NPR Reports:

When asked whether they would support a broad proposal that would require everyone to get coverage, 59 percent said they would support it. Such a proposal would require employers to provide coverage or pay into a pool. The government would help low-income people get coverage, and insurance companies would be required to take anyone who applies. People who don’t get coverage through one of these channels or purchase it themselves would pay a fine.

I can understand the desire to help get everyone covered.  It seems to be a good goal (although I generally disagree with the methods proposed), but this is going way to far – and pretty quickly too.

Now we’re seeing a shift.  It’s no longer – “let’s help everyone get health insurance” Instead it’s become – “Get health insurance, even if you don’t want to, or we’ll fine you.”

And guess what happens if you don’t pay your fines?

Right.  Jailtime.

I don’t have health insurance, and at this point, I don’t want any.  I choose to self diagnose and care, and do pretty well with that too.

Ask yourself this:

Should I go to jail for making this choice?

Should I go to prison, because I don’t want to hand my money over to some corporation that “provides”me something that I don’t want?

What next?

Should I be forced to buy a certain car, or some other product or service that the politicians have determined that this disobedient subject must have?  Seems to me like that’s nothing more than good old fashioned cronyism – forcing us to give even more of our hard-earned incomes to the corporations that the politicians prefer.

Give it time. I’m sure more such tyranny is coming – all with the cloak of legitimacy that “broad support” gives it.

By the way – where, exactly, in the Constitution, is the federal government given the power to do any of this?

As the George Bush stated in his weekly radio address:

“From my conversations with Democrats and Republicans, it is clear both parties recognize that strengthening health care for all Americans is one of our most important responsibilities”

Based on this statement, it’s also quite clear that both parties have chosen to abandon the rules of the Constitution. As the 10th Amendment states so plainly:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Here’s a simple challenge for anyone reading this post: review the US Constitution, and try to find health or health care mentioned anywhere. You might have a tough time, because it’s not there.

Therefore, since getting involved in medical care or the medical insurance business is not within the purview of the federal government, such activity is simply not authorized. Health care, health insurance, drug policy, and the like, must be “reserved to the States…or to the People,” no matter how noble the cause may seem to be.

One fact is nearly indisputable, though: health care in America is in bad shape, and it’s getting worse each year.

We are often reminded that more than forty million Americans go without health insurance, and that this is the fault of the greedy corporations making billions and not due to anything the government has done. We’re told that it’s the health care providers, it’s our employers, or it’s our own bad decisions.

According to the politicians, our declining health care system is anybody and everybody’s fault, except the federal government. This just must be true, because they care about us so much, and would never lie, right?

But, it wasn’t always this way. For decades, the healthcare system in the U.S. was the envy of the whole world. Not too surprisingly, there was far less government involvement in health care at that time as well.

The mess our health care system is in is not the result of too little government involvement, but rather, too much! Obviously, the politicians would never tell us this.

Such honesty would prevent them from having even more power over our day-to-day lives.

Instead, we are told that more and more government involvement, regulation, and decision-making over our health and well-being will solve our problems. But, government is already responsible for nearly two-thirds of all health care spending. They have given us Medicare, Medicaid, billions of research dollars, and countless thousands of pages of regulations.

Even the so-called conservatives, with George Bush leading the charge, have continuously expanded federal power and strengthened government control over our health. With Bush’s prescription drug program, Republicans saddled us with the largest expansion of medical socialism at the national level since the introduction of Medicare. Leftists and socialists should be cheering!

Has all this spending and “regulation” reduced the price of health care? Has all this government “intervention” increased the quality of health care?

No. And this should be quite obvious. Every single year health care gets more expensive, and less accessible, with reduced quality as well. As a result, the politicians spend and regulate the industry more and more each year – to save us, of course.

The important question is this: Who is better off from all the “help” the government has given us? Is it the companies that get favored status, we the people, or the politicians themselves?

If these meddling politicians really cared about people; if they really cared about YOUR health, they’d be doing everything possible to get the federal government out of health care entirely.

Forty years of declining quality and rising prices should make it obvious to even the casual observer that all this government intervention is failing. More intervention is only likely to do the same.

The solution to all today’s medical problems is to get government out of health care. At the very least, we need to end all this massive federal regulation, end Medicare, and repeal all mandatory coverage laws. The result of these early steps would be better care at a lower cost for seniors, the growth of charity hospitals and free clinics, and more options and lower prices for the rest of us.

The best way to make health care more efficient and more affordable is to take the government and politics out of it. If we are to survive this awful mess, we need to follow the tenth amendment and get the federal government completely out of health care, drugs, and everything else not specifically authorized by the Constitution.

This is just what is needed to help the sick and the poor, and that’s exactly why the politicians aren’t even talking about it.