Even though the current plan being debated in the halls of congress will expand coverage for more individuals, it does nothing to improve health care in the United States over the long run. It will actually deteriorate its quality as has been seen recently in Canada and Norway. In Canada their health care system was found nearly unconstitutional because the level of service was so poor and sub-standard that it was not meeting their constitutional requirement for health care (Footnote 1). The supreme court of Norway recently found the incredibly long waiting line to see a doctor illegal and mandated that the government actually transport its citizens to foreign countries to receive their needed health care (Footnote 2). The deteriorating level of care is a result of the government's monopoly on health care and the lack of a free market at work – the very system being devised for us.

Despite the American health care system being the best in the world, we should in means be pleased with how it works or fail to make major reforms to our ailing and inequitable system.

Currently, our health care system is one of government manipulation in the marketplace, monopolies in the insurance industry, and a dearth of options for the individual when it comes to their own insurance options at a price that is unaffordable for almost everyone. It has to change. I am, and think the American public should also be, for Freedom when it comes to health care.

I have said much about the President's plan and have shown how, despite its best intentions, it is destructive of individual freedoms and is the wrong direction for America in the present and future at the individual, national, and family level. The case I have presented is strong in its opposition to the current plan. However, reform is very badly needed or else the status quo, which is also wrong for America, will continue.

Necessarily then, I will now proceed to show the type of reform that is needed to bring about sustainable and improved health care for all desiring citizens.

Health Care Reform must include health insurance reform. The kinds of reform that are needed are as follows:

1. End the exemption to the federal anti-trust laws that the insurance companies enjoy

2. End the monopoly insurance companies have over health care reimbursements through:

   • Privately Ran Health Care Cooperatives
   • The establishment of standards for rates billed to the uninsured vs. the insured

3. Freeze Medicaid & Medicare at their current levels

4. End the Federal Government's manipulations on the health insurance market by eliminating the payroll tax deduction on employer contributions made to health insurance

5. Reform tax treatment for health care costs

6. End the employer based health care plan monopoly over health insurance

7. Increase competition within the insurance industry by creating a health insurance exchange that includes insurance plans across state lines

8. Eliminate the pre-existing condition clauses for most plans

9. Change the way health care is paid for: results vs. procedures (which is a valuable part of the current plan under debate)

Over the next several weeks I will expound upon each one of these and the potential impact they would have on the insured, the uninsured, and the American tax payer. These concluding pieces will show how the principles of Freedom and Justice are the most effective, principled, and correct rules to guide our actions in bringing affordable health care to Americans and supplying them with the best quality and level possible. Freedom, together with the government in its proper role, can truly create a more perfect Union, ensure domestic tranquility, and promote the general welfare of the the Citizens of the United States of America. Freedom truly is the last best hope of man.

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Footnotes

1. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006813

2. http://www.cato.org/mediahighlights/index.php?highlight_id=731

I got the following directly from http://www.barackobama.com/. It explains better than anything the health insurance exchange:

“The Obama-Biden plan will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals purchase new affordable health care options if they are uninsured or want new health insurance. Through the Exchange, any American will have the opportunity to enroll in the new public plan or an approved private plan, and income-based sliding scale tax credits will be provided for people and families who need it. Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend upon health status. The Exchange will require that all the plans offered are at least as generous as the new public plan and meet the same standards for quality and efficiency.

Insurers would be required to justify an above-average premium increase to the Exchange. The Exchange would evaluate plans and make the differences among the plans, including cost of services, transparent. The Exchange will have the following features:

Comprehensive benefits. The benefit package will be similar to that offered through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), the program through which Members of Congress get their own health care. Plans will include coverage of all essential medical services, including preventive, maternity and mental health care.

Affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles. Participants will be charged fair premiums and minimal co-pays for deductibles for preventive services.

Simplified paperwork. The plan will simplify paperwork for providers and will increase savings to the system overall.

Easy enrollment. All Exchange health insurance plans will be simple to enroll in and provide ready access to coverage.

Portability and choice. Participants will be able to move from job to job without changing or jeopardizing their health care coverage.

Quality and efficiency. Participating hospitals and providers that participate in the new public plan will be required to collect and report data to ensure that standards for health care quality, health information technology and administration are being met.”

I love this concept except for two very important points:

For the health care exchange to truly increase competition, it needs to extend beyond state boundaries. To have two to four companies competing against each other isn’t competition. In most states that is what it will be (Aetna, Blue Cross, CIGNA and some other provider). Health Insurance reform must change the way insurance is written in the states and begin to allow plans to extend beyond single states. If you want to see competition, try 10-20 plans that offer comprehensive in-state and out-of-state benefits competing for your business – that is when you will really see the benefits of this kind of exchange.

