Saturday, January 10, 2009

Wait 'til It's Free - Round Two

Dean had a great post about how the free market works to reign in the costs of health care. His title references P.J. O'Rourke:

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait 'til it's free"

Carpe Diem tipped us off to another danger of government run health care, a threat to your personal freedom. From the Washington Time article:

Recent news dispatches from Tokyo have highlighted a new Japanese law that ranks as the world's most aggressive, and possibly most ill informed, anti-obesity measure.

The law requires everyone between 40 and 74 years of age to have their waist measured. The requirement, which will cover almost half of the country's population, stipulates that people whose waists exceed the allowable limit — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women — will be given three months to get in to shape. Failing that, they will be given another six months of health re-education to reduce their waist measurements. Companies with large-waisted employees will be financially penalized.


Six months of health re-education? Welcome to the gulag, comrade, and I don't care how many gold medals you won as a Sumo wrestler. You know this will be good for you.

But seriously, this is such a great example of how the "Road to Serfdom" is paved. What area of freedom is more personal than one's own choice of dinner entree? The more the government controls the economy, the more the government will control our private lives. It's axiomatic. We need to make the fight against universal health care on both the economic front and the personal freedom front if we are to have success against this evil.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the link, bro.

    You and I must've been on the same wave length. I was thinking similar thoughts and was going to post accordingly.

    You have altered my plans, but that's OK because I am really craving some trans fat saturated food right now which will be in very short supply soon.

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