Where Did My Capitalism Go?

Well, gosh, there is just so much going on with this health care legislation that it’s difficult to not write about it.  This new law encompasses the most effective denunciation of personal responsibility and decrease in incentive to better yourself than any other piece of legislation I can think of.  This is what America has become, and we have to turn it around before more of our individual responsibility slips away.  It seems that more and more people don’t want the responsibility of taking care of themselves, but I guarantee that a major portion of the citizens of this country understand the after-effects of responsibility lost.  This governmental takeover of personal responsibility is a slippery slope, with the gravity of every new piece of legislation accelerating us towards a totalitarian end.

American liberty used to mean the power to choose for yourself how you wanted to live. With this new healthcare law, every American that chooses not to buy health insurance will be penalized.  How does this profess the principles of liberty and freedom to the citizens of our country?  To be required to pay for something you don’t believe in.  To be forced to take part in a government-run program that you don’t need.  To be penalized for not wanting to be under the thumb of the US government, and by paying that penalty effectively contributing to the program’s upkeep and expansion.  How is this freedom?

American liberty has been replaced by the priority of equality.  With this law, the government has demanded that the rich pay for the care of the poor.  Mandatory charity nullifies the good intentions of the benefactor.  It removes the morality of a good deed and destroys the integrity of both the giver and receiver.  But, hey…everyone is entitled to health care, right?  Not at all.  Are you entitled to your neighbor’s wealth?  Is it your right to force your friend at gunpoint to hand over their wallet?  Some citizens of this country would have you think so, because they think they are entitled to receive the benefits of their fellow citizens’ hard work. Entitlement was a relic of monarchs past…it has no place in American society.  Yet, somehow the concept of health care entitlement ended up in US Congressional legislation.

I commend the 14 state governments that are suing the US government over the constitutionality of this new law.  How the Congressional Democratic supporters of this bill think the forceful distribution of earned wealth to the undeserving was something the founders intended is beyond me.  Of course there will be haggling over the word of the law (as there should be in a government of law, not of men) but to myself and many Americans it is obvious that the spirit of the Constitution is what’s being trampled here.

The intention of the creation of the United States of America and the governing document of our nation was to preserve a person’s right to his or her property.  This new legislation only serves to redistribute the property earned by many hard working wealthy Americans to those people that are not incentivized to take responsibility for their own care. The lack of desire to take responsibility for oneself and the misguided intentions of those that sympathize with the irresponsible is the reason why our country is at this point in our history. We cannot rely on these people to bring themselves up and realize the immoral and illogical nature of their ways. The personally responsible citizens of this country that strive to exercise their basic rights of life, liberty and property will have to make the changes necessary to ensure our return to the principles that our wise and forward-thinking founders originally intended.

I read this opinion piece about the current health care proposal of a public insurance system being reviewed by Congress and started to consider the main question being asked: why should private insurers fear the proposal of a public insurance system? The article had some good thoughts but, in my opinion, the author didn’t give an adequate answer to his primary question. I’ll give you my take on the issue here.

From what I can deduce, private insurers may fear the current proposal because a public insurance system would be cheaper for the insured, meaning the private insurers prices would have to be lowered in order to adequately compete. But one of the main reasons the private insurers prices are currently so high is that they need to buffer against today’s uninsured. The fact that uninsured persons still use the healthcare system without being able to pay for their care translates into an increased price for that care across the board (a cost that private insurers currently have to roll into their price). If a public healthcare system is created, those costs will decrease allowing the private insurers to better compete with the public plan. The problem then becomes the transfer of the cost for the publicly insured into higher taxes for the citizentry.

The money to pay for a public health care plan is the main sticking point: those who most need this plan are often the least able to pay for it. Given the current make up of Congress, I expect the cost of this public insurance to be pinned on the middle and upper classes in the form of increased taxes. I don’t believe in paying for the needs of others. Those who don’t make enough money to provide adequate health care for themselves should not force those who can take care of themselves into an involuntary position as social provider. The screening process for such a public program shoud be rigorous enough to determine actual need based on an inability to work and provide for yourself (something the government should have plenty of experience with by now, and yes, you can read that as a jab at welfare).

The private insurance companies should have little to fear. Ultimately, you get what you pay for, and I guarantee that the service and quality of healthcare will be worse for those under the public plan. The private insurers will remain the providers of quality care, probably at less cost to the insurer. The ones who will bear this burden are the taxpayer, mainly those who want to maintain their level of care by remaing privately insured, but find themselves in debt for the health care needs of those that choose to use the public option.