The public option will drastically reduce the private insurance industry. The Free Market is the best road for reform and the Public Option will forever close it. You cannot just rebuild an entire industry once it has been destroyed. Rather than destroy it we must seek to make it better.

The health care exchange with the public option is just a mechanism to get people onto the public option quicker than they otherwise would be and therefore would lead to a decline in the free market even faster. The attached video shows the intent of the exchange and public option.



The exchange could be a wonderful tool if used to truly increase free market forces and did so with the modifications listed above. Otherwise, it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing as shown in the video. Free market reform must include the Health Insurance Exchange as tailored above. A modified exchange is an excellent idea that we must push forward. If not modified, it will become a political tool and the consumer will lose.

Some may think we are close to time travel but we can be assured that the masses don't have power to use it within the next generation or two. For if they could, they would comeback in droves and wage a revolution of their own with an all too familiar battle cry: “No taxation without Representation!”

Surprising to us however, we are the tyrants and they are ones we have put in chains. How? Deficit spending and our national debt are exactly that – taxing those without a voice in our political process, the unborn that is, and laying the burden upon their shoulders.

Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in 1819, “The power to tax is the power to destroy (Footnote 1).” It certainly is a power that, when misused, can lead to a destruction of economy, prosperity, growth, and liberty. It is also a power that when properly wielded provides for efficient government, enforcement of the law, protection of our citizens, and support for the prosperity of the people.

Because it is a double edged sword, and because it is the people's money that must be collected, the power of taxation can only be justly employed when it is by representation of the people who must be taxed.

If you and I are represented by our Congressmen who serve us for the duration of their term, who is it that represents those who are not yet even alive? By the law of representation, no one can.

If we believe that representation is the only just way to regulate taxation, burdening the unborn and unrepresented with the expenses of today is unjust and immoral.

Debt is bondage. Anyone who has had debt knows the truth of this saying. To be in bondage as a result of our own choice is one thing. To be in bondage for the choices of the dead is entirely different and infinitely more cruel. It is a form of slavery, taxation and redistribution of wealth to which they will see and receive almost no benefit (Footnote 2).

It is simply wrong to ask future generations to pay for our education, our wars, our freedom, our cash for clunkers, and our welfare entitlements. There is no way around it. It is simply wrong and unjust. The unborn are not the recipients of the benefits of these policies, entitlements, programs and wars. Alonzo Fyfe put it this way:

“The National Deficit is the redistribution of wealth – the value of the slave labor – that is to be taken from those who have no political voice to be handed out to those whose votes the politician wants to buy.

It is no different than imposing a tax that is imposed only on those who are black, then using that money to write checks that are distributed to white people (Footnote 3).”

Certainly there are some rare exceptions to when this would be just. However, those exceptions are rare and involve in no way entitlements for the living today.

As has been shown in several of these short essays, the true costs of health care reform placed on the American taxpayer are not even fully known but surely far exceed those being projected. Current unfunded liabilities for Medicare are already $74 trillion (footnote 4). Currently, the house version of the health care reform bill has over $13 trillion of unfunded liabilities (footnote 5). As much as I agree with the President that health care reform should be deficit neutral, the fact of the matter is, it won't be. Among so many other things, the government's management of Medicare is proof of this.

Paying for our health care is our responsibility. We cannot argue with this. We cannot put our children and grandchildren in bondage for our benefit today.

If we create a bondage for those who cannot be represented in the process, and redistribute their wealth even before they are born and have a chance to acquire it, it is the truest form of taxation without representation and the greatest form of tyranny and oppression.

If We the People, through our representatives desire this kind of health care reform, then so be it as long as we, and only we, are the ones who pay for it. If we make this choice, then we must live with the consequences – not the unborn and those who have no voice in our system, those whose futures should be their own, and not ours, to decide.

Our beautiful National Anthem contains these solemn words:

“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

It may yet wave, but for the unborn they are not free. And for us, if we fail to do the right thing and not take responsibility for our freedoms and privileges by paying for them in our own time, then no longer can America be called the home of the brave - as Bravery is to do the right thing in the face of difficulty and opposition. Bravery is to sacrifice. Bravery is to seek the truth and to live by it. Let us be Brave and keep ourselves, our children and our grandchildren Free.

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Footnotes

1. http://www.bartleby.com/73/1798.html

2. http://chestofbooks.com/finance/Amasa-Walker/The-Science-of-Wealth/Fallacies-Respecting-A-National-Debt-Part-3.html

3. http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2009/06/sad-fate-of-future-generations.html

4. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120373015283387491.html

5. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10422

“I've also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it...

