Government-forced healthcare would threaten freedom

According to a recent news report, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said his universal healthcare proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County (Iowa) Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

First off, the cost of this will rapidly balloon to a tremendous amount ... into the trillions of dollars per year, not the "up to $120 billion" Edwards guesses at. And he's going to pay for it by -- guess what -- a tax increase. He claims he'll rescind the Bush tax reduction for "everyone making over $200,000 a year," but that's just for his $120 billion guess. When the cost goes into the trillions, it'll take not only canceling the entire Bush tax reduction, but a massive increase in your taxes, as well.

Secondly and even more important is the fact that any government program that requires you to act is a danger to everyone's freedom. We are well aware of government bureaucracies' penchant for expanding their power once they are established. The EPA is but one example. How would a program such as this be enforced? If you don't get your free government checkup, will you be fined? Jailed? Sent to a gulag?

Government insurance and government healthcare are a Pandora's box which, once opened, cannot be shut without a bloody fight. Every aspect of your existence will be subject to government diktat. If the government insures you, it will have the power to monitor your living, eating, even sleeping habits. Anything you do that a bureaucrat thinks might be dangerous to you will be considered a possible claim. Think "smoking," for instance, as just a starter. We know how much private insurers dislike paying claims; now think about the government as The Insurer! This insurer will not like to pay for your bad habits either, and unlike private companies it will have the power to tell you what you can and can't do with your life, with the force of law.

If ever there were a big-government scheme run amok, this super-communist idea is it!

I'm worried. As long as government healthcare and government insurance ideas are on the table, this threat to people's freedom will exist. We simply must tell candidates for office, and their supporters, who hold these notions to get lost -- in no uncertain terms at election time.

D.D. Todd

Kempner