Published: August 12, 2009 07:26 pm      

Letter to the editor - Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009

Health plan opens door to tyranny

I am writing in regard to health care reform. Ahem ... excuse me, health insurance reform. Sorry. I am one of the regularly touted 45 million uninsured (is it 46 yet?). No doubt, I am supposed to be one of the suckers that this appeals to. I flatly reject it. I will not help spring this trap.

Who are the rest of these 45 million? The CBO says about 45 percent of the uninsured are actually only uninsured for four months or less. That leaves about 25 million. How many of them already qualify for, but haven’t enrolled in, an existing government program? How many are 18-25-year-olds who are simply playing the odds? How many are older, but wealthy enough to pay out of pocket and self-insure to avoid all the associated headaches? How many are illegal aliens? This information is available. Since journalists are failing to ask these questions, shouldn’t you?

The argument goes that, if you don’t have insurance and get really sick or badly injured, then your fellow citizens have to all pitch in to pay for the cost of your care. So ... the “solution” is to force all those citizens to pre-emptively pay for my coverage, just in case it happens?

I for one refuse to invite the potentially boundless tyranny that is inherent in the very premise of this proposal. My children would rightly curse my name in the years to come for such selfish and colossal folly. Let me be clear: There is no acceptable “compromise” on this issue. This is about erecting the framework. We must defend this premise, once and for all.

Health insurance does need reform. It is artificially expensive because of distortions and deformities in the free market created by previous, repeated, “well-intentioned” government meddling. The statists believe that if they can just squeeze hard enough, they can wring the imperfections out of our society. We need to slap away the heavy hand of the state in favor of the invisible hand of the free market. We are not all socialists now. Not yet anyway.

I do see the need for a social safety net but, politicians try to entice us with a nice, inviting hammock. Once they lure enough people, the trap will spring. That net will be used to sweep all of us up into a position of perpetual, prostrate submission. This goes beyond un-American. This will literally undo America. This will stand America on its head. Permanently. We will wake up and realize that we have all effectively nationalized our bodies.

We are traveling in a car, with a drunk behind the wheel, going 100 mph the wrong way down the interstate while the driver, and those who gave him the keys, tell us to shut up. We are being “unruly.” It’s distracting them. It’s dangerous.

They say we are “Astroturf.” They are welcome to believe their own lies. Election 2010 is just around the corner. As a purely political metaphor, I say to those in Congress considering supporting this monstrosity, I feel a little bit like Dirty Harry. “Go ahead, make my day.” Except instead of a Magnum, I’ll be brandishing a black felt pen and a paper ballot. Truly, the pen is mightier than the sword.

Let’s remind these megalomaniacs that we are a nation with a government ... not the other way around.

Aaron Williford

Kokomo