Harry Reid, Health Care, And Being Owned

December 9, 2009 / 12:49 pm • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

HarryReid_Cracked

If an American citizen wants the comfort of guaranteed care, he will have to pay a steep price. Freedom and slavery is a continuum–with indentured servitude, heavy taxation and other crimps in economic style falling in between the absolute ideals.

One could argue that the health care legislation being proposed by Harry Reid et al. pushes the balance toward enslavement. That is, Americans will pay more in taxes. They will be forced by the government to do something (buy insurance) they may not want or need to do. They will be forced to accept government standards of care. They will have less choices both in their private financial decisions (since more money will be spent on government mandates rather than personal desires) and in their health care decisions.

In short, Americans will be less free, but ostensibly have more guarantees of safety.

Yet Harry Reid made the outrageous observation that anyone who opposes this legislation are like those (majority Democrats) who opposed civil rights legislation. That is, he analogized those who oppose government tyranny with those who defended personal tyranny. Here’s what Reid said:

Reid on Monday said Republicans were displaying the same mindset as those who defended slavery.

“If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right,” Reid said. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, ‘Slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.’ ”

He then defended his remarks.

It seems to me that Harry Reid should be more careful with his analogies. As offensive as it is to put those who oppose this bill in the same category as those who “belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery”, it’s even more offensive to note that the exact inverse of what he said is true.

Those who fight the health care legislation fear being owned. They fear that every personal decision from cradle to grave will be manipulated by a nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington D.C. They fear easily accessible files, not unlike the IRS, where a government employee can know every private piece of information about the citizen’s life. They fear health care decisions made for financial expedience. In short, those who fight against this health care bill, don’t want to be owned by the government.

So, it’s rich that Harry Reid calls those opposing the health care legislation as modern slavery defenders. Incredible, really. Harry Reid needs to look in the mirror. It is he who wants to control every aspect of a person’s health care life. If he has his way, the taxpayer will be paying for more programs with less quality.

Harry Reid is all about ownership…as long as the government owns and the taxpayer is enslaved.

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  • M. Dennis Paul, Ph.D,

    What fails in this analysis is that the vast majority of citizens are, in reality, in servitude to the insurance companies, the banks, corporations, etc. Those who fear being owned do not recognize their enslavement. It is amazing, to me, that people who are a pay check or two away from the street and are paying absurd premiums for health insurance to what are essentially middlemen making health decisions out of expediency, denying claims for ludicrous “reasons”, and spending billions from those premiums to lobby against those payers cry that paying less, in the form of taxes as opposed to premiums, to get the same or better care, is somehow wrong.

  • Steve

    Health insurance do not own me. I had the choice of not having any insurance. I own my own body. I can choose between $5,000/high deductible plan to zero deductible plan if I want to. The fed government does not tell me which plan is acceptable. Although I understand that the state government dictates some of the things that health insurance have to cover AND the fed guarantee health insurance profit by letting them to operate without having consumer able to choose out-of-state insurance.

  • http://patientpowernow.org Brian T. Schwartz

    To M. Dennis Paul: If you do not like insurance companies w/ so much power, as politicians to remove legislation that shields them from competition for patients and accountability to patients. Namely, a tax code that ties insurance to employment, and the ban on buying insurance available in other states. For details, check out “Why to condemn insurance companies” at by blog (linked above) and “Down with insurance companies” by Tim Carney in the Washington Examiner.

  • Pingback: Harry Reid & Democrats’ health “reform” will enslave us | Independence Institute: Patient Power

  • http://www.polyethylenes.org Dylan Lopez

    I always make sure that my family gets Health Insurance from very reputable companies. health insurance is very important these days.`;*