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Published: August 19, 2009 08:20 pm
Readers' Forum: Aug. 20, 2009
Bigger government means less liberty
Understanding the opposition to the Health Care Bill (H.R. 3200) is actually rather easy and can be achieved using bipartisan support.
In a 1974 address to Congress, Republican President Gerald Ford stated: “Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”
Then on Aug. 11, at the New Hampshire Town Meeting, Democrat President Barack Obama said, “If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”
The Federal Government, excluding the Postal Service, is already the largest employer in the United States, followed by the United States Military, Walmart, and the Postal Service in that order. Some 760,000 people work for the Postal Service. Wikipedia notes that the U.S. Postal Service has operating revenue of $74.932 billion, with its operating income and net income both at a $2.806 billion loss. That is $2.806 billion in the red. UPS and FedEx both showed profits for the first two quarters of 2009.
Right now, Medicare serves about 43 million Americans and Medicaid serves about 46 million, with 6.5 million eligible for both. Some 67,000 people work for the Department of Health and Human Services, which administer both these programs and Social Security. Medicare has an estimated unfunded liability of $32.4 trillion.
Thus, if we look at the success of the U.S. Government to provide medical care to about 30 percent of the population, we see an overall financial failure.
The programs under the care of the HHS hemorrhage money at an alarming rate.
These programs, however well meaning and well intended, are spiraling out of control.
Two weeks ago, a supporter for HR 3200 knocked on my door asking me to sign a petition to “spread the services and benefits of Medicare to the rest of the population.” I said no.
Why would I, or anyone else, support a program that means to extend one program serving 30 percent of the population at a staggering loss to the remaining 70 percent of the population?
Alternatively, to follow President Obama’s line of reasoning, why would we take away services from more efficient private providers (UPS and FedEx) and give it to the less effective government version (USPS)?
HR 3200 has a stated purpose, “To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.” That phrase, “reduce the growth” is really the sticking point here. The Federal Government has yet to demonstrate that it can operate any program in such a fashion as to reduce the cost of that program.
It cannot; if it tries, the result can only be a huge increase in the size of government. Imagine HHS the size of USPS or more, unless we are to believe that 67,000 people who cannot efficiently provide services to 89 million can become efficient and cost effective by giving them more work.
This brings us back to President Ford who suggested that any government that provides all things to all people can only do so by taking away that one thing we in America treasure above all else, our Liberty.
That is why so many people are protesting.
— Robert Flott
Terre Haute
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