Government-run healthcare plans posed by members of Congress might sound compassionate on their face. No one wants to pay exorbitant amounts to see the doctor or get a surgery, and our current system is filled with high prices and inefficiency.
But in allowing the federal government to control our healthcare system, we lose an important freedom that has made our country great since the founding: self-governance.
In order to implement Medicare-for-all or any similar plan, Washington, D.C., would have to take more money from average Americans and give them less freedom in return.
As the Daily Signal's Jarrett Stepman explains, one of the biggest reasons federally run healthcare hurts Americans is by increasing both taxes and government control.
Government-run health care is expensive, really expensive, but that cost won’t just be paid by printing money and taxing a handful of rich people.
An analysis from Charles Blahous at the Mercatus Center estimated that the cost of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan would be about $32.6 trillion over 10 years. It’s hard to put such an astronomical sum into personal perspective, but Blahous tried to give a sense of what this would mean in reality: doubling all federal individual and corporate income taxes.
Yikes.
It’s these types of costs that have spooked even wealthy, deep blue states from passing such a plan. As even Sanders has admitted, if we pass Medicare for All, “there will be pain.”
But that pain won’t just come through higher taxes, it will also come through funneling the massive single-payer system through the government.
We already have something like this: The Department of Veterans Affairs.
Despite high praise from Obama, its government-provided services have left a lot to be desired. Jonathan LaForce, a Marine, wrote in The Federalist about what awaits us if America adopts this system for everyone:
"If you want long waits, even inside the doctor’s office, months before actually seeing a doctor about pressing issues, if you want faceless bureaucrats determining your life, if you truly in your heart of hearts think that somehow this is healthy and good, you go right on ahead …
"If you want to see more babies wind up like Charlie Gard, you go right on ahead and do that damnably awful thing."
Less money and fewer choices means less self-governance. It's as simple as that.
Fortunately, the Founders gave us a way to combat these and other big-government ideas.
Article V of the Constitution allows the people and the states to call an Article V Convention of States to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution. These amendments can form the ultimate barricade against government control by clearly and explicitly limiting the kinds of things on which Congress can spend money.
By prohibiting government spending on healthcare, for example, we can ensure that the American people are free to make the decisions they believe are best for themselves and their families.
Sign the Convention of States Petition below to show your support!
