Amid contentious debate, a divided nation, and widespread opposition, the House of Representatives narrowly approved legislation enacting total government control of the medical profession. The close vote, in which 39 Democrats joined near-unanimous opposition among Republicans (a New Orleans congressman was the only Republican to vote in favor of socialized medicine), was called in the darkness of Saturday night. The historic bill, which I compared to slavery and forecast earlier this year, represents the culmination of the President’s long, never-ending seige against what remains of free market medicine. If this bill is approved by Congress, Americans will be forced to buy what the government defines as “health insurance” at gunpoint, and private medical care as we know it will be forbidden and/or cease to exist. The bill now goes to the United States Senate.
I’ve been writing about health care policy and warning my fellow Americans that we already have government-controlled “health care” and that the idea must be actively opposed and stopped for decades but it is nearly impossible to get people interested in the topic, especially conservatives who accept the moral premise that health care is a right and some Objectivists, who refuse to engage in any form of activism and think politics is utterly beneath them and therefore not worth the expense of effort. If this bill becomes law, which is entirely up to the American public, it will take us irrevocably toward totalitarianism.
In the meantime, every American should speak out immediately, repeatedly, and often, and seek to stop this monstrous legislation. If it passes, it will become necessary to coordinate intellectual, economic, and political counterstrikes, such as organized boycotts (of any business or group that supports it), strikes, legal challenges, efforts to repeal, state-by-state opt-out legislation, marches, protests, and other measures, including a demand that any local, state, or federal political candidate take an oath to work to repeal the law as the highest priority. Silence implies consent and now is the time to speak up. The fact that the nation’s Speaker of the House, who happens to be America’s first female Speaker, and the nation’s supposedly pro-choice president, who favors anti-gay conservative Christians, adopted an anti-abortion provision in their socialized medicine is a sneak preview of what’s to come under government-run “health care”: medical care delivered, financed, and controlled by the state, which means dictatorship…which, in today’s context, means religious dictatorship.
