Wednesday, July 22, 2009

If They Get Free Health Care, Then I Want a Colt.

I was listening to Rush today, and I heard him make a great point that I wish I had thought of myself. Then again, it is hard to compete with a man of his caliber.

He was speaking of the Health Care bill that is being shoved into our faces. Now, I do not believe that this "Obama Care" is in any stretch of the imagination a good piece of legislation, but there is one aspect of universal health care that I haven't thought of before.

Government is not established to ensure that we have all that we need. Government is established to ensure that no one stops us from pursuing what we need. In other words, the government protects (or should protect) our rights from being infringed upon. So looking at this through the proverbial glasses of the health care field, and more specifically health insurance, the government is supposed to ensure that others do not infringe upon our rights to seek health care, if we want it.

Now, under Obama's plan, we will be required (and subject to a $2500 fine per year if we fail) to have some type of health insurance. Putting aside the argument that under this system all privately owned insurance companies will eventually see their own demise due to the inevitability that private companies will cease to offer health insurance to their employees when they can simply sign up for Obama Care, this type of system holds one other very frightening aspect.

You see, when people must sign up for a single payer system of health care, the government can decide who gets treatment, and who doesn't. We already see this happening in Europe and Canada. The elderly, especially, are often considered to be a lost cause by the bureacracy and are denied health care due simply to the fact that they are not worth the money.

Now, stay with me, beause this IS going somewhere.

We have a right to bear arms. If we choose, we can go out and by a pistol or a rifle or a shotgun. As a matter of fact, yesterday, I bought another pistol to add to my collection. That's right, I have a small collection of guns, and by God, I love them. But back to my point. Even though we have a right to buy firearms, that does not mean that the government is responsible for providing us with a means of self-defense, i.e. a firearm. But we do have the right to bear arms.

In the true definition of a "right," we do have a right to health care. If we so choose, we can purchase health insurance. If we do not choose to purchase health care, we still have the right to get care and just pay out of pocket.

But when we enter into a system that decides who gets what kind of health care, when they get it, and who they get it from, and they have the ability to deny pace-makers, cancer treatment, and organ transplants to those that they deem a "lost cause," we, in essence, lose our right to get health care. So those politicians who claim that health care is a right, are absolutely right. But they are the very ones who are pushing to take that right away.

We don't have a right to have health care provided for us for free, but we do have a right to health care in exactly the same way that we have a right to own guns. If these politicians believe that our "right" to health care means that it should be provided for us, why don't they push for the government to provide all of us AK47s. If this is about ensuring that our rights are not infringed, and providing those things that we have rights to is how they plan to protect our rights, then they would view the right to bear arms the same way.

Ah. But that's just it. Universal health care isn't about ensuring that our rights are not infringed upon. It's about power. The more facets of our life that they can get their hands into--health care, the automobile industry, energy--the more ways they can strong arm us into complying with their own agendas. This is exactly what they are trying to do.

And you can see this on both sides of the aisle. I used to consider myself a Republican. But too many Republicans are becoming Big-Government Republicans, and they too, are now trying to step into our lives and advance their own agendas, though not as blatantly and on as grand a scale as the Democrats. This is why I consider myself a Conservative now, and only a Conservative. But that's a post for a different time.

See, the difference between the gun analogy and health care isn't that guns can be dangerous and health care keeps people alive. No, that shouldn't matter. Under their premise, if both are rights, then both should be provided by the government. The difference is that guns in the hands of the people that they oppress scare them. That takes power away from them. Getting their grubby nasty hands into our health care system, however, gives them the ultimate power over us. They decide who lives and who dies.

I guess if they do shove this bull into our faces, I'll just start writing my congressmen and ask that they add to my gun collection on the taxpayer's dime. Because if this kind of health care is Constitutional, so is a government paid 1911 .45 cal. Colt.

3 comments:

  1. That is an excellent point. I have been following this health care issue closely and I am very confident that if it ever passes, the private health insurance industry is finished. In fact, there's a provision in the bill that you may want to read:

    http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854

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  2. Nice analogy. I suppose that it all hinges on how one perceives the government's proper role as related to the lives of the governed. We (Americans) agree on certain rights that all men should be granted, and the true conservative feels that the government should be maintained and operated so that these rights can be protected. But as the trend slides to the left of the ideological spectrum, then the government begins taking on new roles: “paver of streets, protector of forests, manager of clean air and water, etc.”
    Do we have a right to these things? We have a right to guns; the Constitution says so. Do we have a right to clean water? I guess it could be argued that we have a right to life, and denying water would be denying life. But that is obvious; water has always been around, and it has always been a necessity. As technology has advanced, far more things than water have come around, and many of them have substantiated themselves as a necessity. Electricity? Where would we be without it? How would we preserve food? Would we starve to death, and if so, is it then the government’s responsibility to ensure that we have a reliable source of electricity for matters of life and death? What about oil? What about the polio vaccine? What about proper treatment for anything by a qualified doctor? And finally, the center of the debate: if we all have a right to life, then what about those who, for whatever reason, cannot afford these things?
    We have a right to a gun, but is owning a gun viewed as a matter of life and death? We have a right to pay for a vaccine, but that vaccine can very well be life-saving. Does that change the government’s relationship to that particular right?
    And as society changes, and technology evolves (I’m not sure I want to say “advances”) then where do we draw the line? A man who falls out of his tree climber or wrecks his car on a lonely highway is likely to die if he has no cell phone. What if he can’t afford one?
    Tornado warnings come over the TV.
    The list is not only endless, but it is ever changing, and it will continually require citizens and leaders to have a well defined perception of what exactly the government’s role is.

    Am I disagreeing with your post? Not at all. I have really enjoyed reading all of the stuff on your blog. I’m just trying to keep you thinking and honing in your political ideologies so that you will be well prepared to face all of these issues when you run for county commissioner (and from what I’ve read so far, you’ve got my vote).

    My favorite line from your posts so far: “…although still evolving due to the fact that my knowledge is and will be growing until my time here is over…”
    Keep on growing in knowledge and in faith (“For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom,” says Solomon, arguably the second wisest man whoever lived), and you’ll get to the bottom of all of this.

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