Government Takeover of Health Care

CNN Poll: Majority Says Government Is a Threat to Citizens' Rights

Fifty-six percent of Americans say the government poses an immediate threat to individual rights and freedoms.

February 26, 2010

CNN – A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken - though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what's broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.

All the President's Mandates: Compulsory Health Insurance Is a Government Takeover

September 23, 2009

Cato Institute - The most hazardous health reform measure before Congress is not the so-called "public option," but proposals to make health insurance compulsory via an individual or employer mandate.

Compulsory health insurance could require nearly 100 million Americans to switch to a more expensive health plan and would therefore violate President Barack Obama's pledge to let people keep their current health insurance. In particular, the legislation before Congress could eliminate many or all health savings account plans. Making health insurance compulsory would also spark an unnecessary fight over abortion and would enable government to ration care to those with private health insurance.

Obama adviser Larry Summers writes that mandates "are like public programs financed by benefit taxes," meaning that compulsory health insurance would also violate President Obama's promise not to increase taxes on the middle class. Under the House Democrats' legislation, some middle-income earners would face marginal tax rates over 50 percent (before state taxes).

The experience in Massachusetts belies the claim that compulsory health insurance brings down health care costs. The "shared responsibility" ruse allows Massachusetts politicians to declare success for a compulsory health insurance scheme whose actual costs reveal it to be a failure. Massachusetts also demonstrates that compulsory health insurance enables, and ultimately requires, politicians and government bureaus to control nearly all aspects of health care and medical practice.

Rather than make health insurance compulsory, Congress should make it more affordable by letting individuals control their earnings and choose their own health plan from any state in the Union.