Why government-provided health care is a bad idea

I recently read two wonderful opinion pieces that speak to the real issues that condemn the concept of "public" health care to failure. Both of them come back to human nature--that which no amount of legislation will alter.

The first is by Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. Mr. Sowell's article, The Great Escape, reflects on how modern culture has created an age in which people take no personal responsibility for consequences of their own actions and behavior. I suspect that the babyboomers who led the brigade of the 80's "me generation" segued into the 90's "don't bring my head down" spoiled brats who saw their problems as everyone else's fault. This extends to my obesity or heart disease or diabetes or crack baby being your fault. If you caused my problem, then by this reasoning, you need to fix it.

Although America already has the best health care in the world, these people want better, even perfect, health without having to change their bad habits. They expect a little blue pill that will magically allow them to eat badly, sit around, smoke, drink and do drugs without health repercussions. And they're just crazy enough to think that government control of the healthcare system will give them this.

The other opinion is a guest column in the Colorado Springs Gazette from MD Gregory Sharp. It's entitled, Insurance Shouldn't Cover Day-to-Day Repairs to Our Health. Dr Sharp draws the analogy between health insurance and a government-subsidized auto policy. If you have great coverage for non-necessities, the impulse is to use it, and often. Since you don't see the costs, it's human nature to be lazy about buying your own routine care. Just let your car get run down and let the government fix it every time something breaks. But this model is unsustainable and only encourages people to rely on government care rather than take personal responsibility for the health of their car (or their body.)

Obama and his nanny state supporters have a fundamental error in their perspective on who should be responsible for a person's well being. If Obama succeeds, we become those useless human blobs from Wall-e. We also become the most taxed citizens in history. We must not let them succeed.