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Have you ever heard the story of the fireman who starts fires, so he can play the part of hero by being first on the scene to “save” the occupants or their property? After crippling the health insurance industry under mountains of regulations, mandates, tax distortions that disconnect insurers from their customers under a our absurd third-party-payer system, and state-sponsored restraints of trade, the government will now play the role of that fireman. The “public health insurance plan” is just another name for socialized medicine, and denying that is dishonest and evasive. Its ultimate goal is a slow-motion transition to totalitarian government control of medicine. A “public health insurance option”, as it is deceptively called, is backed by the legal force of government, which can subsidize it through taxes, while setting legal restrictions and conditions on its private “competitors” through its tax and regulatory authority…etc. A private company has no coercive power, and must rely upon the voluntary private market…which the very existence of a government “insurer” distorts and undermines…while all along being subject to the coercive edicts of politicians bent on protecting their “public option”. To pretend that there can exist “competition” between a government-run “insurer” and a private one is to say there is no difference between an armed mugger and his victims. The destruction of the free market through coercive government interference, followed by a declaration that freedom has failed, is a classic pattern…socialism through the fascist back door. The pattern is being repeated in multiple industries, as the America founded upon the rights of the individual retreats into tyranny. As the government now poses as the champion of its own victims, by offering a free appendectomy or cholesterol pill in exchange for our freedom, it would be wise to consider that the definition of slavery is "a condition of submission to or domination by some influence...servitude…the state of being under the control of another person." The only antidote to slavery is the system that Ms. Harrop ridicules…the system based upon the moral principle of individual rights and voluntary association and co-existence…free market capitalism. http://www.principledperspectives.blogspot.com/

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Ms. Harrop uses a particularly unfortunate metaphor for a health care plan as opposed to a camel -- in her words, a horse may appear "a sleek machine that performs with efficiency" -- but when ready sustenance is unavailable, it suffers unrecoverable damage; its limbs are graceful but fragile. It is a beautiful and slek creature, but it needs constant care and maintenance. A camel is hardy, able to survive in the toughest environments with little water or feeding, and needs little care. Clearly she knows nothing aout animals, and about as much about health care as she knows bout politics. Perhaps "design by committee" (or consensus) is a strength, not a weakness. A typical ramrod-ideologue, she wants something that is forced without consensus down everyone's throtas. She is a Hilllary clone, but it appears Hillary at least learned from her mistakes.. Get rid of this person -- she is the kind of one-way nitwit we can no longer accept in American politics. Her commentary is pernicious, wasteful, and stupid.

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I don't know which group is more greedy, the insurance companies or the health care providers. It doesn't matter because they do not operate in my best interest. Congress has a golden opportunity to do some good for all Americans by guaranteeing affordable health care. For those who haven't noticed, the legislation that does working people the most good is passed by Democrats (Social Security, Medicare, HIPPA).