It is all the rage today….health care reform. The President is spending large sums of political capital in an effort to achieve reform on the premise of “Americans want it” and on the promise that it will be “budget neutral”. Both premise and promise are false. Americans overwhelmingly do not want health care reform and why should they? American health care is the best in the world. A Gallup poll released today shows 50% of Americans do not approve of the way President Obama is handling this issue while 44% have been contacted by ACORN and have signed documents, (under no duress) averring to their loyal preference for government mandated health coverage for all. satirical point for those of you in Sun Valley.

If we carp and complain about sitting around an emergency room waiting for service, or having to wait a week to get into see our primary care physician, how much worse must it be in countries with no incentive based medical market? Do prices rise in a free market? Yes, especially when there is increased demand for a limited product. Witness gas prices related to the availability of oil. Oh wait, supply and demand economics is not something your average lib’rul is familiar with. When the President goes on TV, as he does near interminably, and tells us that we will not have to give up our current health care provider, and that the implementation of nationalized health care will be budget neutral he is displaying either incalculable naivete about economics or utter disregard for Joe and Jane patient who will end up paying for the latest government boondoggle. As a Nevada resident and sometime gambler, my wager is on Option #2.

You see the President doesn’t actually KNOW you and he could frankly care less about anyone outside of either his immediate family or his circle of power. (Witness his shabby treatment of half brothers and auntie) Sorry to break it to you folks but the 44th President of the United States is not pushing health care reform because of his benevolent character. Health care reform is merely the latest means by which lib’ruls intend to vastly expand government, pushing the nation ever closer to their socialist utopia that any legitimate American knows is unattainable. Why then? It’s simple, a power grab. By effectively nationalizing the fastest growing segment of the economy, the O’Bama administration hopes to gain millions of new public sector union employees. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, health care accounts for about 14 million workers right now and that figure is expected to grow by 3 million more in the next 7 years. Now imagine those millions, dependent on the government for their employment, and carrying AFSCME, CWA or AFL-CIO cards. If the entire scheme ultimately proves to be bust, an utter financial millstone around the neck of America, would we ever be able to get rid of it with those millions of workers depending on government checks? Never. When has the size of non-military government ever been reduced?

This is a great deal for all the left wing special interest groups out there. Big labor will gain millions of new members to inflate their membership rolls from the current declining figures. Tort lawyers, who are responsible in large part for driving up medical costs due to excessive and or frivolous malpractice suits, will never go wanting for employment and by default, any awards their clients receive will now be backed by the full faith and credit of…..the American TAXPAYER! Since the government will now be in the business of shortening peoples’ lives in order to balance the Office of Management and Budget books, the teachers unions will also benefit since they can now churn out an unceasing supply of future Psych majors specializing in “End of Life Counseling”. As an added bonus we can also look forward to even more massive eco-green-tree hugging regulation of pharmaceuticals, the same kind that has stifled reliable energy development in California. “Who cares if this drug promises an end to cancer? Harvesting the necessary components endangers the Western Tree Slug, indigenous throughout North and South America. Besides it will only prolong life for the sick and elderly, and that threatens to unbalance the national health care books, can’t let that happen and have the gub’mint look bad, then voters might actually elect….hiss….conservatives…”

Joe and Jane patient might think it sounds like a good deal. No more messy selection process for HMO’s or primary care physicians, determining what hospital to go to in an emergency, or deductible worries. What Joe and Jane Citizen almost always fail to consider is this: Those added government programs cost money. Where does the gub’mint get its money? You and me…John and Jill Taxpayer. When tort lawyers bring suits against government doctors and are awarded monies, those monies are going to be coming from John and Jill. Then there is the problem of supply and demand with medical staff. When there is insufficient incentive to command the best, brightest and most ambitious towards the medical field, they will find successful employment elsewhere. That seems to be a hallmark of the type…success. Of course the left is only interested in gub’mint mandated success, not the old-fashioned “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” kind. After all, that isn’t fair to folks without bootstraps.

Finally, why is the left so committed to this? Americans have spoken out recently about larger issues and worries, a deficit that balloons out of control with our children’s futures mortgaged, the failure of public education and the looming crisis of the impending insolvency of Social Security. Why don’t they tackle these pressing issues? Because each of them is an example of abject government failure in general and lib’rul social policy in particular. We certainly can't remind the voters that gub'mint is failing with educating our children, failed to reform Social Security, failed to alleviate the recession and most spectacularly, despite countless billions spent, failed to win the War on Poverty. Certainly George W. Bush proposed a deficit budget in his final years in office, (an act I was outraged by) but Congress controls the purse strings and the last budget passed by a Republican Congress had a deficit less than 1/5 of the current budget proposed by the democrat Congress.

Public education continues to fail to educate our children at an appalling rate. Standardized test scores over the past 40 years demonstrate amply that while our kids probably know how to put on a condom, they almost certainly do not know that Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence and not a small forward for the New Jersey Nets. Of course those are the priorities of the NEA today. It’s far more important that kids feel good about themselves and be engaged in all types of sexual instruction than it is to learn about our nation’s founding. Sadly when President Bush proposed education reform, he allowed Senator Kennedy (L, People’s Republic of Massachusetts) to write the legislation. That effectively gutted any meaningful reform but allowed Bush to crow about obtaining important legislation. Finally, we have talked endlessly about the need to repair Social Security. The financial crisis that is staring it in the face has been known for 25 years or more, yet we continue to fiddle like Nero as Rome burns around us. Those are real, pressing concerns for all of America, not the myth of universal healthcare that will serve to benefit a select few, especially if those select few vote reliably democrat.

Smilin' Paul Villa U.S. Senate 2010
cyber-Congressman, R-Reno
Proud Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and 2 SUV Family