President Obama July 22, 2009 (Footnote 1)

I believe this is a laudable and praiseworthy goal and I hope it is true. However, in what reasons, assurances and truth do I have to hope?

The American people have no basis upon which to believe anything from Washington D.C. when spending money is concerned. If you need proof of that, as of the moment this post was being written, our National Debt was $11,889,652,785. What does that look like? According to CNBC.com, “If denominated in $1 bills, the cash would stack as high as the tallest building in the world, the 2,683.7 foot Burj Dubai skyscraper… 1,474,918 times. At this height, it would create a block of bills with a base approximately twice the size of the Empire State Building's, which is just under the size of three American football fields.

If consolidated into a single stack of $1 bills, it would measure about 749,666 miles, which is enough to reach from the earth to the moon twice (at perigee), with a few billion dollars left to spare... It is also interesting to note that this number is approximately 13 times the amount of US currency in circulation, according to the Treasury bulletin, which lists the amount at $853.6 billion as of December 31, 2008 (Footnote 2).”

If you need further proof, think of the Iraq War, Medicare, Medicare Part D, and the War in Afghanistan. Almost all of this debt is from former administrations and we cannot blame the current president for past errors. Our national debt and recent events however show a long train of abuses when it comes to the public purse. Even now, President Obama continues to fund our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through supplemental bills just as President Bush did so he can say how his budget cuts the deficit when it really doesn't. Four weeks ago he touted on Prime Time TV how he had cut the deficit by $2,200,000,000,000 (Footnote 1). Yesterday the White House announced that they had reduced it by only $200,000,000,000 (Footnote 3). That is a two trillion dollar error in a matter of weeks.

The President said, “I'm not going to sign a bill that, for example, adds to our deficit.” However, this year the Federal Government has spent $1,580,000,000 that it didn't have (Footnote 3). Granted, a lot of that was emergency spending for things that many believe may help our economy in the short term. However, not all of it has been helpful and some would argue that none of it was necessary or helpful - including the non-partisan congressional budget office (Footnote 4).

So, on what grounds do we have to believe the current President's projections for how much health care reform will cost? We have no such grounds. Those who do believe the government's projections are disregarding not just history, but the present reality.

If we can't trust the cost projections, how can we trust the President when he says “health care reform is not going to add to that deficit”?

Reality has proven to us that costs are always higher than they tell us. The president tells us that health care reform will cost $1,000,000,000,000 over the next 10 years (Footnote 5). Is that all? Some project health care reform to be $8 trillion over 10 years…60% as large as our current national debt (Footnote 6). Even the current house bill has a projected budget shortfall of $13,600,000,000,000 (Footnote 7) – far more than the $1 Trillion being discussed. According a Walt Street Journal article last year, Medicare alone has an unfunded liability of $74,000,000,000,000 (Footnote 8). How will all of this be paid for? It will be paid for by deficit spending – that is, taxing the unborn to pay for expenses today.

The fact of the matter is, they are not being honest with us regarding the costs of the bill in an effort to pass it. This will cost much, much more then they are telling us because a) it always does, and b) government programs always expand over time. We have to account for this.

To not be honest about the costs and what this means for us in the near and long term is irresponsible and misleading at best, reckless and dishonest at worst. In either case, it is a far cry from good government and representative democracy.

The right way to do this would be to be open and honest about the costs and the reality of what it will take to pay for it. But we're dreaming if we think that will happen...

The president and those who are pushing for this change and trying to sell it with these cost projections are peddling dreams – not reality. And even worse, their dreams will become our financial and economic nightmare in the not too distant future as the public becomes straddled with the true costs of government health care reform and are forced at all levels and in more than one way to pay for it.

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Footnotes

1. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/07/22/transcript_of_obama_prime-time.html

2. http://www.cnbc.com/id/30108264/?slide=12

3. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57K4XE20090821

4. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul/

5. http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/article/health-care-reform-what-it-will-cost-you/330206/

6. Health Reform 2009: Watershed or Waterloo? A Lockton Benefit Group Webcast

7. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10422

8. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120373015283387491.html

For those who have read any of my recent articles, it is no mystery what my views are regarding most of the parts of the proposed health care overhaul bill. I want reform just as badly as the President but I want a different kind of reform and, throughout these posts, have been making part of that case. However, before proceeding, I must first declare how utterly wrong and contemptible many of the techniques are that are being used either to sell or thwart the proposed legislation.

