Conservatism Lives!

I’m growing weary of saying that I hate politics, but I really do. Part of the reason is that no one ever says what they really mean, and lately that has been front and center with “health care reform”. President Obama has been leading a charge, backed up by congressional Democrats and some Republicans to tackle “health care reform”. The talking heads echo the White House and point out that record numbers of people and businesses now agree that we need “health care reform”.

Frankly, you’d have to be an idiot to think that we don’t need some sort of “reform” to our health care system. Insurance premiums have been increasing at double digit percentages for close to a decade. Lawsuits have driven the cost of malpractice insurance in some states so high that some doctors are choosing to leave or simply stop practicing; decreasing the availability of healthcare in those areas. In short, the cost of healthcare has been skyrocketing for years and the availability of it has been decreasing proportionately. Everyone knows this. You would literally be out of your mind to be “against health care reform.”

My problem is that the President isn’t just talking about “reform”. He’s talking about some form of “universal healthcare” and or nationalized plan. I am personally opposed to that route, but I just wish that our leaders would have the honesty and openness to say what they mean so that we can have a real debate about it. (Perhaps be a little more “transparent”??) Any good debater knows that the best way to win an argument is to control the terms. If you control the terms, you win before you begin. By defining the discussion as “health care reform” rather than “health care nationalization”, the Obama Administration has effectively framed the argument in such a way that their detractors will be seen as lunatics. Unfortunately for you and I, that political savvy is about to deny us our right to an honest discussion.