Voices letter writers continue to drum on their keyboards for universal health care.  They have swallowed the bait hook line and sinker and are about to be reeled into a system that will make them hostage to the government for the remainder of their lives. Two letters that were published 9-1-2009 that demonstrate the lack of knowledge of the Constitution, the limits on government and the essence of health care.

In a recent article that appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Thomas Sowell wrote that health care was what one does for himself and that medical care was what others, such as doctors, nurses, and hospitals do for the sick and injured. Thus, when the proper terms are used, the issue becomes readily understandable and the affordability becomes obvious.

Using Sowell’s definitions, it is fair to say that all persons able to work or otherwise function on a level of independence can afford health care. It is composed of a good diet, adequate exercise, and refraining from intentional behaviors that lead to injury and disease, adequate sleep and rest. The conclusion has to be that health care reform is available and is the responsibility of each individual to reform the care taken of his or her own body. But those who don’t, need not expect that others should be forced to pay for the treatment that their abuses will require at some stage in life. That brings us to the subject of medical care.

Medical care is what is done to treat injury and disease whether they are the result bad behaviors or events not under one’s control. Such treatment is expensive and that is the purpose of medical care insurance. It is to cover the expenses of such treatment. That being true, a person should buy coverage to pay for medical treatment at a point in life that will allow him or her to protect available resources. Unfortunately, many have the idea that they should be able to buy coverage only when needed and believe that another party should be forced to pay for the treatment of their existing condition even though they didn’t have coverage at the time treatment was required.

One writer touted medical care subsidies, school lunch programs, and other taxpayer funded programs. Those are noble, but the problem is that ever since FDR the people have become increasingly dependent on the government to provide what individuals should have provided for themselves. It’s called exercising individual responsibility for the care of self.  At the same time, many “church people” and unbelievers support the idea that benevolence is the duty of government due to many of the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Neither taught such ideas at all. They taught that believers are to help the needy but instead, the “believers” have built great buildings with all the creature comforts to make life more pleasurable as they listen to the social gospel of the modern day social planners. They believe that taking care of the “least of these” is supporting government enforced programs which creates more dependence and enslavement of everyone to big government.

Single payer medical care is available to everyone; that is each individual pays for his or her own medical care. The cost of that can be reduced by getting the big nose of government out of medical insurance. That intrusion began when LBJ pushed Medicare through in 1965 and over the years, insurance companies have been forced to raise premiums and control the payments for various treatments. Government control has done nothing but increase the cost of insurance and treatment methodologies.

It is irresponsible to believe that government can do a better job of providing universal medical insurance and treatment. What will be universal is misery for all of us when we are forced to bow to another unconstitutional dictate of the big nanny living in Washington D.C. The Kool-Aid bottle needs to be emptied once and for all.

© 09-01-2009