One small step for Congress, One giant leap into Socialized Medicine

America we have a problem. Congress will soon over-ride the President's veto on the SCHIP expansion bill. Democrats are convincing Republicans that they will not win re-election if they do not support the bill. Unfortunately, they're right. On the surface, not supporting the bill seems absolutely heartless, after all, the SCHIP bill would give insurance coverage to children who don't have it. Democrats, in a diabolically clever political move have painted the issue as exactly that, the kind people who want to help the children versus the evil Scrooges who want them to die. But upon looking closer, one realizes that this is an inherently flawed bill.
First, the obvious, it costs $35 billion, that's right billion, with a B. $35 BILLION of taxpayer's money. Enough said.
Second, though insuring kids sounds great, what it represents, is yet another thing that the government is forcing on us. Should kids have medical insurance? Of course they should, everyone should. Not having you and your family insured is stupid and short-sighted. But I beleive in freedom, including the freedom to be stupid and short-sighted if you so desire. Now I realize that some of the children covered by this bill don't have insurance simply because their parents can't afford it, but that is what charities are for. You remember, charities, that's how poor people used to get help before the government started funneling money directly into their pockets. The fact is, Americans give millions if not billions of dollars to charitable organizations every year, chances are that at least one of them has money for this type of thing, if there isn't such an organization, start one.
Third, this is just a prelude to something worse: Socialized medicine. For those of you who aren't up on politics, socialized medicine is when the government controls the entire health care system. This is bad for a variety of reasons, for one, government is notoriously inefficient. I don't want to have to wait four months to go to the doctor's office, while the doctor is trying to get the paper work past the bureacracy. Furthermore, the quality of care will get worse, as good doctors move to other countries where they can be paid more, and will have the freedom to do what they must to save a patient instead of getting it cleared with some government official. As if that wasn't bad enough, our tax rates would go higher than they already are. I could go more into the evils of socialized medicine later, but needless to say it's a very bad thing, and this SCHIP bill is the first step on this very slippery slope.
Yet in spite of this reasoning, President Bush's veto will be over-riden. It's not a matter of if, but when. At least the Democrats can be excused, they actually believe the garbage that they are saying, they think that big government and socialized medicine is a good thing. But the Republicans will help to over-ride the veto not because they don't know what I've just layed out, but because they care more about their re-election campaigns, their personal power, and their public image, than about what's right. They're afraid to look mean, and so they'll vote for a bill that will be the beginning of the end of our free market health care system, and twenty years from now, when people are dying because their doctors are ill-trained or because the paper work didn't clear in time for their life saving operation, then these politicians can take solace in the fact that they didn't look mean in front of the whole country. Meanwhile, the few who have the guts to stand up and oppose this bill, will lose re-election, because they didn't care enough about the children, or at least that's how it will be portrayed by their opponents. So write your congressman, let them know what you think. Who knows? It may not be too late to prevent the over-ride.