TheLoop21.com

By: Lenny McAllister (Add to your loop)
Thu, 12/24/2009 - 13:18

Senate’s vote to pass health care reform legislation comes with a cost.

With a rushed senate bill in tow, the Democrats have topped their year-long spending with a bow on the gift of a questionable record of leadership.

On Christmas Eve 2009, the Democratic supermajority in Congress – whom big government advocates such as Leaders Reid and Pelosi like to call “Santa Claus” – will give the American people a gift that may keep on taking.

The Senate’s vote to pass health care reform legislation comes with a cost that most Americans advocating for change are simply overlooking. One of the key points within the bill mandates that Americans purchase their own health care plans (President Obama incorrectly compared this to the mandate to have car insurance), thus creating this interesting paradigm: Americans will have more access to health care insurance because of an expensive bill from the Democrats that mandates that Americans must spend more in taxes (and thus, more taxes overall) while also buying their own health care insurance – even if they are financially-stressed – lest risk being fined by the federal government.

Only from a philosophy that believes in the growth of government leadership in the everyday lives of Americans can spending, taxing, and mandates that sidestep personal choice and individual ability create legislation that claims to help people while, at the same time, threatens to tax individual choice, fine people for situations out of their own control, and may increase health care costs overall – particular while we wait for years before the first benefit is doled out.

The infringement upon individual choice by forcing all Americans (while not yet completely closing the loop on illegal immigrations from being able to access the American health care system free of charge) is just the beginning. Taxes on cosmetic surgeries and other procedures (otherwise dubbed as the “botax” by pundits) lurk as the beginning of a trend to modify behavior through taxation. Areas such as New York State have already seen movements to incorporate huge taxes on items such as soft drinks in order to modify citizens’ behavior away from “undesirable actions.”

Folks, if a government can tell you that you must buy health care, then it can tell you (directly or otherwise) what you can or cannot do with your body as well.

Think not?

As it stands, provisions are in place for the federal government to annually provide millions to provide abortion services both overseas and in the United States, a plague that impacts the Black community at tragic levels. The primary fight in both houses of Congress (aside from the government-run option) centered on the government’s role to provide funding for elective abortions – enough of a fight that President Obama (an staunch pro-abortion advocate) noted his desire to get involved in the Senate’s creation of the bill once the House of Representatives took abortion-provided funding out of their version. A woman’s choice is not completely her own when federal tax dollars are being spent (and sent to organizations with questionable backgrounds such as Planned Parenthood) to persuade her “choice” away from life.

We find federally-mandated “choices” in other areas as well, from government task forces telling women to hold off on self-exams for breast cancer for an additional 10 years (I don’t recall hearing that same mandate for prostate cancer or testicular cancer, by the way) to “mandates” on H1N1 flu vaccinations that prompt recalls just months later.

Rest assured, Americans – we need health care reform. This is not the way to do it – not by the government telling people what they must buy and should not do. Providing avenues for a better path is an American way of life. Mandating which way we should walk is not a path towards progress, but based on another misguided spending plan from the Democrats, seems to be another initiative pushes us further towards poverty as a nation.

Lenny McAllister is a political commentator and author of the book, “Diary of a Mad Black PYC (Proud Young Conservative),” available at Lenny's Diary and Amazon. Follow him on Twitter and at www.lennymcallister.com where McAllister’s weekly video commentary can be found.
 

Is Obama compromising too much in the health care bill?

Yes, we need public option

No, he's keeping the peace

Republicans will block it anyway

Let's wait until the health care summit

I don't know