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Slavery Is Not Freedom

by Paul Jacob

There is one fact about the health care “reform” legislation being debated in Washington, DC, that is unavoidable. The fact that it is coercive.

Governments coerce. It would be great if governmental force were used only to combat criminals, not also to tell us how to live our lives. But, alas, this is not the case.

If the proposed health care legislation is passed, it will result in new orders from the federal government that everyone must obey. Everyone: Doctors; employers; patients; taxpayers. One mandate would force you to sign up for health insurance if you currently lack it. Refuse, and you'll pay a penalty. Unless you qualify for a “hardship exemption.”

Do we all know what this means? A Washington Post report claims that the notion of penalizing Americans who decline to sign up for health insurance “has its roots in the conservative philosophy of self-reliance.” Because, presumably, the best way to encourage self-reliance is to point a gun at people and tell them what to do “for their own good.”

This is worse than messy thinking. It is the opposite of the truth. Self-reliance is a matter of making choices. It implies the freedom to make choices. Self-reliance has nothing to do with Big Brother ordering you about as if your own thinking, values, and circumstances were irrelevant. And self-reliance has nothing to do with the current health care debate in Washington.

Paul Jacob's "Common Sense" is published by the Citizens in Charge Foundation. Their website can be visited at www.citizensincharge.org.

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Comments

The focus on mandates is a distraction. The most coercive thing in the bill is to make insurance companies deal with their policyholders without resort to fraud - fraud being the collection of premiums until one is sick and the withdrawl of insurance when one is not (after taking the money). Even Ayn Rand would say that such fraud should be countered with government action.

When an industry can raise prices faster than all others, you know something stinks somewhere. When it pays big bucks for surrogates to tell lies to derail reform, you know it knows that the clock is running out on the scam. It has given big bucks to have the hardcore Republicans shout down reform - and they will find soon that they have wasted their money.

Self-reliance has nothing to do with the health insurance industry, by the way. It is only made possible the participation of the State. Any limited liability corporation is a creature of the state to some extent, therefore any libertarian defense of this institution rings hollow.

I am all for alternatives, by the way. I would rather that employers provide doctors and clinics on their payrolls, including both well and sick child daycares (and even schools) so that the state need not do this. The only way for such things to happen, however, is to make it clear to employers that they must pay if they don't provide. Currently employers are shielded from this reality because, although they collect taxes and do most of the paperwork involved in taxation, the official liability for taxation is with the employees (even though such taxes affect their bottom line). Shifting the actual liability to employers is the best way to foster non-governmental approaches.

# posted at by Michael Bindner

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