I do not support the derogatory label of “Obamacare” or the likening of this legislation to that of the Nazis. I am disappointed in those who would attend a public forum and use it to turn it into a shouting match. I am disappointed at those who would deface property, resort to calling names and make crazy accusations about our government with such things as death squads and fascism. They have deceived themselves into thinking that the desired end justifies the means. And importantly, it seems as though they have failed to remember that Americans are generally good people and that our Representatives generally try to do good and to help our country – in both Parties.

Conversely, the techniques of not being honest about the reasons, alternative solutions, true costs, and possible outcomes of this proposed legislation is dishonest, sinister and wrong. They too have fooled themselves into thinking that the desired end justifies the means.

They both err in that you cannot separate the end from the means – the means become the end. The means being used on both sides will not lead us any closer to a society of peace, unity and brotherly love. In fact, they lead us further away from the very thing we seek to create.

This is still America and we all still love our Country – no matter what side of the isle we are on. The primary difference is not in what we want to accomplish but in how we wish to accomplish it. Just as you cannot separate the means from the end in the legislation being discussed, you cannot separate the means from the ends in the techniques that are being used to thwart or pass it.

Respect, honesty, reason and building on common ground must be the means as it is the only end we truly desire. The current tactics will only further divide the ground we are on and cause us to no longer be One and Indivisible.

Those exalted and noble means are what we must expect from ourselves and one another – on all sides of this argument. That is the only way we will actually become anything better as a result of this debate. We want to build a better society; the place that begins is within each one of us and in the choice of means we use to get there. In this debate and all others, let us all make the choice to take the road less traveled – that of respect, honesty, reason and building on common ground – as that is the one that makes the difference.

Discovering the true cost of Health Care Reform is paramount to finding the proper way to fund it. To do that, we have to look at many different sources, including the White House and the press. I found this article provided an important perspective on the debate. I hope you enjoy.

by Jagadeesh Gokhale and Kent Smetters

This article appeared in National Review (Online) on August 6, 2009.

Even a popular president like Barack Obama cannot win arguments against two forces: God and mathematics. While the president has openly shared his reverence for the former, he has decided to take on the latter. It's a fight that he will lose.

Upon taking office, President Obama decided to postpone his campaign promise to implement a true cost-saving reform of Social Security and Medicare. Instead, he's trying to expand the nation's entitlement offerings with massive new government spending on health care.

The Congressional Budget Office's mid-July "score" of the main House health-care bill puts the price tag at about $1 trillion over the next decade; the Blue Dog Democrats managed to shave off only about $100 billion. But ten-year budgets, as even the CBO has warned in the past, are not reliable for assessing entitlement programs. Most of the spending in the House plan is phased in over several years, making the ten-year cost look deceptively small. Extending the budget window by just three years doubles the program's cost to over $2 trillion.

This enormous shortfall is equal to about 1.6 percent of all future projected GDP, or 3.5 percent of all future payrolls subject to Social Security taxes. From those numbers, this additional burden might actually seem manageable. But President Obama promised that he would raise taxes only on those in "rich" households.

That's where the arithmetic gets especially interesting. Funding the new health-care plan on the backs of households making $200,000 or more per year would require permanently increasing their annual total tax payments by about 50 percent. So, for example, a household that currently pays $50,000 in federal income taxes would need to pay another $25,000. Remember, however, that Social Security and Medicare already face enormous shortfalls. Shoring up these programs — another Obama campaign promise — would require collecting 328 percent more tax revenue from the rich. No, we didn't forget a decimal point: That is three hundred and twenty-eight percent.

Most households making between $200,000 and $500,000 per year would not have enough money to pay their federal, state, and local tax bills, much less eat. Rich households in California or New York would not be able to pay their tax bills regardless of their incomes. And a family of four living in a low-tax state (South Dakota) would need to gross almost $900,000 per year to have enough income left over to reach the poverty line. In fact, there is no mathematical configuration of taxes on the current rich alone — including additional levies on the "super-rich" making more than $1 million per year — that is compatible with putting the nation's entitlement programs and the new health-care plan on a sustainable course.

U.S. federal income taxes are already very progressive. The top 10 percent of income earners pay the majority of federal income taxes. The top 1 percent of income earners pay a quarter of all taxes.

But can't we expect the rich to pay even more? Maybe for a few years — but not without disastrous consequences to America's future.

A major tax increase causes the tax capacity of the rich to shrink gradually as two factors kick in. First, many of the households falling into Obama's "rich" definition are married couples in which both partners are working professionals. When tax rates rise, the lower-earning spouses in these couples tend to work less. Often, they quit work entirely. Second, many of the "rich" are budding entrepreneurs and small-business owners. They finance their operations using their own after-tax income, or with after-tax resources from family and friends. Small-business innovation is the fuel for long-term economic growth. In fact, many of the largest companies in the United States today were either small or nonexistent just 25 years ago. Killing small business kills the American economy.

