Health Care and the Moral Imperative
by Joseph C. PhillipsI am always troubled by those in government claiming they have a moral imperative to enact this or that policy. A little digging often reveals that their motives are more self serving than moral. I am doubly troubled when those raising the moral banner tend to reject the very idea of an objective morality applicable to all men at all times.
Such is the case with liberal Democrats and their insistence that the moral laws of the universe – laws that have been with us since God breathed life into man (or as some would have it when we rose from the primordial soup) – command Government to supply every citizen (and many that aren’t) with health insurance.
But as is generally the case all we need do is scratch the surface and the truth reveals itself.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, John Cassidy of the New Yorker lets the cat out of the bag when he writes on The New Yorker website that we must be clear about what the reform amounts to. “The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment,” Cassidy writes. “The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind.” And why are they doing it? Again the WSJ quotes Cassidy: Because “ObamaCare serves the twin goals of making the United States a more equitable country” and furthering the Democrats’ “political calculus.” In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.”
That might explain why this massive 2000 page bill uses the command “shall”- business “shall” do this, you “shall” do that — 3,345 times; creates 111 new government boards, commissions and bureaucracies all overseen by a healthcare czar and subjects every aspect of healthcare to government regulation; all this at a whopping cost to taxpayers of $1.5 trillion over 10 years, which will be paid for through a host of new taxes, penalties and fees. In spite of rumors to the contrary; there is no free lunch.
This bitter pill might be easier to swallow if the new left was at least honest in admitting that the cost of seeing this imperative through will be paid for in freedoms. These new Knights Templar have defended their cause with constant references to affordability and yet under their plan what is affordable ceases to be a subjective measure that each man can make for himself according to his individual needs and priorities. Rather it becomes an objective measure defined by the new “Commissioner of Health Choices.” Every American will be forced to purchase an insurance policy. The government will decide what benefits those policies must include. Even if you are happy with your current insurance plan you will have to switch to a policy that includes the government mandated benefits even if you don’t want them, will never use them and their inclusion will increase the price you pay for coverage. And suppose you decide for whatever reason that you are simply not going to pay? Well the house bill specifies “a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” Imprisonment.whereupon you will of course receive free government healthcare.
There is nothing quite like morality imposed at the point of a gun, or which benefits some at the expense of others.
The Pelosi bill narrowly won passage in the house after Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) offered an amendment prohibiting abortion coverage in the public option as well as any private plans accepting people receiving taxpayer subsidies. But be not dismayed; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House of Representatives has promised that she and other pro abortion democrats will work overtime to ensure that the Stupak amendment is not included in the final version of the health care bill. During an appearance on MSNBC Wasserman Schultz declared, “I am confident that when it comes back from the conference committee that that language won’t be there.” That’s right; those claiming a moral imperative to reform healthcare are the same folks that believe they also have a moral right to murder children in utero AND force others to pay for it.
It seems obvious why those claiming the mantle of righteousness chose to pass this monstrosity of awfulness under cover of darkness. Thankfully — to quote the pop star Jeffry Osborne — “I really don’t need no light to see through you.”
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39 Comments
You've nailed with the cost in freedom. That's exactly what this entire fiasco is about. Health care is nothing more than the vehicle for moving this power grab through congress.
Guess what happens when government is paying your health care bill? They get to control the costs, which in this case also means life style choices which can be shown to impact the cost of health care. That's what this is really about.
Every nanny organization with a pet peeve about the way some one chooses to live will get a fair hearing in congress.
Think people shouldn't eat meat? Whip out a dozen studies appearing to show the correlation between eating meat and needing more health care, and you've got a financial reason to legally force every one to become vegetarians. Don't like people lighting up? Ban smoking completely. Don't like car pollution, show a correlation between healthy bikers and over weight drivers, and there's your process for clamping down on automobile owner ship.
Nothing will be safe. And that's exactly what they want. They'll be happy to lose one or even both houses of congress to get this power. They don't even care if Obama loses in 2012. Because they will already have that power. All they have to do is wait for the natural swing of the pendulum of political power back their way.
Once a person is dependent on government, there is no turning back. I can only hope this bill gets shut down in the Senate. The amount of control the government will wield over our everyday lives is staggering. Not to mention Congress and the Unions are exempting themselves from this pile. If there was no better warning sign to abandon this whole thing is that they are not subjecting themselves or their family to this gov't run program called "disaster".
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Alex Murashko Jr and Big Hollywood, Michael Chavez. Michael Chavez said: Health Care and the Moral Imperative http://bit.ly/tYP4R [...]
