Healthcare isn’t supposed to be political, but paying taxes or having the right to free speech isn’t supposed to be political either. As more and more information comes out about the use of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to muzzle conservative voices before and during the 2010 and 2012 elections, we need to think about whether or not we want the IRS in charge of America‘s healthcare.
On Thursday, I posted a story (rightwinggranny.com) detailing some of the abuses of the IRS in recent years. These abuses include sharing confidential information with political operatives, unequal treatment of organizations applying for 401C status based on political philosophy, and audits triggered by contributions to conservative candidates or conservative causes. As someone who was audited for the first time ever in 2010 after supporting the Tea Party and some conservative candidates, I take the idea of government intimidation seriously. The audit went on for almost a year, and at the end of the year, not a penny was changed. (It pays to keep good records!)
At any rate, a government that controls healthcare for all Americans is a potential danger to all Americans and to the freedom that we enjoy as Americans. Some observers are beginning to make note of this.
Robert Moffit, a senior fellow in the Center for Health Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, posted an article at Triblive yesterday detailing what ObamaCare is really about.
The article states:
Beginning Jan. 1, government officials will require you to buy a federally approved health plan or pay federal fines or tax penalties. They will define and redefine, at their pleasure, the content of your health benefits package, meaning the medical treatments and procedures you must have; the kind and level of preventive health care services you must have; the level of coverage you must have; the level of cost sharing, deductibles and co-payments that are acceptable — to them, not you.
Writing in the October 2010 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine, Sara Rosenbaum, professor of law at George Washington University and a supporter of the law, perhaps best described ObamaCare’s transformative effect on private insurance: “It will take on certain characteristics of a public utility.” In other words, private insurance will be “private” in name only.
Is this really what we want? The current administration (especially the IRS) has not shown itself to be an impartial enforcer of laws. There are no guarantees that future administrations will be any better–they might be worse. Does it bother you that your doctor now will ask you if you have guns in your house or ask for intimate details about your sex life? Do you want this information in a government data base where confidentiality is not assured? Do you remember the newspaper in New York that published a list of gun owners in an area?
The potential for abuse in ObamaCare is greater than the potential for good. As voters, we probably cannot get rid of ObamaCare right now. However, we can educate people and focus on the 2014 mid-term election. Unless ObamaCare is gone after the 2016 election, it will be here to stay, and that is up to the American people.
