Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) penned an op-ed advocating single-payer health insurance - better known as socialized medicine.  McDermott believes that our current health care system is broken.  No argument there.  McDermott believes that the government should take over health care.  I disagree.

McDermott counters the argument that government shouldn’t concern itself with health care by stating that 70% of health care today is paid for by state and federal governments.  Hmmm…  It doesn’t take a genius to correlate the perceived growing health care crisis with increasingly heavy government involvement.  Does he really believe that increasing government involvement to 100% will all of a sudden fix everything and create a health care panacea?  Give me a break.

Next McDermott explains that private insurance is not as efficient as Medicare because overhead on private plans is three times Medicare’s.  I hope he isn’t seriously using Medicare as a shining example of how great things will be with government run health care.  We have a relative who was on Medicare at one point in time.  She strongly cautioned us against even seeing a doctor that accepted Medicare patients due to the deficient treatment she had witnessed first hand.  I’ve found that such feelings are far from rare.

He then makes two of the flat out dumbest statements I’ve seen in a while.

Health-care coverage is the single biggest domestic crisis facing America.

Try looking at entitlement programs and the looming threat to people of my generation when the roof collapses.  It will be bloody and painful for all involved and will make today’s health care crisis look like a sunny day.

America was founded on the common good and it is time we reaffirm this core value.

No, congressman, you must have us confused with the Soviet Union - the former Soviet Union.  America was founded on the concepts of personal freedom and just representation.  McDermott’s “we, not me” rhetoric that is popular among today’s Democrats should strike everyone who believes in personal freedom and individualism as deeply troubling.

Affordable health-care coverage should be a right, not a privilege, in America.

Oy vey.  He sounds like John Edwards, which is not a goal one should aspire to.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Dumbest Legislators, Health Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.