Last Saturday, the House narrowly passed landmark legislation that would transfer one sixth of the U.S. economy into the hands of a massive federal bureaucracy which would be established to manage a national healthcare system, aka Obamacare. The Senate is currently trying to craft a single bill from the three that passed out of committee, none of which are as extreme as the House version, but the bill likely to come before the Senate for a final vote is still truly frightful.

The Senate bill will:

• Tax employers for hiring
• Tax health insurance companies for offering plans the government deems too expensive
• Tax medical-device companies for staying in business
• Force individuals to buy health insurance that meets government standards or pay a penalty
• Mandate increased state spending on healthcare
• Mandate increased employer spending on healthcare
• Mandate increased personal spending on healthcare

If passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by the president, the resulting government control of healthcare will:

• Drive insurance premiums much higher and much faster than they are currently rising
• Drive insurance companies out of the health insurance business as severe regulations drive all profits from the industry
• Force insurance companies to drop the elderly as the government cuts Medicare payments
• Force more and more Americans onto the “public” (government run) insurance option

When all is said and done, the clarion call from the most liberal legislators – we must ensure that all Americans have health insurance – will cease to matter. When they have fully implemented their agenda, we will have become slaves to a tyrannical bureaucracy. Instead of worrying about whether the poor have health insurance, each of us will agonize over our health and wellbeing, which will be in the hands of the “arbitrary and inhumane decisions of distant bureaucrats in Washington where there’s no competition and no compassion. There’s nobody else you [will be able to] go to if you’re handed a decision you don’t like regarding your family’s medical care.”1

Obamacare is being designed and implemented against the will of a large majority of Americans by the same individuals who have already driven our country massively into debt by underfunding other enormous entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The tragic thing is that while unprecedented numbers of Americans have protested this travesty, so many of us have failed to even call our legislators to demand they back away from the precipice. This is inaction we cannot afford as our nation, which was “founded on the notion of individual liberty, private property, limited government, is run by politicians now who reject it all!”2

There are those who are hopeful that the Senate will be more deliberate and responsive to the voices of their constituents. Whether that is true or not, it is certain they will not respond to our voices if we do not raise them. Make no mistake; this legislation will change your life and your children’s lives. Will we let this happen on our generation’s watch?

1. Limbaugh, Rush. “Obmamcare: the Road to Serfdom.” The Limbaugh Letter Nov. 2009. Print.
2. Ibid.

Also referenced: “An expensive way to die.” National Review 2 Nov. 2009: 16. Print.

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