Let’s begin at the beginning. Medical care is not a free good found in nature. Of course, no one really thinks it is. But that doesn’t keep most people from wanting to pretend otherwise, and the current institutional setting makes that possible. After a while, one forgets one is pretending. Yet medical care goes on being a collection of produced goods and services — subject to the laws of supply and demand, and requiring resources and labor that come with opportunity costs. Therein lies the problem.

Medical insurance has come to mean getting something for free. The receiver of a service need not ask how it is financed. It’s just taken care of. (Passive voice intentional.) Yes, somebody gets paid, and the money comes from somewhere. That’s okay, as long as it doesn’t come from the covered party. (What would be the point of having insurance?) Don’t bother us with such matters.

Let us believe it’s free. Let the insurer figure out the rest. But he’d better keep that coverage going. And don’t hassle us by not paying all bills eagerly and unquestioningly. That’s what he’s there for. Just reassure us that whatever services we consume will be taken care of. We don’t want to know the details. What’s that? The government is promising to cap our out-of-pocket expenses, require coverage for preexisting illness and free preventative care, and extend the same deal to absolutely everyone? And this will have no negative consequences whatever, such as limits on what we can buy or enlargement of the budget deficit or higher taxes for the middle class — but it will actually save money? Oh thank you, government!

This irresponsible mindset, which is similar to a not-very-inquisitive child’s, is what at least two generations of government intervention in health care — and the welfare state in general — have produced in the American people. Thus the welfare state retards moral and intellectual development. We expect the State — our surrogate parent — to make it all right. The demagogues we call politicians are happy to feed this attitude because it provides occasions for the expansion and exercise of raw power while seeming, like Santa Claus, to give away free goods. Of such things long political careers are made.

Something for Nothing

The healthcare “reform” juggernaut seems to be on an irresistible course. The 1,990-page (!) bill (pdf) released by the House leadership yesterday is just the latest variation on the corrupt something-for-nothing theme. The details obscure the big picture. A modest public option instead of a robust public option? Blah blah blah blah blah. The government-run insurance “alternative” was always more signal than substance.

Why do you need a government “competitor” if the government will be dictating every detail of the private insurance business under any circumstances? What motivates the public option, I submit, is sheer hatred of private, for-profit business in the medical industry. Of course, we don’t have purely private, for-profit insurance companies — every state government runs a regulated, protectionist insurance cartel. (That’s why the feds exempted the insurance industry from antitrust; it was a favor to the state regulators.)

But the public-option advocates would oppose truly free-market insurance companies. Their true preference is a government monopoly — which is why it is so funny to hear them praise “choice and competition.” That’s the last thing they want, but they know that the American people won’t accept their single-payer scheme. Anyone who really wanted choice and competition would at least support legalizing interstate insurance sales. The silence about that is deafening.

Most people get their insurance through their employer, so they won’t have the option of the public option anyway. One of the biggest sources of trouble in the healthcare system is employer-purchased insurance — it cuts the consumer out of decision-making. Yet this bill, and all the others, strengthen that perverse system. Some reform. Despite the squawking, the insurance companies love the idea of forcing people to buy their products. The corporate state thrives.

Like an uninquisitive child, most people seem willing to believe politicians when they promise to subsidize and compel the use of medical “insurance” while reducing prices without controlling choices. And while they’re at it, they’ll cut the budget deficit and boost economic growth. One shouldn’t have to be an economist to smell a scam. Exactly how is that supposed to work? They’ll get the money out of Medicare — without degrading the service — and they’ll tax millionaires, while fining employers who don’t provide insurance and those of us who don’t buy it. Since the American people aren’t rolling on the floor laughing their you-know-whats off, I can only conclude that the government’s schools have so dumbed them down that they have no trouble swallowing this patent nonsense.

A final word about the nearly 2,000-page bill. Others have said it, but it needs to be repeated. No one will be able to understand all the implications and consequences of a government attempt to design 15 percent of the U.S. economy. Heck, few will read — and grasp– the bill in its entirety. (You also have to read all the statutes that are amended by the bill.) Enacting laws that no one comprehends, and that turn over yet-to-be defined powers to others, wouldn’t seem to satisfy the criteria of self-government, the consent of the governed, the rule of law, or any of the other political myths we live by.

I don’t how any theory of political obligation rooted in popular sovereignty that could regard this bill as morally binding when it becomes “law.” The process mocks the philosophy expressed in the Declaration of Independence. It insults the intelligence. It disgraces everything decent about this country.

President Bush’s faith-based initiative is a signature program of his administration. But not all Americans share the president’s belief that the government should work in close partnership with religious organizations willing to perform nonreligious public services, like running homeless shelters or drug counseling programs.

Wednesday, the US Supreme Court takes up a case that examines to what extent those opponents have legal standing to file federal lawsuits alleging that the White House’s faith-based initiative amounts to unconstitutional entanglement of church and state.

The case stems from a 2002 lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin-based group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Members of the group filed the suit as taxpayers who objected to having their tax money used to support religion.

Although the lawsuit brings up important issues of government involvement in religious organizations, it’s still missing the most important point. What’s avoided is the essential issue; the constitutionality of the American welfare state. And, no matter what the Supreme Court rules, the growth of government power will continue unchallenged.

Let it be clearly stated: Whether or not government funding gives rise to federal support of religion is an important, but secondary issue. The primary concern is the force used to support the funding in the first place.

Just like Bill Clinton, George Bush advocates new governmental intrusions into charity, education, health care, and other welfare programs with appeals for “compassion.” The faith-based initiative is openly a Bush-Republican project, yet it only repackages and grows the socialist concept of welfare. It’s called “charity” but it’s simply welfare under a different name. The politicians and pundits who promoted these initiatives were “conservatives,” but there’s nothing conservative about expanding the federal government’s role in any form of welfare or charity.

Forcing people to be generous isn’t compassionate or moral, and nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to levy taxes on one group of citizens for the benefit of another group of citizens.

As the welfare system has grown and grown in the past four decades, we’ve been exposed to countless problems and massive financial waste associated with it. Repeatedly, politicians have claimed that they know just how to make the welfare system better. We’ve seen new names and countless “reforms.” And, over and over, we’ve been told of great individual successes – always highlighting how the government is supposedly making people’s lives better.

But, despite all the highly-touted programs, the number of welfare recipients doesn’t really decline; the cost doesn’t seem to do anything but grow — and the epidemic of homelessness, drug use, teen pregnancies, family breakups, and crime — continues unabated.

The only reform deserving any real attention is that which will get the federal government out of welfare completely, as mandated by the Constitution.

Taxing, spending, borrowing, and printing of money does not lead to a prosperous society. It didn’t work in places like Russia, Japan and Germany, and it isn’t working in America either. At first, these actions seem to revive the economy, but they eventually become the source of the problem.

This is not a Republican Party issue, and it’s not a Democratic Party issue. It’s a problem of government power; the power to intrude into your life and force you to donate money to other people, whether you believe in their cause or not.

The notion that the federal government can best solve the problems of drug use, poverty, and homelessness by putting every private church and charity under the umbrella of government funding is completely delusional and economically ruinous.

Therefore, instead of continuing the expansion of the unconstitutional welfare state, Congress should immediately return the responsibility and control over charitable giving to the American people. How can this be done? It’s simple — by quickly reducing our tax burden to an absolute minimum.

If we want to improve the job we’re doing of helping the needy — the poor, the hungry, the homeless — the federal government should promptly stop taxing the American people so much. Then you’ll be able to give your own money to groups you support, and groups that know how to use your money wisely.