The Trunk

Tonight

Those celebrating will never understand the deep sense of dread and gloom some of us are feeling right now. It isn’t just because of the process (which seemed to us thoroughly corrupt), or the cost (we believe no sane person could view this as deficit-reducing), or the chutzpah (even liberal Massachusetts was against this), or the idiocy (everyone thinks our health insurance system is insane, and this sustains it). No, in the end, it really is about freedom. If this law stands, then you have to buy insurance. Not as a condition upon the exercise of a privilege, like driving. But rather as a tax on your very existence. We’ve taxed income, and purchases, and sales, but we’ve never taxed your mere existence before, have we? The fact that you are born—something you have no control over—now subjects you to a tax. And not really a tax—but a mandate that you have to give your money to private companies in exchange for a product you may not want.

Nobody likes to talk about slippery slopes, maybe because they are always invoked by silly alarmists. But when they started to regulate tobacco, the silly alarmists said regulators would go after fast food, and they did. And then they started going after trans fats and salt and soda and bake sales. And it’s hard to tell where it will stop, because once you decide that the regulators should tell you how to live, they will tell you how to live.

So now our government can tell you to buy an insurance policy for your health, and the proponents of this make all kinds of arguments about externalities and such. But externalities can take you pretty far. Should you be forced to buy a life insurance policy, so your family is taken care of? Should you be forced to buy an accident and dismemberment policy? What about a standard liability policy, to cover any torts you might commit? How about forcing you to buy a burial policy, so society doesn’t have to cover the cost of disposing your corpse when you’re gone? Almost every insurance policy relieves some societal burden. Who is to say you shouldn’t be forced to buy all of them?

Okay, I’m to say it. You should not be forced to buy any of them.

So tonight, I’m feeling pretty sick, and there’s nothing in the health care bill that can treat it.