We cannot allow federal health-care subsidies — mainly Medicare and Medicaid — to continue to grow faster than inflation indefinitely. The challenge is to find ways to make the nation's commitments to retirees and others sustainable without harming economic growth prospects. In this regard, the Obama administration is charting a course in the wrong direction — expanding entitlements on the backs of our nation's job creators. The math will work against the Obama administration and, eventually, against us all.

Jagadeesh Gokhale is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and Kent Smetters is a professor at the Wharton School and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

More by Jagadeesh Gokhale

Accessed at http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10422 on August 16, 2009

In my last post I showed how the government has usurped, in many ways, the role of the family in providing certain kinds of care that Nature intended the family to provide for one another. Today I will show how the government weakens the family by providing that care.

If a Nation is to become stronger, its families must become stronger. And, as with exercise where weight must be added for the muscle to grow, families must lift together the burdens placed on their shoulders.

State Welfare & the Metaphorical Arch

When the government steps in and takes upon it the responsibility of providing shelter, loans, certain kinds of education, medical care, food, utilities, and personal income to name a few, it usurps the role of family and removes the “weight” off the family’s shoulders. As with exercise, by lessoning this burden, the family is prevented from growing at best, or weakened at worst. It eliminates the struggle and the tension necessary for growth and the gaining of strength.

The hard and difficult experiences of life that force us to grow, necessarily create a type of tension within us and the family unit. However, that tension is not destructive and shouldn’t be removed at all costs. What should happen is that by the individual and family growing as a result of the tension, those burdens which once were hard to bear become bearable. By becoming stronger ourselves we are then able to bear one another’s burdens. By the family becoming stronger, we can bear the burdens of those not part of our own immediate family, but reach out to the broader family of neighbor, community and world. However, without first becoming strong ourselves we have no strength to offer to those in need.

With the tension gone because of the lack of sacrifice, it weakens the individual and family unit. When we become weaker as individuals, our families become proportionally weaker. When our families become weaker, the Nation likewise weakens. What we need is not an elimination of tension and opportunities to bear our burdens; what we need is to bear them together. This is illustrated by the following quote.

Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, wrote in his moving memoir Man’s Search for Meaning:

“I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, “homeostasis,” i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him… If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load that is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together.”

The family is the arch. The responsibilities of life are the load. When the government decreases the load upon individuals and families by supplying out of its seemingly boundless resources the necessities Nature intended the family to supply for each other, it succeeds most often in this one thing: keeping this metaphorical arch – the individual and the family – from rising to their potential. Furthermore, their help is, often times, actually not help at all and can be detrimental. For me to say otherwise would be to deny my years of personal experience and observations.

Human Potential

Is humanity not the crowing creation of Nature? Indeed we are. We are not here because we are lacking in capacity or natural endowments. We are in the position we are because we are strong and endowed with gifts that must be used for the benefit of ourselves and each other. The mind, imagination, moral perception, imagination, industry and science placed in the being of Mankind is awakened, instructed, strengthened and refined through the experiences nature provides us in supporting ourselves, supporting others, and, at times, allowing ourselves to be served by those around us.

A baby chick hatching from its egg struggles to make its way through. If aided, it will die as it didn’t gain the strength necessary to survive upon its arrival into the world. So too has Nature deemed that through struggle and sacrifice we should live as well as grow in strength and capacity. Through these experiences we can become refined as polished stones – both as individuals and families – and thus become more fit to help and serve one another. We learn that we are entitled to nothing but our own freedom but instead are indebted for everything we have and are. We learn that through love we become One.

Conclusion

I believe in a society where love and peace prevail and where we are all our brother’s keeper. To do this, we must be the keeper – not the government. The government weakens us and our families by taking away the opportunities for struggle, service and sacrifice. If we can no longer bear our burdens by having been weakened through inaction, how can we expect to bear one another’s burdens that theirs may be light? Is not that our divine responsibility? A welfare state weakens our ability to fulfill that.

The families of America are in trouble. There is no disputing this fact. Again, we turn to Confucius, “To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order.” Just as architects who desire to strengthen a decrepit arch increase the load that is laid upon it, so should we allow families to work together to carry the burden life has entrusted them to carry, and thus they, like the arch, will be more firmly joined together.

