Hillary Clinton wants to make national health care the centerpiece of her Presidential campaign.  To this end, she unveiled her program last week, saying that there are parts of the American health care system that are broken and need to be fixed.

Senator Clinton's solution for this issue is to roll back the tax cuts for the top tier of taxpayers to help fund this program, and require that all persons in the United States buy health insurance.

That's right...REQUIRE the purchase of health insurance.

Supposedly her initiative will assist in creating large pools of insurable persons, so that the individual policyholder will not have to pay a large amount of money.  This is the general way that insurance costs are kept down in business (the more people that are insured, the less the cost will be per person, as the payouts are amortized by the larger inflow of cash due to the greater number of premiums being paid).  As such, this is a sound theory.  Mrs. Clinton also believes that the system will be more efficient, and thus less costly overall, as a result of her program.  This remains to be seen.  However, the REQUIREMENT of a health care policy for every American is the serious drawback to this plan, and the reason why, in my view, it must ultimately fail.

It is already bad enough that auto liability insurance is required in every state, so that if an accident occurs the persons involved do not suffer untowardly.  Even at the base amount of coverage ($25,000 property damage, $50,000 personal damage here), enough is provided to replace the damaged vehicles and pay for a good bit, if not all, of any medical costs incurred.  (Of course, if you're the driver at fault, you'll be looking for a new insurance company the day after they pay out the benefit...but that's another issue.)  For those who have driven a car for many years with no accidents, though, this cost of insurance is a scandal.  If you begin driving at age 16 and have never had an accident or insurance claim at age 36 (twenty years), I'm betting that you paid enough insurance premiums to buy a brand-new car...and a good one too, like a Saturn or F-150.  That money, though, went to the insurance corporation.  And this was a GOOD thing?

Now Mrs. Clinton wants to do the same thing in the health insurance sector.  Remember, this is the same woman who, in a fundraiser in San Francisco on June 28, 2004, told attendees, "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good".  This explains the rollback of the tax cut currently in place for the top tier of taxpayers.  This also explains the REQUIREMENT of all Americans to purchase health insurance.  The Senator overlooks the fact that there are some in America who will never need to seek the services of a health professional, whether by genetic fortune or holistic remedies.  However, those persons would also be REQUIRED to pay into a fund for which they have no use.

A person does not have to drive, so auto insurance can be bypassed (at the cost of personal mobility in most cases).  However, a person's health IS NOT a matter of choice.  Most of us will require a doctor's care some time in our lives.  Mandatory health insurance takes away our choice as to how we will pay for that care.  The Cold Hard Fact here is that every time the government forces a person to do something "for your own good" or "for the greater good", it is SOCIALISM, and every proponent of the free-market system should be up in arms against this proposal.

This is not Hillarycare.  This proposal does not involve a larger bureaucracy and more paperwork, as did the National Health plan of 1993.  The new plan would make it mandatory for everyone to carry health insurance. As such, it is socialistic, and is extortion on a Federal level, just as is required liability insurance on vehicles.  If H. R. (M.) Clinton was honest about her socialistic viewpoints, she would have simply proposed multiplying the Medicare withholding from all wage-earners' paychecks by a factor of five, and issuing national health cards to everyone.  That idea, though, would be (correctly) held as the next step to America becoming the next France.

In a previous entry on this blog, I have already proposed a revenue-neutral, opt-in Medicare insurance program for working persons ("A Proposal for Extended Health Insurance").  While this has been seen as advancing towards more big government, I see it as a means of compensating the worker for something they are already funding, but cannot access.  Senator Clinton's proposal is inferior in that it REQUIRES all persons to pay for health insurance (including those persons who live from paycheck to paycheck and can't afford it...and she knows this), while my idea gives the worker the CHOICE to pay into the plan.  Mandatory or forced acceptance of a proposal that requires a payout from the individual is extortion.  As such, Mrs. Clinton and her plan must be defeated.