Chasing the Wind

I had a discussion this past week with a fairly “progressive” client on a wide variety of topics. Mostly cordial, of course. He was the client.

One of his positions was that access to healthcard should be a right, not a privilege. I took the position that while I agree that individuals should be given access to healthcare, it was just as moral to make sure our country was fiscally solvent if it was to take on the role of healthcare. To do otherwise would limit healthcare for all and simultaneously lead the USA down the road of fiscal ruin.

I fear for my country the last couple of years. I see the amount of spending from our government seen as a “right” by progressives. And if they can’t tax and spend, then at least they’ll spend and worry about taxing later. And before you jump all over me for being partisan, I include George W. Bush (and George H.W. Bush) and Barack Obama.

From today’s Wall Street Journal, James Taranto discusses a possibly fabricated quote from Aristotle (or possibly Aristotle Onassis), and includes this statement:

Whatever Aristotle might or might not have said, the flip side of establishing a “right” to medical care is that it also entails empowering the government to define the limits of that right.

I think he’s right on. While compassionately I care that all people receive full healthcare, I also compassionately care about the country we leave to our children, one that isn’t bankrupt. In order to provide “affordable” healthcare, the government will be forced to “limit healthcare to the lowest common denominator. That means cutting edge technology will no longer be used, which means future innovations will be canceled.

There are many good reasons to oppose letting the government into our healthcare decisions. Find some other, simple way if you must – a minimum guaranteed payment or tax credit or something. But if the government takes over healthcare, they will both bankrupt our country and hope we will “die quickly” as the Democratic representative Alan Grayson has been saying.

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