Think carefully about the consequences of government health care

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 any Americans are willing to give

 p an important liberty. They

 on’t realize it, but they are.

They are happy to accept government health care. Total government health care. They bandy about terms like “socialized medicine,” “national health service,” and “single payer.” The single payer, of course, being the government.

What’s the liberty they would give up? To comprehend it, read the stories about Charlie Gard. He is a wee babe in a London hospital — under socialized medicine.

His doctors proclaim that his rare genetic disease is untreatable. They declare he must come off the machines that keep him alive and that he must die.

His parents asked to take him to the U.S. for experimental treatment. They had to ask, because under socialist medicine he is no longer theirs. 

They raised $1.7 million for the treatment. The British doctors essentially said: “No. We know what is best for your baby. He must die.” The courts back them up. As one government minister put it, these decisions were “…in line with Charlie’s best interests.”

The parents then asked to take “their” baby home to die — in the company of family and friends. The authorities, not in so many words, said “No, he will die when and where the authorities decide.”

This is the face of single-payer health care. The payer pays the piper. The piper plays the tune. And you dance to it. Period. You are a prisoner of the system.

I wrote earlier about our family’s similar experience — under socialist health care in New Zealand. Shortly after birth, our baby girl was whisked from us and taken to another hospital. We were not consulted in her care. We were utterly ignored.

To the doctors, we did not exist. In their eyes, the baby belonged to the state. If they had decided her life was not worth extending, they probably would not have consulted with us. If we had wanted to take her elsewhere for treatment, we would not have been allowed.

That was a frightening reality. Just as it is for the parents of Charlie Gard. The piper plays the tune. The tune called for by the payer. The payer is the government. The state. In this instance, the tune is a death march.

Yet, here, we consider more and more government in our health care. As we do, we should realize more government means less of us. Less of you and me. As government makes more choices, we get to make fewer.

We should also imagine what might come next. Socialist health care is notorious for shortages. Shortages of equipment, specialists, drugs, and money to pay for patient care. Canada is known for its socialist health care, which is famous for shortages.

On a per-capita basis, Canada has only one-third the MRI units we have. And only one-half the CT scanners. Much of its equipment and technology is obsolete compared to ours.

When socialist systems suffer shortages, they ration access to health-care treatments. No other choice. The old and hopeless cases draw the short straws.

No systems are perfect, of course. Our insurance companies can be brutal in what they refuse to pay for.

However, our system has more freedoms and more liberties. Here, Charlie’s parents would be free to raise money and pursue experimental treatments. Under the UK’s single-payer system, they have no such freedom.

Socialism suppresses the individual, for the sake of “equality.” In various ways, individuals must accommodate self to a greater good. They give something of themselves to the infallible regime. The state.

In this case, Charlie’s parents had to give up their liberty to the state. The liberty to decide their baby’s fate and the liberty to decide how and where he would die.

And yet, government health care appeals to many Americans. I wonder if the numbers might drop if all of us pondered the case of baby Charlie. And the manner in which he is going to die.           

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home near Oneonta. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com. You can read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com

I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to journalism, I’m a traditionalist.

 ld-fashioned, even. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that even while confidence in the media drops to new lows and Time magazine feels moved to wonder “Is Truth Dead?” on its cover, huge numbers of Americans have come to believe the media is not as authoritative as it once was.

Straightforward, responsible journalism is an indispensable public asset, a cornerstone of democratic life. This is threatened by the trends reshaping the media landscape. With less consensus around information and data, the cohesiveness of our society is diminished.

I’m not just talking about the rise of deliberately “reported” misinformation and disinformation. Some news outlets may not be as egregiously destructive of democratic values, but their urge to chase viewership and clicks at the expense of solid, fact-based reporting is doing us no favors.

In a media world in which opinion serves as the chief currency, rather than straight-ahead reporting of hard truths, politicians face less scrutiny of their statements and less accountability. They are succeeding at manipulating the media by using Twitter, refusing to hold press conferences, restricting questions and cameras, employing set speeches, and refusing to conduct a free-wheeling discussion of their opinions in front of the press.

The result is that significant policy decisions affecting millions of Americans are being drawn up with less scrutiny and promoted as beneficial without the clarifying debate that a representative democracy depends upon.

We are fortunate to retain a number of high-quality news organizations with first-rate reporters who continue to dig deep and uphold high journalistic standards. This is crucial, because we live in an era when solid reporting rooted in high standards of accuracy is not just a goal, but a vital, small-democratic necessity.

As consumers of news, we need to encourage the media to undertake it and hold its members to account when they stray. And we need to shoulder our responsibility for helping news organizations improve. After all, we’re the ones who often turn to fluff rather than substance and consume only stories that reflect our own perspectives. As citizens, we need to step up our own game, too.           

Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years, representing a district in south central Indiana.