This is a succinct, superbly written article.
The comment from EdSki about "banning smoking" points out the obvious hypocrisy of the left in mandating health care. To wit, if the government actually cared about your health, they wouldn't subsidize and tax tobacco production, sales and advertising as they presently do. Tobacco is the number one preventable cause of disease and death in the U.S. If the government actually cared about your health, why would they subsidize and tax the one thing that is most likely to adversely affect your health?
As the author of this excellent article points out, this has nothing to do with government exercising some moral mandate, it has to do with taking more freedom from its citizens, period. Vote the swine out!
Every dictatorial or fascist regime has begun with the government takeover of health care (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Castro….)
What makes this attempt to curtail our individual freedom even more disgusting is that the dumbocrats' basic stated premise of the need to provide quality, affordable care to everyone is violated. Not only will the quality of health care suffer drastically from the government's intervention as services are necessarily rationed, the costs for the majority that already has health insurance will soar.
Go figure.
Duplicity at its peak. The unsuspecting taxpayers for generations will foot neverending bills that will have minimal impact on their own lives. This is redistibution of income in veil.
It's ironic that those who shriek "Keep your laws off my body!" to justify abortion now want to put the government's mitts all over everyone's right to make their own decisions about essential matters of health.
Once the government puts itself in charge of providing health care, every personal decision we make becomes THEIR business. Every statist scheme ever dreamed up by leftist will be imposed without putting it to a vote because it will be interpreted as a "health issue."
People who are free are not economically equal, and people who are economically equal are not free.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by hoovesq and Barbara Simson, Vincent deCastro. Vincent deCastro said: Joseph C. Phillips discusses the tragedy of self-serving politics. Health Care and the Moral Imperative http://is.gd/4Wu0M [...]
My advice if the health care bill passes and becomes law: If you make it to 65, start smoking and drinking heavily.
Looking ahead, I think the prison system could become overwhelmed with people without health insurance. How many people will patently refuse to buy insurance just to go to jail?
And remember what Comrade Obama said in defense of the jail penalty: "Penalties are appropriate for people who try to free ride the system and force others to pay for their health insurance."
How effing (pardon my French) hypocritical is that!? What the heck does he think his public option/universal healthcare is? Forcing someone else to pay for their healthcare!
If nationalized healthcare was as imperative as the political prostitutes in DC claim then why does it go into effect in 2013? Because it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster and Hussein wants it implemented after the 2012 elections, otherwise he has zero chance of a reelection. Frankly he has a Zero chance anyway. If the election were held today he would lose. The senate should keep this in mind; if they vote for this unconstitutional bastardizing of our healthcare system their political careers are over. And that will be just the beginning of their nightmare. There will be consequences for selling out the nation.
"Penalties are appropriate for people who try to free ride the system and force others to pay for their health insurance."
We need a new term for this sort of massively deceptive BULLSH!T. How about the OrwelliMachiavellian Masse´ Shot with extra backspin off three rails into the Taxpayers' Pocket?
when the cigarette tax- one of the highest in the free world- goes to health insurance for children, you have a quandry of epic proportions. Namely, you are as addicted to a revenue stream as the smokers are to nicotine.
Same with liquor.
Which is why a VAT is coming soon to a government near you…
"Health care reform" isn't just about Orwellian control of the populace, though that is a part of it. It also is about Social Security which with the retirement of the baby boomers could bankrupt the nation. So how do politicians address social security insolvency which is the third rail of politics? By rationing health care to seniors and/or making them waiting in a queue for treatment. The sickest ones will die while waiting, whether from old age or the disease process. This is what happens in all countries with "universal care". Universal means care for the productive, the tax payers in other words, and rationing for the rest of us. Retirees are a drain on the system unless they're independently wealthy or politically connected. A Teddy Kennedy will always get the top of the line medical care and treatment; Joe Sixpack, Sr.? Probably not.
Teaser: When Hillary care was on the horizon (con'd).
When Hillary Care was on the horizon in the early nineties with the Canadian style system (no horsing the line allowed, no private care allowed) an acquaintance of mine (a vascular surgeon) was recruited to head up a vascular surgery unit in a private hospital in Scotland. All the other specialities and subspecialties likewise were represented – state of the art – best medical equipment available anywhere.
