Seat Belts and Socialized Medicine
By Steve Byas
Over twenty years ago I wrote an article in which I forecast that the drive for seat belt laws and living wills were part of the drive for socialized medicine. I said then that once we accept the premise that the state should be able to force us to wear seat belts, then the next logical step would be the government will take upon itself to tell us what to eat.
I was ridiculed at the time by some, but my prediction has proven correct.
While I wear my seat belt, I do not think it is the proper role of government to make me wear it. The proper role of government is to keep individuals from hurting other individuals. Now, I was told that, well, if a person is not wearing a seat belt and is injured in an automobile crash because they were not wearing a seat belt, then that person is hurting others because that person is adding to the cost of the health care system.
Then it hit me. With the passage of socialized medicine (by whatever name you call it), my health and your health becomes a concern for the government. For those who have ever read George Orwell's 1984, the opening scene depicts the main character, Winston Smith, being awakened by the telescreen and ordered to do his exercises. Adolf Hitler's National Socialist government took a deep interest in regulating healthy lifestyles of its citizens.
The Oklahoma Legislature has passed a law (HB 2774), which creates the Oklahoma Certified Healthy Communities Act and the Oklahoma Certified Healthy Schools Act, directing the Department of Health to establish and maintain a program for the certification of communities and schools that meet guidelines to promote wellness, encourage the adoption of healthy behaviors and establish safe and supportive environments.
We all just know where this is headed.
While initially a voluntary program, once established, it is expected efforts will be made to impose the requirements on everyone. That is why I cringed over the movement years ago to get everyone to sign "Living Wills." While I would have no problem with an individual choosing such a document on his own, this is how I fear it will work in practice.
Under a nationalized health care system, in which the government is "paying" for all medical care, the government would make a simple cost analysis of the merits of keeping someone alive. Is it worth it to perform, say, knee surgery on a very old person? With only so much money available in the government health care system, should that money be spent on a paraplegic who is unable to work, and contribute to the government's coffers?
Socialized health care changes the relationship of individuals with their government from citizen and state to subject and state.
This bill, passed by a Republican controlled Oklahoma Legislature is part of this concept. It is the role of the government not just to protect us from those who would take away our life, our property, or our liberty, but rather to control our lifestyles for what some bureaucrat determines is our own "wellness."
Adoption of healthy behaviors? Perhaps we need to eat more fruits and vegetables and less fried foods. Perhaps we need to eliminate candy or soda pop. Presently, we make those decisions, but the groundwork is being laid for some government bureaucrat to make these decisions for us. If someone gets injured in a hunting accident, then perhaps, the reasoning would go, we need to ban hunting.
After all, we need to save the money for other government spending programs, like paying for the health care of an illegal alien, a woman to have an illegitimate child, or even artwork that the free market would not pay for. To paraphrase President Obama, we can just give some old person a pain pill. Give grandma a walker, or a cane. Money spent on knee surgery can better be spent, in the minds of socialized medicine advocates, on some government welfare program.
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