For the past few weeks, my mind has been wrapped around the health-care debate.  Just hearing the words government option sends chills down my spine.  My body (which incidentally enjoys being taken care of by quality health-care) responds to those words with an increased heart rate and sweaty palms.  The idea of government taking part in the practice of medicine SCARES the heebeejeebees out of me.

The main line of defense for the pro-government-health-care-option (or whatever it’s being called today… co-ops, isn’t it?) crowd has been to mock that fear; to question it and make it seem ridiculous.  They say I’m backwards and uninformed for not wanting to follow Europe’s example of socialized health-care, where life is apparently much better than it is here in the US.  They say I’m silly for thinking I won’t get to keep my private health insurance.  They say I’m mean and selfish for not wanting to pay higher taxes to provide health-care for those that cannot afford it.  They say that due to the preventative treatment allowed by government run health-care, quality of life for all will improve, babies will never die, and we’ll finally achieve immortality (or something like that).  How could I be afraid of all of that goodness?

What am I afraid of?

I’m afraid I’ll lose my private health insurance. President Obama has stated point-blank that his plan is to lead the US into a single-payer system, using a so-called government “option” as a transitioning period.  Let me break it down for you.  The government says, “Don’t worry, of course you can keep your private health insurance (although we’re going to tax you so much that you won’t have any other realistic option than to accept the government plan)!”  Do you see how this hurts the middle class?  Only the extremely wealthy will be able to afford private health insurance once you add in all the taxes and fees associated with it.  The rest of us will be forced to accept the government care if we want any coverage at all.  The middle class is the one that will suffer the most, as they are forced to surrender their private insurance and accept the waiting lists and rationing that come with government health-care.

I’m afraid of waiting lists and rationing.  I’m afraid of getting too sick or too old, when the cost-benefit ratio for keeping me alive is no longer worth it to a nameless, faceless bureaucrat. Health-care will be rationed in a socialized system, as we’ve seen in the UK, in Finland, in Canada, and many others.  I’m afraid of being told it’s my patriotic duty to die, so the cost of keeping a person alive can go to someone perceivably healthier than myself.  I’m afraid of unnatural selection, when at 22 weeks pregnant and in premature labor, I might be denied drugs like magnesium sulfate and terbutaline (which would stop contractions and mature the baby’s fetus’s lungs), because not only are they expensive, but the cost of caring for a preemie in the NICU can be upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I’m afraid that my quality of care would plummet.  If I need life saving treatment, I don’t care if my doctor is a one-armed albino that speaks in haiku’s and has a tendency to skip everywhere he goes.  I just want him to be an expert in the area I need treatment.  At the same time, I don’t think someone should become a doctor just because he or she might add “diversity” in the medical field.  It is discriminatory to give grants/promotions/benefits/special treatment to people based on their skin color, height, weight, the size of their ears, or because they pick their nose.  Ok, I take that last one back.  Anyone that picks their nose during a medical school entrance interview should not be allowed to become a doctor.  At the same time, the pool of intelligent and dedicated individuals willing to work themselves to the bone to become good doctors would shrink.  Too many people considering medical school might take a look at the bureaucratic red tape nightmare of government health-care and say, “No thanks!”

I’m afraid breakthroughs in medical technology will come to a halt. Since 1945, 87 of the 143 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine awarded have gone to Americans.  American doctors and scientists have pioneered transplant surgeries, chemotherapy, and vaccinations in the 20th and 21st centuries.  Will there still be breakthroughs when the government decides what kinds of care physicians can provide to what kinds of patients?

I’m afraid that my children and grandchildren will be paying for this.  French health-care is often touted as one of the best systems in the world, yet it is currently causing a huge deficit in their economy.  In the US, Medicare and Medicaid are already bankrupting us and leading to higher taxes and inflation.  How long before our country bankrupts itself?

I’m afraid that my tax dollars will be used to fund abortions, something that I’m morally opposed to.  Religious schools don’t receive tax-payer money because it would be unfair to require people morally opposed to religious education to pay for it.  How is requiring me to pay for abortions any different?

I’m afraid this is just be the beginning, as Ronald Reagan warned in a 1961 radio interview:

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project, most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.

What am I afraid of?

Government health-care, that’s what.