The first is that the success of BO’s plan DEMANDS and DEPENDS on single payor, plain and simple. The very notion of competition in the marketplace undermines that long-term objective.

The second is closely related…it’s necessary to keep segments of the populace from organizing to fight the reform effort. By “assuring” those who have ins that they can keep it, BO deludes a large contingent voters into excusing themselves from the debate, such as it is…I’ve got ins I like–this reform thing does not involve me. At the same time, he further incites the uninsured to even more radical action…I want ins and I’ll vote for anyone who will give it to me. The LAST thing the reform effort can tolerate is well-organized grassroots opposition and tough scrutiny.

Once the “public option” is in place, the demise of private insurance will quickly follow–exactly as has been predicted by everyone who’s looked at the landscape. No one and nothing has ever been allowed to compete with the government, and commercial ins will be no exception.

BO KNOWS he absolutely cannot get single payor initially…but he’s very comfortable with pieces/parts, as are all Dems…many of the onerous items from the “Health Security Act” have been trickled down since its defeat: SChip; NPI; HIPAA, etc. When commercial ins is destroyed, BO will ride in to “save the day” with the public option/single payer, and there won’t be a whimper of opposition, because THEN there will not be a “choice…”

It is disingenuous in the extreme to tell us we can keep our ins and then set up a system that will by design destroy that very commodity. BO will be laughing as we beg for what we once rejected.

Debi Carey

Ownership means one’s right to the use and disposal of property. Owning one’s life means that he owns himself as property, and as owner, he alone is responsible to pursue the goals necessary to sustain and advance his life according to his values; it poses no obligations on others except for the contractual obligations made by voluntary agreement.

Many argue, incorrectly, especially many of our current politicians, that the “right to life” means one must be given the products and labor of others using the government as the intermediary. Note the contradiction, however, when such a “right” is taken seriously and applied consistently. For one to receive the products and labor of others, those others now have their authentic rights infringed because their products and labor are taken from them without their consent. The producers are effectively right-less, meaning that their authentic rights are infringed by the government. It is no different, in principle, from the example of Black Slavery that lead to the Civil War; yet, today’s form of slavery is that of placing chains around productive people as such, physicians in this particular case.

This is the fundamental problem with medical care today. The principle of individual rights has been inverted so that a “right” has been manipulated to mean that one’s “right” is a claim on the actions and products of others, which must be implemented by governmental force.

This incorrect view of rights must be fought to the very core if the problems of medical care are to be resolved satisfactorily and permanently. Everyone’s authentic individual rights must be respected, and the purpose of a proper government is to enshrine the protection of authentic rights, not to infringe them.

With this background, I believe it is perfectly legitimate to propose a 28th Amendment to the US Constitution, reading as follows:

“Congress shall make no law prohibiting an individual, or group of individuals in voluntary association, or private business, from contracting with any physician, group of physicians, or other provider of goods or services in the medical professions. The Congress is expressly prohibited, for any reason whatsoever, from funding or regulating any form of medical care, including any institutions for research or development of technology (or both) in or related to the practice of medicine.”

Mark A. Hurt, MD
Creve Coeur, MO, USA