So why a private hospital in Scotland, a country with "universal health care". Ostensibly for "Middle Eastern sheiks" and "rich Euorpeans". But when Hillary Care bellied up, the Scottish hospital staggered along for another year or so, then quietly closed. I say quietly because the propaganda media never reported its existance. There was only a small blerb in the WSJ about its closing. My acquaintance returned to the USA about a million bucks richer than when he left. (The specialists were highly paid).
con'd
If you don't think this hospital was supposed to take care of superrich Americans, I have a bridge to sell you.
My surgeon acquaintance is retired now, but I'm wondering if another "Scottish hospital" is in the works somewhere in preparation for Pelobamacare destroying American medicine.
I've already got a jump on that!
Class warfare works for me.
Wasn't it the left who once chanted, "you can't legislate morality" when it came to abortion? Suddenly, it seems, you can. But only if you're a Democrat.
The libs are always chanting about "Keep your laws off my Body" when it came to abortion. I'm straining to hear that chant now when it comes to our entire healthcare system.
The idea of the moral-relativist left decrying "our moral duty" to help the sick is laughable on its face: they are moral relativists meaning they don't believe in morality! It's a play from the Alinsky book. Don't fall for it.
I've had this discussion with leftists. They say there's a moral aspect to the health care debate. Of course there is, but it isn't what they imply: one person's "need" is not a moral claim on the life of another.
[...] EXCEPT SELL HER OWN BODY” TO WIN HEALTH CARE VOTES Joseph C. Phillips, Big Hollywood: Health Care and the Moral Imperative Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, Of Course You Will Go To Jail and Census Adds Question About Health [...]
This is fantastically written!
This may be the answer to this entire fiasco. The intrusion into personal information and lifestyle by the Federal government has got to be unconstitutional. And the "right to privacy" that supposedly exists vis-a-vis abortion would seem to be indication that the State has no "right" to decide you must be insured.
what a joke, you are screening out any opposing comments. ridiculous
It's time to stop pretending that this proposal has anything to do with a moral imperative to provide people Health Care. This is the confiscation of 2.5 trillion dollars a year in private Health Care Premiums. These payments will soon be going into the General Fund, where they will be spent on Treasury Bills. Congress will then be free to spend this money on whatever it chooses.
If the Democrats wanted to provide health care to the poor, they could easily do it in the fashion of food stamps, giving consumers the funds they need to obtain coverage, and taxing the productive to pay for it.
The system they propose is clearly the confiscation of all the money spent on private health insurance.
Dictators, and in this case a liberal pseudodictator, can always come up with an "morally acceptable" reason to get what they want, even as some have mentioned above when it is in direct opposition to what they have earlier claimed.
I wonder how many liberal congress and senate members have gotten off throwing in every conceivable bad idea into the healthscare bill that comes into their warped minds. How do they sleep at night? I never imagined how many closet-commies (socialists) that existed in this country. I guess the main problem is most American citizens simply don't know what socialism looks or sounds like. They stopped teaching it in school so the kids would be desensitized and accept it. Not only the politicians can be blamed for this country falling to the level it has… the public schools and school unions can claim a big share of blame equal with the lame stream media. It's very unsettling.
Who exactly is screening anything out?
If you're comments are going to review, join the club. The software that manages the site does that automatically.
So if that's your complaint, it's a very weak argument for having the government force you to only purchase approved foods.
States are ready taxing healthcare on top of the federal tax.
You're doing it wrong, you have to use your Eric Idle voice and say, "Help! I'm being oppressed!"
Even to the most casual observer it's evident that this whole charade is not about "health care" but money and power. Just say "NO", we'll tell you what you can vote for!
Except yours, right? Congratulations on defeating your own complaint…you fail at life.
Well, babies make it much harder for them to screw whoever they want (NOW and the media call it being "an empowered woman"), so of course abortion's okay.
Same here.
I wonder if Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) is having second thoughts now that the government is paving the way for health care rationing by raising the recommended age of mammography screening to women 50 and over. Last I heard, Wasserman Schulz, a breast cancer survivor, was advocating women in their 30's be screened regularly. How will she square this circle? Will she be as passionate about preventing breast cancer as she is about forcing taxpayers to pay to murder unborn babies? Don't hold your breath!
She is not having second thoughts because Congress will not be subjected to any of the healthcare reforms that the rest of us will have to deal with if this obama-ination is ever passed.
Surely the courts would eventually require govt. to provide taxpayer-funded abortions even if this current bill passes without including it.
It takes quite some arrogance to demand control over our health and control over health care. Who are these guys? We're talkin Reed, Pelosi, Frank, Obama, Shmucker, Boxer, Nadler, etc., comic book politicians all, yet they claim to be our saviors, if we submit.
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