I was having a conversation the other day with one of my close liberal friends. We were discussing resumes of two of the current presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. My point was to show that Romney had the better of the two resumes. That his experience in successfully running companies, turning around the Salt Lake Olympics, and reducing Massachusetts’s deficit by 3 billion dollars without raising taxes trumpeted Clinton’s resume. Her response was there is a fundamental difference in running a company and running the government. Companies are made to make capital. While government’s purpose [and here is the key point] is to help and support the people.

This is where my friend and I differ on the role of the government. She believes it is something more akin to a non-profit charitable organization whose charge it is to ensure that everyone within its scope of influence has a good life. That the people are protected not only from those who wish to do them harm but in a very real sense protected even from themselves. I on the other hand believe the role of government is to create an environment where the people have the opportunity to be free to run and in some cases ruin their own lives.

I understand where Clinton is comping from. She is trying to help and support those people who have a difficult time helping themselves. On the surface this appears charitable, but beneath there is great danger. Though seemingly innocuous in fact the government is beginning to encroach upon my natural rights to live my life according to my designs. The question is where does this encroachment stop? It also puts a great amount of power in the hands of a few. One of the great insights of the Founding Fathers was the importance of diluting power. As a representative to the U.S. Congress Gerald Ford once said, “If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.” What has been dubbed Hillarycare is stepping in this direction. Creating a government who gives us everything we want.

The idea of Universal Health Care is a noble thought. According to the proponents you are a heartless jerk if you don’t want to pay for the medical expenses of your indigent sick neighbor.

But something strange happens when you provide health care for everyone. I can hear you asking, “What strange thing?” It is the Law of Unintended Consequences of course. 

See the proponents say that if we provide health care for everyone then everyone will be happier and healthier. The unintended side effect is people begin to abdicate their health to the state. I mean why take care of myself if the state is going to take care of me. Who cares if I drink to much or eat to much. If I get sick, over, and over, and over the state will continue to fix me up. 

This has started to become a problem in England. And what is the natural response when people begin to take advantage of the system. Why punish them of course. According to this article in the Telegraph “Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.“ 

The article continues:

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

Fertility treatment and “social” abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.

This is a great idea. Creating a health care system for the healthy. That will definitely reduce costs. But the big question is who plays God? The state? The doctor? The public? Who decides who dies and who lives? 

Apparently some chap named Paul Mason a GP in Portland, Dorset is ready to assume the role of God.   

Mason “said there were good clinical reasons for denying surgery to some patients. “The issue is: how much responsibility do people take for their health?” he said.

“If an alcoholic is going to drink themselves to death then that is really sad, but if he gets the liver transplant that is denied to someone else who could have got the chance of life then that is a tragedy.” He said the case of George Best, who drank himself to death in 2005, three years after a liver transplant, had damaged the argument that drinkers deserved a second chance.

This of course is an unintended consequence of providing Universal Health Care. Is this what we want in America? A Government that is big enough to give you everything is big enough to take it away. Apparently even your life.

 h/t:  The Belmont Club