No one likes to struggle. No decent person likes to see another person struggle. However, as much as we hate to see people struggle, the government should not be the hand that reaches out to help. It should be the hand of Mother, Father, brother, sister, son, daughter, Grandmother, Grandfather, aunt, uncle, cousin – it should be yours. Strengthen those hands – the hands of Family – and you will strengthen the Nation that we all might bear one another’s burdens that they may be light.

In this post and the next I will briefly illustrate how government welfare weakens the family unit in two ways:

Just governments institute laws to protect, among other things, life, liberty and property. As with all laws, there are consequences for breaking those laws.

What happens when the government institutes laws that directly oppress the rights that governments were instituted to protect, and then punish the people for not obeying or complying with those unjust laws?

That is the very situation the government is creating with the current versions of the health care reform legislation. As shown in one of the last essays, the government does not have the right, even when a majority wills it, to take away the property from one group and give it to another.

Recently the President held a press conference on health care reform. In that conference he said that Health Insurance would be mandated for all (Footnote 1). All able (able as defined by the government) Americans will be forced to participate or be fined. The fine as written into the bills at the moment is an additional 2.5% of your income (Footnote 2). Additionally, all wealthy Americans will be forced to have more of their income taxed to pay for the insurance of those who cannot afford it (Footnote 1). As written in an earlier post, forced “charity” and government intervention where it has no moral authority to act is tyranny and injustice.

Laws are instituted to primarily protect Natural Rights. When those laws are broken, there are consequences. So I ask of you, what natural right is a person transgressing when they, of their own free will and accord, choose not to purchase health insurance? Are they stealing another person’s property when they choose not to purchase a service – for themselves (Footnote 3)? Are they taking another individual’s life when they choose not to purchase a service – for themselves? Are they taking away another person’s liberty when they choose not to purchase a service – for themselves?

Indeed not!

Then what punishment that is just can possibly be levied upon a person who is not trampling upon the rights of another? No such just punishment can exist.

On the contrary, it is the Government that is taking away the Liberty of its people when it forces them to purchase a service when it may be against their will and it is the government who is taking away property when it takes it from one group to give to another.

Rather than protect rights, government has sought to re-define rights and thereby re-define what it can punish. It wants the people to believe that they have the right to demand that the rich pay for the poor’s health care. It wants the people to believe that if one citizen doesn’t participate in the system that they are actually taking away health care from another. It wants the people to believe that Government was instituted to create a more glorious outcome rather than administer Justice and ensure Liberty. It wants the people to believe that the ends justify the means. It wants the people to forget that there is no way to separate the ends from the means. Tyranny to get there will mean tyranny when we get there. Injustice as a path means injustice as a destination.

Can we not see how backwards things have become?

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Footnotes

1. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/07/22/transcript_of_obama_prime-time.html Accessed on August 6, 2009
2. http://keithhennessey.com/2009/07/14/house-taxes-the-uninsured/ Accessed on August 6, 2009
3. Additional Information for the Interested Reader:

Is someone stealing another person’s property when they choose not to purchase insurance for themselves? No. When someone does not pay for a service then it can constitute stealing or theft. For most people though who get a bill that is $5,000 or more and who are required to pay it within a few short months, it is almost certain they will not pay. This is not because they don’t want to, but because the terms don’t allow them to.

If a person who is without health insurance receives a service and is left with a bill in the tens of thousands of dollars, there needs to be a way prepared for such a person to pay their bill. This is one of the areas in which reform is needed but is being neglected. Ways to reform this area include:

1. Reduce the gap between the rate the uninsured pay verses the rate the insurance companies reimburse providers. For many services this gap is enormous. This could be adjusted by a regulation that says the difference should be no greater than X %.

2. Change the way bills are collected from the uninsured. To have 100% of a $5,000 bill due in 120 days is not feasible for most Americans. Allowing individuals to pay off providers for health care bills at a pace they are capable of would help ensure that the bills are paid. Such a schedule could be based on the individual’s income, debts, and family resources.

3. Reduce taxes or increase the deduction allowed for charitable giving. This would help more non-profit organizations to have the resources needed to support those in need.

Amazingly, one of the factors that contributes to the exorbitant amount the uninsured have to pay is the low reimbursement levels from the government and insurance companies. Providers then pass on the loss to other customers paying out of pocket. When those customers don’t pay, they pass them off to the insurance companies. And, at the moment, the health care industry has no incentive to change the way they bill the uninsured because they can quickly pass off those unpaid expenses back onto the insurance companies through higher costs. They cannot, however, pass off those costs at the same rate to the government which in turn forces private insurance rates to increase at an even higher rate.

