Liberalism and health care reform

Nancy Pelosi has promised to tackle the issue of health care reform before Congress recesses.

Wonderful.

I won't go so far as to say that bleeding-heart left-wing liberalism is a mental defect. However, it is patently stupid to assert that the United States will somehow be better off if Pelosi and the far left push through their dream program of universal health insurance.

Look at Canada! liberals exclaim. Look at Britain! Look at the Dutch! How wonderful it must be to cover everyone!

Ask a Dutchman how he likes that across-the-board 45% income tax.

The day we stop incentivizing the health care profession -- as Canada and Britain have done, and which will inevitably happen in any universal health care system -- is the day America's brightest young minds with an interest in medicine pursue law or business, looking for profit elsewhere. 

Why wouldn't this happen? It's taking place everywhere socialized medicine has been tried. Open your eyes. Why do liberals continue to blind themselves to the Canadian example -- artificial price controls, long waiting periods for surgeries and a severe shortage of doctors?

In the 1960s, the Warren Court said it was unconstitutional to deny a criminal defendant the privilege of legal counsel if he was unable to afford a lawyer. This helped accelerate the rise of the public defender in the 1970s and 80s. Now, if someone is accused of a crime and cannot afford a lawyer, our laws require that he is provided an attorney.

Criminal defendants can do this, so the argument goes -- why not those among us who are indigent and uninsured?

The answer is because we already have a federal program designed for exactly that.

It's called Medicaid.

There are 45 million Americans who do not have health insurance. 

However, roughly 15 million of them are eligible for Medicaid, but have not applied. 

Whose fault is this?

Of those 30 million more, I'd like to know how many drive and own a car. Two cars? A house? A cell phone? Two cell phones? How many subscribe to cable TV, or perhaps have a dish on top of their house? How many go out to eat? How many own a pair of $150 Air Jordans? 

How many go to the trouble of working two jobs if one doesn't provide enough income?

The streak in me that takes offense to the likes of Mike Huckabee preaching about social issues takes equal offense to the suggestion that affordable health care is somehow out of everyone's reach, and that we must help able-bodied people who somehow, by their own laziness or complete and utter conception of priorities and what it means to be an adult, spend their money on the wrong things. 

Health insurance is not cheap, but it is not outrageous. 

It also is not a "right." If it is a "right," then by logic, a doctor or nurse has an obligation to give it away. This is ridiculous.

Tell a neurosurgeon that you have a right to his services. Tell an oncologist that he should provide his time and skills to you for free. Try walking into your dentist's office, getting your teeth cleaned, and then walking right back out the door without paying.

A press free from government restraint is a right. Marching on the Mall in Washington is a right. The freedom to attend church on Sunday is a right. The Supreme Court has held, since virtually its inception, that rearing one's child is a "fundamental right."

Health care is not a "right."

It is a privilege. Period.

You know what's perhaps the best argument against socialized medicine?

Crap costs money.

You get a job to pay for a roof over your head and for food to eat. You want a house? Get to work. You want a car? Get to work. You want to eat? Get to work. You want health insurance? That costs money, too.

So get to work.

I think there is a much more cogent argument in favor of housing being a so-called "right" as opposed to health care.

Once Pelosi and her moonbat allies provide health insurance to every upright mammal in America, if I choose to quit my job and become indigent, why shouldn't I expect the government to buck up and foot my bills?