What the Health Reform Law Does to Medicare

David Sayen, the Medcare regional director for the West Coast, wrote a recent article itemizing the advantages of the Patient and Affordable Care Act -- ObamaCare.

Conspicuously enough, he neglected the word "Patient" when referring to President Obama's signature (and extremely unpopular) legislation. This bill does not serve the needs, short-term or long-term, of the patient in this country. With premiums already sky-rocketing, with insurance firms giving up on providing health insurance or closing down altogether, and as the insurance mandate now permits adult children to remain children on their parents' dole, ObamaCare is an underfunded entitlement liability already exploding the national debt with multi-trillion dollar waste and losses.

Rather than saving Medicare, ObamaCare raids the already overdrawn Medicare entitlement to the tune of $500 billion dollars, an unconscionable theft which fails to staunch the bleeding of our federal government's dwindling resources.

No matter how stiff and onerous the new penalties for Medicare fraud, as alleged to be contained in the health insurance mandate, Mr. Sayen fails to recognize that increasing government power over any element of American commerce all but guarantees more fraud, more theft, more diversion of legitimate funds to illegitimate hands.No matter how much money the regional administrator claims is saved by this overgrown monstrosity, the time and resources that businesses will have to invest just to keep up with the confusing legislation, and the discouraging despair weighing on prospective entrepreneurs who blanch at the sight of so much regulation, investment and business expansion will dry up, driving more people out of work and more industries out of the country. This cost cannot be factored adequately enough, but the damage will certainly be devastating.

Plus the unconstitutionality of the legislation tramples on state sovereignty and individual self-determination. Why not tell people what to eat, where to live, whether to ride buses or drive electric vehicles? No more how well-intentioned the mandates may be from government, any coercion automatically reduces the effective of state encroachment. When men and women cannot live at liberty to form their destinies and make decisions in line with their will and values, then even the perceived well-being offered by forcing individuals to purchase will fail in the long-term to maintain the well-being of citizens coerced into slavish dependency to the state.

The health problems associated with welfarism are too great to dismiss. Individuals who must forfeit their self-rule also give up any motivation to live and breathe and have their being, Is the federal government ready to live out the American dream for every human being who lives in the United States, too? Does the government just want to create more sick people who will give away their role in their own health? Measures of dependence, like ObamaCare, will only exacerbate human frailty, all while ruining the full faith and credit of the government, the states, and the people.