Some initiatives go frighteningly beyond traditional health care and into areas of city planning, home construction and transportation systems. The level of centralized power over individual rights seems far beyond anything most citizens would expect in their daily lives on the grounds of health insurance reform. Here is what is in the bill:

Wide-sweeping “Health Impact Assessments” are proposed on “the potential health effects of the built environment.”

“The term ‘built environment’ means an environment consisting of building, spaces and products that are created or modified by individuals and entities, including homes, schools, workplaces, greenways, business areas, transportation systems, and parks and recreation areas, electrical transmission lines, waste disposal sites, and land-use planning and policies that impact urban, rural and suburban communities.”

For proponents, these proposals do a terrific job of centralizing power into the hands of government. They include health environmentalism, green impact assessments and added bureaucratic oversight and restrictions on American business. The ability to award grants seems unlimited and ideologically oriented to an expanded role of government in citizens’ lives, well beyond health and health care.

If your premise is false, then if your conclusion is true, it’s only coincidence.

Expanding it is not an option unless one wants to force people to accept a promise of “coverage” that will not result in the provision of actual medical care.

The private health insurance industry serves the people who contract with it. If they don’t like it they don’t have to purchase its products. As most people say they like the product they have, it is rather arrogant to applaud government interference in private arrangements out of some misplaced desire for revenge.

As an aside, the House of Representatives does not control public education, public safety, or most law enforcement. These are controlled by local governments.

Supposedly the big O was to put together a panel of experts who would get together and come up with the best ideas on how to proceed to fix our very screwed-up healthcare system. My question: Did anyone ever invite you to any of the gatherings of experts? If they did not, they missed the boat big time.

I believe there were some very informal meetings in the early days of the big O administration. If they believe this was enough to come up with fixes to such a complex system, they are even more naive than I already thought them to be.

Sadly our healthcare guru in chief does not seem to know what is meant by adverse selection.

One possible solution to the entire problem is to require insurance companies to cover an entire “course” of treatment for a condition which arises while coverage occurs – regardless of whether the customer continues to pay premiums.

This would be like life insurance.

I’d like you to explain the pros and cons of that in some future column if possible.

James