Too Little, Too Late

If I haven't been blunt in my posting, allow me to be blunt now: The health reform legislation before Congress is bad, bad, bad news.

To my liberal friends out there, let me sketch out what me, the heartless libertarian would be happier with: A single-payer system for those who want one, the only caveat being that folks who make enough money would have to pay for such a system, directly. Give medicare to all for the folks who want it and give everyone the option to buy in. Then, let the rest of us utilize the market- eliminate tax subsidies for employer provided health care and deregulate the insurance market so those of us who want it can have free choice. Yeah, I basically am offering the public option, but I'd rather there be a public option where private markets are still allowed to operate than have the complete evisceration of real private markets, which is what we may see under this legislation.

There is one bright spot to this legislation and that's the fact that if it's passed, it will be purely along party lines. Never before in our nations history has such an expensive piece of legislation been passed without any support from the opposition party. So ultimately, the workings of this legislation will be placed at the feet of Democrats and there may be the political will on the part of the Republicans to scale back a massive entitlement and regulatory boondoggle, something else that's never really been done before in our nation's history. And if we could get to that point, well, that would be a tremendously positive step for the future of limited government. Obviously a lot of speculation, but what more do we have at this point?