Politics - Health Care

The debate over Health care is getting close. The Democrats have control over congress and Obama and his comrades are giddy over the likelihood of nationalizing health care. The Democrats have been here before with Clinton and failed, so this time they will attempt to be coy. They will talk of protecting private insurance all the while knowing they are taking a huge leap towards federalized care. It will be interesting to see how much resistance the Republicans can produce. Perhaps the Democrats will go too far with their requests due to limits of Republicans or maybe they will get everything they could dream of. I imagine I will go on many rants during the summer about nationalized health care as the debate gains clarity. For now, the question I would ask is of all the government's responsibilities, what does the government manage efficiently and well? I can think of nothing that the government does better than the private sector. From education to courier services to construction, the private sector outperforms the government because of all the bureaucratic rules and regulations the government operates under. The old phrase goes "good enough for government work". Why would we want to turn our medical care over to the government? The government is also experiencing staggering debt because of all the entitlements it already has and now we are proposing another one. Medicare and Medicaid are an enormous burden on our country and yet those programs cover only a certain demographic. We are now to open these programs up to everyone. Who is to pay for it? I know, the rich. As if the rich were some renewable source of wealth. The tax increase Obama proposes combined with increasingly high state taxes are already weighing heavily on our entrepreneurs. Add much more and there will be few who take a big risk to start or expand a company for an decreasingly small reward due to the higher taxes. National health care seems to be a disaster waiting to happen. Everyone will have health care for a while until our economy finally collapses under our mountain of debt and then the masses will be without jobs or health care as the government will no longer be able to pay for it. If a person was on the fence on the issue, I would ask them to consider this - once an entitlement has been enacted, it will not be revoked. If we nationalize health care, there will be no going back until our country is bankrupt. Social security has been criticized for its increasing costs without funding, but it cannot be taken away. To do so would be political suicide for the party who suggested it. If we do not nationalize now, we could do so later. If we nationalize now, we cannot go back to the private sector system no matter how bad the results are and I think they'll be pretty bad.