tranquil hegemony

I guess it's too late


This Christmas Eve, America got one gift early; and it's one we can't give back, no matter how much we don't want it. So-called "healthcare reform" passed in a straight party-line vote early this morning. Even though the majority of Americans, Senators and Congressmen have NOT even read the bill, not to mention the fact that it will surely become an even bigger monstrosity in committee, there are a few facts we do know...and they are quite telling.

"The approved Senate bill would reform health insurance regulations, require individuals to purchase insurance, and create a subsidy from the federal government for those who cannot afford it to purchase it on a health exchange managed by the federal government. To pay for the expanded coverage, the bill raises payroll taxes for income over $250,000, imposes a 40 percent excise tax on high-dollar insurance policies, and creates new taxes and fees for medical suppliers."

The road that lies ahead for America is not uncharted territory. It is not some healthcare utopia as Democrats and socialized medicine supporters might have you believe. We need only to look to European socialized medicine, Canadian socialized medicine, and to our own American states that have already implemented socialized healthcare--Wisconsin, Massachusetts, for example.

The result we await is both predictable and deadly. Nations and people of nations with socialized healthcare do not prosper under these systems-they wait for rationed healthcare, they are dependent on government boards of non-medical professionals who are somehow "experts" to decide their fate, which tests and procedures they are deemed worthy of or deemed the appropriate age for.

The bottom line is that "healthcare reform" does NOT cover all Americans, which was it's stated purpose; it will NOT lower the deficit, in fact it will have a devastating effect on our economy; it penalizes people who currently have decent health insurance--as if we are somehow responsible for the fact that there are people without health insurance; and the enormity of the new government beaurocracy that we are witnessing being born at this moment is sickening.

But, I guess it's too late. I am left wondering where all of the people of the world who currently come to America for healthcare they are denied in their countries with socialized medicine are going to go. We are literally the last great bastion of freedom on the planet. But we are so many years removed from the hardships of the Great Depression, or even the gas lines of the 1970s that we have grown complacent in our freedom and prosperity and take it for granted. Well, as we sit and take America for granted, we are losing her. We have elected a president who doesn't see our greatness, and proudly tells us as much. He and his administration look to Europe and Asia for inspiration instead of to the founding fathers and our founding documents. Healthcare reform is simply a way to grow the government. It's not going to fix anything-in fact it's going to make it worse. Democrats got what they wanted: a symbolic victory of passing the healthcare reform they've been attempting to get implemented for decades, and they got it under the first black president. They are absolutely giddy about the symbolism. As for the substance? Don't bother them for details, that's not what's important.