What's Really at Stake in the Health Care Debate
by Jeffrey H. Anderson

The last remnants of limited government and the free market hang in the balance.

Excerpt:

"Times are tough for most Americans, but it's a boom time for government-run
health care.

Between the $86 billion worth of "economic stimulus" going to Medicaid, the
fresh $32 billion for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and
the proposed $634 billion "down payment" on a massive expansion of federal
health care, the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are determined
to make 2009 a year of prosperity and abundance for at least one element of
American society.

While this timing may seem strange — giving out raises with taxpayer money,
while taxpayers brace for layoffs — it is not surprising. The health care debate
is not just about health care anymore. It's a surrogate debate over the
centralization of power in Washington.

Take SCHIP. Ostensibly a program to cover poor children, it will now cover
nearly half of all American kids. This begs the question: do you want to be
among the half of all Americans whose kids receive public assistance health
coverage or among the half who gets to pay for it?

In addition to being an end in itself, health care has become a means to the end
of repudiating the vision of the American Founders and of most Americans. The
Founders believed foremost in liberty and they set up a government to protect it
by decentralizing and separating powers.

Today's "progressive" movement rejects that vision and calls for the
centralization and consolidation of power, with the aim of providing for people
by orchestrating the coercive authority of the administrative state.

Thus, the issue of health care will determine a great deal about our fate as a
nation. Through it, we will embrace our founding principles of limited
government and liberty or we will embrace an alternate vision that seeks to
triumph over these..."

Full article:

http://tinyurl.com/dgvzfg