The Daily Bizarre

The national health care debate rages on in Washington.  The mud flying fast and furious from both sides as usual.  Scare tactics such as “death panels” from one side to threats of the impending collapse of the civilized world if nothing is done right now from the other side.

I’ve generally avoided blogging on this because there’s enough e-crap written about it out there to keep Evelyn Wood busy for the next decade.  I’m making this post, however, because in all the debate I see about this health care, I’m not seeing one very simple question about this whole process. 

And that question is, “Why?”  Why is it the government’s job to provide healthcare at all?  I don’t want your moral reason, or the standard “well, it’s the right thing to do” reason, I want to know why, legeally, the government thinks this is any of their business at all. Congressman Mike Rogers’ opening statement (back in July btw) is almost on the mark:

But even he is only partially on the true “Why?” question. He’s only asking why we should “punish” those who’ve worked hard to get health care to cover those who have not rather than asking why we should do it at all.

The last guesstimate I read on the cost of the new plan was 452 billion dollars per year to cover it.  The truly scary part is that this plan is so big and is adding so much bureaucracy that no one really knows how much it will actually cost.   

We all know how well the government estimates costs, but for the sake of argument lets make the rather naive assumption that 452 billion dollars will cover this whole new layer of bureaucracy. In 2008 the government managed to grab 2.66 trillion dollars from its citizens.  So, assuming that in this poorer economy the government take remains the same the new health plan will consume 17% of the U.S.’ entire “income.” 

Back when the U.S. was new, there was no federal tax and everyone paid their own way.   In fact, one of our very first flags had the rather plain-spoken motto, “mind your own business” on it.  It wasn’t the government’s job to look after every little detail of the citizen’s life.  If your neighbor was sick and needed help, you helped him.  If someones house in your neighborhood burned down, everyone pitched in and helped build them a new one.  It was the people looking out after the people, not the government.  And, I think, once we moved away from that philosophy we began to diminish ourselves as a nation.

People helping people is what fostered this nation’s greatness and, in my humble opinion, is the only thing that will continue to make it great.  Once you start relying on the government to take care of you, your neighbors cease to be your neighbors and become your tax burden; tell me again how that will improve our nation.