Thursday, August 6, 2009

Federal Health Care: It's All About Control


The Democrats health care plan is not about reform, it is about control.

They told us that their “plan” would reduce the cost of health care, but the government accountants showed how it would add billions to the deficit.

We were told it would amount to health care for all, but the overwhelming number of citizens do have health care coverage that the polls show that 84% are quite satisfied with their current care.

We were told we could keep the plan we have and our own doctors if we like them, but we’ve seen the tapes of Obama stating just a few years ago to a labor union gathering what it’s going to take to get a single payer system.

Many more political promises could be added to this list, but one thing is for certain, the health care plan being rushed through congress is based on false assumptions which have nothing to do with better health care and quality of life, but truly represents perhaps the biggest power grab on the behalf of the Federal Government in our nation’s history. Not since the imposition of income tax in the early 1900’s, has government action threatened to impact every citizen’s day-to-day life, but given the government is brokering with life and death decisions, what could be bigger?

Some aspects of how the plan would work include a national review panel that would setup parameters for how various treatment options would be handled such as taking into account whether statistically a person is too old to justify the expense of such things as major heart surgery or joint replacement if they consider their life expectancy not to be long enough to justify it.

Most frightening is that medical care will no longer consider what is the best possible option to treat a patient but what the cheapest tactic they can get away with is. This is already the status quo for millions of patients on Medicare who are all too often aware of better options only to be told Medicare won’t cover their treatment.

Medicare also stipulates “life time” benefits for some procedures. In other words, if a patient needs treatment for a certain problem, Medicare will provide a certain amount of treatment by which time their stats indicate the patient should be successfully treated. If the patient doesn’t respond fully in the prescribed amount of time too bad.

The sorry truth about the current government take over of health care is that it is all about control, the government managing more and more aspects of our day to day lives denying us of our decision making powers. It is the basis of socialist philosophy that the state will determine what is good for the individual and for the individual to comply. Gone is the notion of limited government prescribed by the Declaration of Independence and structured by the United States Constitution. Where does the Constitution empower the government to manage our health care, in fact if one looks carefully, the Constitution might actually prohibit it. The 10th Amendment, all too often overlooked in the massive growth of the Federal Government which took off under the Progressive Movement of the early 20th century stipulates, “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.”

It’s time we, the people, tell our government enough is enough. Defend us against terrorism and international threats, do what the Constitution specifically prescribes, and leave us alone to live our lives in the pursuit of happiness as envisioned in our founding.

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