Greg Knapp: Government health care is not moral
By: Greg Knapp
OpEd Contributor
August 27, 2009
If you are against the government taking an even greater role in our health care system, you are immoral. At least that's what President Barack Obama is trying to tell us.
During a teleconference with liberal religious leaders Obama said, "You know this debate over health care goes to the heart of who we are in America. ... It is a core ethical and moral obligation that we look after each other. In the wealthiest nation on earth, we are neglecting to live up to that call."
Key Data: One million people are waiting for hospital beds in the UK (Source: National Center for Policy Analysis) and about 900,000 are waiting in Canada (Source: Fraser Institute).
The president went on to say, "We are God's partners in matters of life and death," and the people saying the plan will eventually lead to a single payer system and rationed care are "bearing false witness." It's a good think George W. Bush never said something like that. Nancy Pelosi's head would have exploded.
It is not moral:
To forcibly take one person's money and give it to another. The Constitution outlines what taxes are to be used for. If we want to create a new "right" to health care, it should be done by a constitutional amendment. To state we can keep our doctor and insurance if we like it when new mandates and costs will lead many employers to drop coverage entirely. To claim Obama was never for a single-payer plan when he is on video saying he was for it as recently as 2007, saying: "My commitment is to make sure we have universal health care by the end of my first term as president. ... I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate private insurance immediately." To tell us the plan won't ration health care when his advisers are writing reports on how to do precisely that to save money.
A leaked report out of Vancouver shows Canada's government health authority is considering cutting more than 6,000 medically necessary surgeries next year in order to save $200 million. The UK health system has a formula to determine if the treatment you need is justified by "Quality Adjusted Life Years."
I'm sure that rationing care wasn't written in their bills, either. But every time government gets over involved in health care it happens.
How is that moral?
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