscation which will come later.

Even the mandate is a sneaky income tax. The government is desperate to find ways to confiscate as much money as they can from tax payers to get this ill-conceived government take-over through congress and past the American people.

Comments

[Kelly Roy]

Under this argument- we should eliminate the mandate for car insurance, everybody on your own. For that matter we should eliminate the need for a driver license, any and all licensing requirements, eliminate all taxes and everybody goes it on their own. Of course that would mean, don't drive on roads, bridges, walk on sidewalks, go to a park or take an airplane flight, can't send your kids to school unless you already pay for them to go to private. Can't have it both ways folks.

[M. Farmer]

It doesn't mean that at all -- you don't have to drive, and if you do drive, it's reasonable to protect other drivers by enforcing insurance if you are going to drive. This falls within the government's role of protecting the rights of others. Forcing people to buy health insurance is a violation of individual rights. You have the right to do what you want as long as it doesn't violate the rights of others.

Only people ignorant of the prinicples involved will make that analogy.

Plus, the topic of paying for government services -- we can raise taxes to pay for government services through indirect taxes -- it's the direct taxes which are immoral.

Think things through before you start making wild claims.

[M. Farmer]

But even with car insurance, it doesn't have to be mandatory. There could be an understanding in society, that in case of accidents, you can sue for damages, or buy a policy that covers you in case someone ran into you and there are repair damages or hospital bills, then the insurance compnay could sue for damgaes if someone else was at fault. Judges would likely be hard on people with no insurance and take what they can get to offset damages. It would probably all work out that people voluntarily get insurance once they saw what judges took from others if they didn't have insurance. Plus banks could require insurance if they are going to give a loan, which they already do.

I believe most people would get insurance, or pay for the damages out of their pocket, plus be way more careful;..-- in other words, we could work it out without mandating insurance.

[Jeff Johnson]

As a society, we need to decide whether everyone has healthcare paid for with mandatory insurance, or we allow people to go without insurance if they choose to do so. I favor the latter, but I also favor turning their unpaid emergency room bill (or any hosptialization they get) over to the IRS for collection.

Just as it is an injustice to force a free person to purchase a product, it should also be not allowed to saddle the rest of society with the bill due to their lack of personal responsibility.

The whole abortion thing is what gets me. Regardless if you are pro-choice or pro-life, show me one existing insurance plan where an abortion is not considered an elective procedure. My insurance doesn't even cover a yearly physical or vaccines, and I work for a hospital!

[Mike Farmer]

I agree Jeff, people should pay for their emergency room visits. As a society, if we choose to be charitable and build charity hospitals for the needy, then we should do so, and i beleive this would happen if government gets out of healthcare. Also, society needs be a pressure valve so that when young people come of age, it's practically a given that they get some sort of low cost catastrophic insurance coverage to cover emergencies -- but they shouldn't be forced to pay for full healthcare policies if they don't want to purchase the policy -- our society needs persuasion and peer pressure, not coercion.

With a lot of the safety net issue, creative insurance arrangements are the answer -- but the free market will meet these demands at an affordable cost if government does not interfere.

We've got to begin thinking outside the government box.