How do you keep government out of the bedroom? You do it by keeping government out of the health-care business.
If you don’t believe it, check out this story about Amish health care. The Wall Street Journal has a story about the high costs of treatment for Amish people who are at high risk of genetic disorders caused by inbreeding: “Opting out: ‘Old Order’ Mennonites and Amish who shun insurance face rising bills. Should hospitals cut them a break?” There is some useful commentary at Amish America.
If you read it, you may respond, “Hey, there’s nothing in that article about government health care. This is between people and health care providers.”
That’s true, but there are people lurking around us who see every health care problem as one for the government to solve. They may present nationalized health care to us as a way of growing a magic money tree to pay for all of these things that nasty insurance companies don’t want to pay for. Or, in this case, to pay for things that nasty hospitals and doctors won’t provide at a reasonable rate. Under government health care, the risks people take will become government business, because the money to treat them will be money that isn’t used to treat other maladies. Under government healthcare, it will be government business as to whether Amish should be allowed to breed with other
Amish who might be a high risk factor for Hirschsprung disease. Under government healthcare, the government is in our bedrooms, making decisions that used to be personal matters.