Posted on 07/24/2014 4:18:12 PM PDT by CharlesOConnell
Dale Ahlquist | 2-20-2012 | American Chesterton Society Blog
G.K. Chesterton considered himself a member of the Liberal Party until 1912. As he would later say, he did not leave the Liberal Party. It left him. He believed in something called liberty, the idea that people should be able to make most decisions for themselves, especially the most basic and most important decisions, and not have such decisions made for them by anyone else, especially by the government. He believed, as a liberal, that the State’s role was to preserve liberty, not take it away.
What happened in 1912? The Liberal Party, which held power in Parliament, passed The Health Insurance Act. Every working man was required to have part of his wages withheld to pay for a national health insurance. The funding was to be further supplemented by a tax on every employer. Sound familiar?
Chesterton’s objections to the Insurance Act were threefold. First, it was anti-democratic in practice. The vast majority of the English population was against it. It was being passed against their will, but—so the argument went—for their own good. Second, it was anti-democratic in principle. It divided the populace into two permanent castes: those who labor, and those who pay for the labor. Chesterton called this what it is: slavery. Third, Chesterton saw the Act as paving the way to the State seizing more power, more influence, more interference in everyone’s daily lives. Sound familiar?
About a century later, here in America, we are looking at essentially the same thing that Chesterton was looking at. We watched as a National Health Care program was passed in utter defiance of public support, rammed through the legislative process by one party rather than by any sort of consensus. We have also watched the reinforcement of a system comprised of employers and employees, of wage-earners rather than independent, self-sufficient and truly “self-employed” citizens. And we have also watched the unimaginable growth of government as it has insinuated itself into every aspect of our lives.
One of Chesterton’s strongest objections to the Insurance Act was the increase in taxes to those who could scarcely afford to have any of their income taken from them, even if it was to be used for something specific like health care. The tax prevented a man from paying for other needs he had that might be just as important as medical care. He was being forced to pay for medical care that he might not need. What other things that he did not need would the State decide he must also pay for?
Chesterton pointed out that a compulsory Health Insurance Act was first passed in Germany. It followed another compulsory act that was also first passed in Germany: compulsory education. Chesterton was a vocal opponent of state-sponsored compulsory education, for the same reasons he was against a national health insurance. It was an attack on freedom. It gave the government too much power, and it took away a basic freedom from the citizen. The liberal argument was that the State was providing a valuable service. Chesterton’s counter-argument was that though the State was providing education, it was the State’s education. Though it was providing medicine, it was a forced medicine. With a compulsory insurance, he argued, people were being forced to pay to be protected against themselves. People are often willing to trade freedom for security. But the problem is that it is usually someone else trading our freedom for our security.
Although Chesterton found himself allied with the conservatives on the issue of health care, he might point out now that one of the reasons we have gotten into the present mess was that health care became an industry, controlled by large corporations rather than independent practitioners, and every industry tends to grow till it forms an alliance with big government. When health care started becoming too expensive, the solution was supposed to be health insurance. But insurance quickly made health care even more expensive. On the one hand, the medical industry stopped worrying about being affordable; on the other, a new layer of private bureaucracy and overhead was added that also needed to be paid for. Is there a solution? Yes. There is one drastic solution.
But sometimes issues of health require drastic measures. The health care system needs radical surgery. The honest thing to do is do away with health insurance. Doctors and hospitals and clinics should start selling a product that people can afford, and that they should not have to buy unless they actually need the product. It should not cost a thousand dollars to treat an ingrown toenail. But it does. It should not cost $30,000 to set a broken arm. But it does. Ours is a system that cannot be sustained. That is why the government feels justified to step in.
Chesterton prophesied this very scenario. He warns that the State cannot become a Universal Provider without becoming just another big shop. The one thing we’ve seen about big shops is that they collapse. We can avoid the big collapse if we start getting small again. We might even get healthy again.
—Dale Ahlquist for the editorial board of Gilbert Magazine
A century ago, politicians and newspapers claimed that the establishment of the Federal Reserve would protect the little man, stabilize the economy and banking, and shield us from depressions and crashes. We now know that was just bait & switch, the Federal Reserve was never intended to do any such thing. The newspapers of that time led people around by the nose, feeding them anything their ultra-elite owners wanted.
Of course.
Keeping adult children on their parent’s policy until they’re 26?
Of course...now the insurance companies can charge more for insurance by putting healthy people on the policies.
...and the masses claim that this is a good thing.
LIttle socialism (insurance - the socialization of risk) in bed with BIG SOCIALISM (GOVERNMENT)
BIG GOVERNMENT IS CRONY SOCIALISM
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat
Socialist Security - 16T plus
Prescription Drug Socialism 21T plus
Medicare Insurance Socialism 84T plus
more…(economic slavey by socialists)...here…
U.S.A. - United Socialists of America
what republic?
DEFUND, DISMANTLE…it’s easy to…
live - free - republic
These companies thought they would make out like bandits but the politicians planned their destruction
I wouldn’t be so sure that the same sham could not be pulled off today. Just look at what they’ve gotten away with since then.
This is so correct— and on target. And the goal is the destruction of private insurance.
One more major player (am ashamed to know fully about this, and for which I repent daily)—big Pharma, as in the biggest in the world (FReepers can look these up). The goal of Pharma— is to be the number one vendor of choice to the number one payor (this being the govts. of the socialist nation of America) and to use this “single source” status as a leverage to not require any research and to set ANY price they wish.
The dirty little secret for Pharma is that they will be regulated out of existence, and treated as a public utility— these medicines are for ALL, dontcha know- regardless of the vast amounts of private research at risk money invested to create them. There won’t be any more of them— we will be like any 3rd world country. Like Nigeria, where if you are in the wrong tribe you cannot obtain injectible insulin (a horrible fact to this day). This is what the marxists have in mind for us, as they line their pockets with the industry provided graft.
This is a disgusting episode in our history— and utterly wrong and will be told for years of the graft and corruption of these animals, these users of human spirit.
Thank you for posting. This is dead on.
Government IS the problem. Government has NO business controlling my healthcare.
Look at the health statistics in Britain. Nothing compares to the former free markets we had in the US. Get used to motor vehicle style service. See what has gone on with the latest government healthcare at the VA. Similar stories will be heard from 0bamacare facilities in the future. 0bamacare needs to be repealed. Remember this in November.
Well Duh...
Government is FORCING ALL citizens to purchase their product. They pay for less services than pre-Obamacare. They have a guarantee against all losses. They get tax subsidies to provide insurance to the “poor.” Who wouldn’t want that deal?
Well, so what?
IN one word DUH.. i work in the industry and knew about all the health plan’s lobbying the congressional staffer’s over the “reform” pissed me off no end
And remember, the Kenyan is going to make up for any losses the insurance WILL incur. The Insurance cartel was fully for this bondoogle.
ping
This thread is RACIST!
Obamacare will destroy the US economically unless repealed entirely. It can’t be “worked around” nor can it be “fixed” piecemeal. It will destroy the nation like a cancer. Bam and the dems dropped a nuclear bomb on us.
Not enough people are informed today. And many who are informed are just plain stupid.
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