by Mark Rhoads
"Do you think the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans, or isn't this the responsibility of the federal government?" Sixty percent of the sample say "yes" to that question in a June 16-18 CBSNews/New York Times poll. Only 30 percent of those polled replied that this was not a benfefit that should be a guarantee of the federal government. Six percent did not know.
But the same poll sample said that 42% were "very satisfied" with their health insurance coverage now.
The easiest way to start a new federal program is to invent some new half-baked "right" to it. As in the "right "to decent housing or the "right"to 'affordable' health care. Where are all these new rights listed? They are not in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. They are only found in the creative imagination of left-wing politicians who want to grow government until it takes over every facet of your life and your livlihood. They are always "well-intentioned" but citizens who buy into their schemes almost always lose some freedoms. Many people just don't care about their own freedom that much and they are willing to trade their vote or tax money for almost any promise of something for nothing. Milton Friedman once famously said, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." True, the lunch needs to be paid for. But many people are happy to eat any meal paid for by someone else. Foolish people think,even though they pay taxes, that they can somehow still come out ahead if millions of other people pay their bills for them because they have a "right" to their neighbor's money if some pol says so. So as Americans gain more "rights" to new government benefits that suposedly no one pays for, are other more fundamemental rights lost along the way?