The latest news buzz has been on Barack Obama’s plans for universal healthcare. It is easy to bring out sad stories of people who seem to fall through the cracks in the system and go without care, but before we scrap the greatest healthcare system in the world we must make sure we have the facts straight. It is seldom helpful to base laws on emotional appeals.

We often hear about those without insurance and that they are unable to get basic health care. It is actually illegal for a hospital emergency room to not render aid and care for life and limb. These patients will sometimes find their costs covered by government programs, but often the hospital is forced to pass these costs on to other patients. Most of these people are honest people who simply have not been able to afford coverage, but those who defraud the system are a huge problem—giving false identification to prevent collection. My family and I went for many years without health coverage. We still managed to get very good care for an assortment of problems. Sometime we made payments and other times there was help from private charities.

Another claim is the number of people unable to afford healthcare. What about the people in that statistic who can afford it but choose instead to spend their money elsewhere? I purchase health insurance because it is important to safeguard my family. To do this I give up other things I could spend the money on. Many who claimed to be unable to afford insurance have cell phones, good sized homes, new cars and cable TV. Some of these people actually have insurance offered by their employer but they elect to do without preferring to risk a high cost and hoping the government will do it for them. People electing to do without insurance should be excluded from these studies and be left to their own devices when there is a medical emergency. You have a right to be stupid and if you are stupid enough to elect to be uncovered then you should deal with the consequences—rather than casting them upon the fed, the state, the doctor or your fellow citizens.

Barack Obama has claimed that under his system there would be no mandatory switch from private to public insurance. He proposes a government system that would compete with private coverage. It is claimed that this would keep market forces at work in healthcare to drive down costs. Imagine running a business with a competitor across the street. Competition is good for both businesses and for the customer so long as it is honest competition. However, if one company has unlimited resources and no need to turn a profit then there is no true competition (consider the Post Office). Add to this the power that the government has to regulate the industry and you now find a a private individual competing against a monstrosity that easily absorbs the highest of costs while driving other’s costs up through regulation.

Private insurance companies and their clients will find themselves, through taxation, underwriting the public system that they compete against. The private companies will have higher costs from regulation and higher taxes to subsidize the wasteful government system they compete against. Families who choose to pay for their own coverage will discover that in addition to the cost of their own insurance they are expected to pay (taxation again) for those who choose to join the government system.

The losers in this system will be the American people as they see coverage choices dry up. Companies that now offer insurance will find themselves forced out. Employers who offer coverage will find it cheaper to pass that cost along to the government and stop offering health benefits. Workers who receive medical coverage as part of their retirement package will see those go away in favor of pushing them onto the government system.

While discussing back and forth the pros and cons of a government healthcare system, few are pointing out that the federal government has no power to interfere with the healthcare system. This is an affront to the limited government intended by the founders. The federal government was limited to certain powers and responsibilities. Anything outside of these is an issue for the people themselves or the states. We are never going to see a return to constitutional government and the freedoms it guarantees unless we begin telling our elected officials to stay within the scope of their duties. So join me in telling Mr. Obama and the Hip-pocket Congress: “Hands off my health care!”