US health care reform comes with strings, nay chains.

Once a single-payer health care program is enacted into law, the US Government will assume the right to tell us how to live our lives.  Our health will be their responsibility.  Government officials will feel empowered to tell us what to eat and drink, what risks to take, whether we can smoke, how much weight we can gain and how much exercise we must get.

If you have any doubt, consider the following statements from the Obama administration over the last year. The clear message is if the government pays for something with tax dollars, it has both a right and a responsibility to tell the recipients of those dollars how to conduct themselves.

• “This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success,” Obama said. “But what gets people upset — and rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”   http://wcbstv.com/national/executive.pay.limits.2.926332.html

• President Obama challenged top bankers to explore “every responsible way” to increase lending, saying they were obliged to help after being rescued by taxpayers. He asked them to “take a third and fourth look” at their small-business lending. He also exhorted the executives — both in private and in public — to drop their opposition to an overhaul of the nation’s financial industry.  “If they wish to fight commonsense consumer protections, that’s a fight I’m more than willing to have,” Obama told reportersin the Diplomatic Reception Room of the executive mansion.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34416646/ns/business-us_business/

• “Treasury has instruments that can address the excessive retention bonuses, and add provisions to ensure that taxpayers are made whole,” [White House spokesman] Gibbs said.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29714402/ns/business-us_business/page/2/

• “I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time, they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer,” said President Obama.     http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/remarks-of-president-barack-obama-address-to-joint-session-of-congress/

• Obama said it is “wholly unreasonable to expect that American taxpayers would or should hand this administration or any administration a $700 billion blank check with absolutely no oversight or conditions, when a lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got us into this mess.”  Obama said taxpayers should be treated like investors if they are being asked to underwrite the bailout.  http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/23/campaign.wrap/index.html

• “What’s really frustrating me right now is that you’ve got these same banks who benefited from taxpayer assistance who are fighting tooth and nail with their lobbyists up on Capitol Hill, fighting against financial regulatory control,” Obama added.  http://au.biz.yahoo.com/091213/31/2aafh.html

By Sherry Jarrell

• Health
• Politics