The reason why the insured often pick up the tab for the uninsured is because of the way the uninsured are billed and of their forced payment arrangement. Change the way the uninsured are billed and the way they are able to pay and you will see them more able to pay their own expenses. This is the kind of reform that is needed. When the government forces compliance with an immoral law it is oppression. When the government punishes the People through fines for non-compliance it is tyranny. When the government takes, by force, the fruits of other people’s labors it is stealing. Reform must align itself with Natural Rights and the protection of them. There is a way to do that and I believe it is the only just and right way that will lead to a better America and a better outcome. Again, tyranny to get there will mean tyranny when we get there. Injustice as a path means injustice as a destination.

In a book I recently started, I was impressed by John H. Groberg’s stories from his time serving in Mongolia. The people there were so humble, so simple, so kind and so close to God. They lived in a desert but yet they experienced no violence over scarce resources. The desert people lived in a state of community and oneness that many philosophers only dream of.

In that desert community, families leave their tent doors open for any traveler, known or unknown, who happens to need food or drink. They live after the manner of happiness because they love and respect one another. There also is an understanding about what you could take in another’s home and what you couldn’t. Respect for those unwritten laws created a peaceful society. Sadly, most of the western world, while being a place of great plenty, is fraught with much violence. We have not yet learned to live as One. The difference between Mongolia and the West is that Mongolians freely and willingly give of their substance, not just their excess, to their fellowman. What we consider “mine” in many cases they might consider “ours.”

Nevertheless, in both societies there is a respect for the property of others. There are boundaries. Wherever you are, if a person takes something that is yours without your permission, we call it stealing. If a person takes your wallet or purse we call this stealing. If a person in Mongolia were to enter the tent of another, which is opened to him for food and water, and takes the person’s clothes, bed, or money, it is clearly stealing. In these cases the person would have a right to call the police and report a crime. Stealing is an evil act.
As shared in my previous post, for evil to succeed most it must appear normal – and the best way to make it seem normal is to legitimize and legalize it. It is important to realize that just because something is legal, it does not mean it is right. For example, prostitution, non-medical Marijuana use, pornography, abortion, gambling and other sins and vices are legal in many parts of the country or world. Again, just because it is legal it does not mean it is right. The government’s redistribution of wealth is one such immoral, but legal, activity.

Ezra Taft Benson, former Secretary of Agriculture, explained it this way:

"In a primitive state, there is no doubt that each man would be justified in using force, if necessary, to defend himself against physical harm, against theft of the fruits of his labor, and against enslavement of another. This principle was clearly explained by Bastiat:

'Each of us has a natural right - from God - to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but and extension of our faculties?' (The Law, p.6)

Indeed, the early pioneers found that a great deal of their time and energy was being spent doing all three - defending themselves, their property and their liberty - in what properly was called the "Lawless West." In order for man to prosper, he cannot afford to spend his time constantly guarding his family, his fields, and his property against attack and theft, so he joins together with his neighbors and hires a sheriff. At this precise moment, government is born. The individual citizens delegate to the sheriff their unquestionable right to protect themselves. The sheriff now does for them only what they had a right to do for themselves - nothing more. Quoting again from Bastiat:

'If every person has the right to defend - even by force - his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right --its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual right.' (The Law, p. 6)

So far so good. But now we come to the moment of truth. Suppose pioneer "A" wants another horse for his wagon, He doesn't have the money to buy one, but since pioneer "B" has an extra horse, he decides that he is entitled to share in his neighbor's good fortune, Is he entitled to take his neighbor's horse? Obviously not! If his neighbor wishes to give it or lend it, that is another question. But so long as pioneer "B" wishes to keep his property, pioneer "A" has no just claim to it.

If "A" has no proper power to take "B's" property, can he delegate any such power to the sheriff? No. Even if everyone in the community desires that "B" give his extra horse to "A", they have no right individually or collectively to force him to do it. They cannot delegate a power they themselves do not have. This important principle was clearly understood and explained by John Locke nearly 300 years ago:

'For nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself, and nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another.' (Two Treatises of Civil Government, II, 135; P.P.N.S. p. 93)

The Proper Function Of Government

This means, then, that the proper function of government is limited only to those spheres of activity within which the individual citizen has the right to act. By deriving its just powers from the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute the wealth or force reluctant citizens to perform acts of charity against their will. Government is created by man. No man possesses such power to delegate. The creature cannot exceed the creator.

In general terms, therefore, the proper role of government includes such defensive activities, as maintaining national military and local police forces for protection against loss of life, loss of property, and loss of liberty at the hands of either foreign despots or domestic criminals (Footnote 1).”

