The Democrats unveiled their healthcare plan to the world yesterday. It has a price tag of $1.3 trillion. Everyone knows that the price tag is about 5-10 times below the real cost of the plan, but it is the official cost that everyone will use in the debate to come. The plan takes every bad idea that has been floated over the past 6 months and makes it worse. About the only good thing I can say about the plan is that they printed it on American paper and the printing is clear and correct.

Officially the plan only taxes the “rich” to pay for the huge cost. The problem is that if you took all of the income of the so-called “rich” you would not pay for the plan at all. So, the plan has escalators built into the plan to make sure it does get paid for, and that it includes everyone, not just the “rich”. But, the Democrats will claim that the plan only taxes the rich, which is partially true if you buy their rich argument.

Barack Obama has made a big point of saying that nobody will be forced out of their health insurance plan into the government health insurance. This plan of the Democrats puts 119 million Americans into the government health insurance plan and out of their insurance. Either they will have to change their plan or Barack Obama has been feeding us a pack of lies during this initial debate on health insurance. Of course, Barack Obama feeding us a pack of lies is nothing new, but still it is not something the Democrats should want to highlight like this.

The premise built into the plan is that people are “evil”. Why I say this is that there are multiple penalties throughout the plan for people who will not follow the plan. If this plan is so great, everyone should want to participate and these penalties will not be needed. These penalties are built in as part of the way to pay for the government health insurance. Whatever happened to the American principle of freedom? This forced compliance with a law that is supposed to be for our own good is just not the type of thing that is in line with traditional American values. This is more the kind of thing you saw in communist countries, not in freedom loving countries like America.

There are boards set up to control every aspect of health care. These boards are responsible for their portion of the health care system. They are not responsible to the people. Their job is to control costs as their first priority. Their second priority is to see that people get the best care available. In the case of a conflict, cost wins over quality every time. At least that is how it works in every other country that has this type of system. That is why the health care in countries with single-payer systems and multiple boards have health care that is second class at best. People wait for months or even years for treatment. The hope is that the person will die or get better before treatment is provided. That way the government can reduce the cost by not providing the service. It is much cheaper to bury someone than it is to keep them alive in the last stages of life. The government position in ALL single-payer system countries is to let the person die, thereby saving a lot of money that can then be used elsewhere. My experience with the health care system in England in the early 1970’s was eye opening to say the least. The clinics looked like the kind of clinic that I saw in movies about doctors in the 1930’s and 40’s. At that time, the health care was not to the point where people had to wait a long time for treatment, but the quality was definitely below what I was used to in the United States.

Why anyone in the United States would want to follow England or Canada into the morass that is the single-payer system is beyond my understanding. There is no medical reason for it to occur. The only reason to go to a single-payer system is so the government will have more control over our lives. We have too much government control over our lives at this time; we do not need more control. We need to get rid of some government control and get back to the freedoms that our Founding Fathers fought for.

I listened to a You-Tube video of a Mike Wallace interview with Ayn Rand. In the interview, she predicted the time we are living in right now. That was really scary to hear her basically tell Mike Wallace what a future America would be like if we did not correct the error of our ways. Her solution was to have a separation of commerce and state, just like there is a separation of church and state. If we followed that principle, we would be the strongest country in the world and nobody would ever want to mess with us in any way. Terrorists would pick other targets. Dictators would make peace with us and try to live with the regulations we put on them. The world would be much better off if we just separated commerce and state. That was a great idea when she said it. It is an even better idea right now, especially with Barack Obama dropping the ball every time he gets the chance.