Redistribution of wealth by the power of the government is the opposite of the Mongolian approach. There, the people of their own free will invite people in and give of what they have. Their leaders don’t make them open their doors and if a door is shut the travelers cannot open it. Furthermore, the rich don’t open their doors wider than the poor nor do the poor keep their doors shut but all are alike and care for each other. That is the society that I want.

Here, the Government takes by a majority rules vote in congress money from those who have and gives to those who don’t in the form of welfare checks, housing, education, government contracts and free medical care. Such forced “charity” is everything but charity and will further continue to create a divide between to poor and wealthy. It will continue to create a society of selfish and self centered people in all classes. It will continue us down the path we are on, and further from the path we actually think we are on. These policies make us less One Nation, and more divisible.

Although well meaning, such policies are tyrannical, immoral, unjust, and evil. The Government has no authority to do this – even if a majority of citizens through their leaders vote for it. If the majority through their leaders does vote for it and legalize redistribution activities, the majority becomes the mob, the Rights of all are trampled and the minority is villainized, the protector becomes the oppressor and the securer of liberties becomes the destroyer of liberties. The tables turn and, what do you know, everything appears right and perfectly normal.

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Footnotes

http://www.laissez-fairerepublic.com/benson.htm (Accessed on August 4, 2009)

The other evening, my wife and I were discussing the original “Bewitched” series. You know the one, Samantha & Darren? It was a series we both enjoyed when we were kids. With our Netflix membership, we decided to order it so we could watch it again and share it with our children.

We were both surprised at how non-wholesome in many ways that series was. It really epitomized the culture of the era:

1.Wives stayed home, cleaned and cooked. Period.
2.Men worked and did nothing at home.
3.Wives supported their husbands in their ambitions but should have none of their own.

It also showed things such as:

1.It was okay to harass women who worked.
2.Cheating on your wife was easy to do.
3.Women were supposed to dress a certain way for men.
4.Husbands could look at edgy magazines, in front of their wives, without a problem.

Truly many positive changes have been made over time which make the “good old days” not quite so good – just old. During the discussion I stated, “Evil succeeds most when it is made to appear perfectly normal.” That epiphany has been said in other words. Isaiah said it this way, “Men shall call evil good and good evil.”

As you think about those two statements, you will come to realize the truth of them. People generally repulse evil because of their nature. Evil, when put in stark contrast with good, is easily detected and mostly not accepted. It is when that evil is made to appear good that it is chosen.

Think of it this way:

Could slavery have persisted for so long, and a war wherein over half a million people died, had not the institution of slavery been accepted by many as good and normal?

Could there be such a huge drug using community if, to them, it didn’t seem right or normal to do so?

Could women have been denied their equal political rights for so long had it not seemed right and normal to do so?

Could Robin Hood have stolen from the rich to feed the poor had it not seemed right and normal for him to do so?

Could the bigotry against the Jews have been so deadly had it not seemed right to be prejudiced against them?

Could discriminating in employment decisions against people because of their gender, race, religion, age, disability or sexual preference take place if it didn’t seem normal and right?

Could the harassment of women by men have happened on such a regular basis if it wasn’t acceptable?

Could the wars fought by aggressors have happened wherein sovereign peoples were enslaved and oppressed, had it not seemed right and normal on the part of the oppressor nations to do so?

Could immoral laws be signed into law if the majority of people did not find them right?

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO. These evils could not have been if the people did not think them right or normal. Because all of these evils have or do now exist, we can see how successful evil has been in the past as it has prevailed many, many times – and will ever try to succeed and oppress the freedoms of mankind. It has cost the lives, dignity, and potential of billions of our brothers and sisters.

All of mankind has a conscience and knows the difference between right and wrong. However, evil will conceal itself under the disguise of good. It makes it easier for people to accept. People also have a remarkable ability to convince themselves that what they do is right – even when it isn't.

To be Free is to know what is Right, Good and True and to live thus circumscribed. It is to be an agent for one's self – free to act, and not to be acted upon. Evil entangles, strangles, and eventually destroys according to the degree it is indulge in; whereas Freedom increases the capacities of those who abide in it to bless, care for, and contribute to the welfare of themselves and those around them. Those who abide in Freedom are never content with blessing themselves only but roam their communities, cities and world to bless all humanity.

Because of this reality, there lies on our shoulders, the shoulders of a Free people, to do all we can to not be deceived by what appears to be right and normal. President Lincoln said that “freedom (is) the last best hope of earth.” It is. Therefore, you and I should do all we can to protect our Freedom – at all costs.

It is up to us to seek truth and live accordingly, and, above all, to beware of those who call evil good, and good evil.