Free Health Care, or is it really BMW's for Bums?

Did you know you could lease a new BMW for around $600 a month? (Even a BMW convertible) That's as much as many peoples health care costs, per month.

But alas, a brand new Beamer is not in the cards for me. After Social Security, unemployment taxes, State and Federal taxes, there's yet another big bite, health insurance. And lo and behold, monthly health care alone (family plan for me) adds up to a little more than the monthly lease payments on a nice new shiny BMW.

That's right, for what many of us are paying for health insurance, we could lease a brand new BMW (and upgrade to the latest model every five years, as the lease on the previous car expired).

The best health care in the world, many say. But it sure is expensive. There's no arguing with that. It's the Ferrari of the worlds health care systems, at BMW prices (literally).

But now we're heading down the road towards universal health care, where everyone in the country gets their own equivalent of a shiny new BMW, whether they can afford it, or not. "It's free", the politicians say with a smile. (Probably because it's hard to keep a straight face while saying that?)

Anyone who's paid their fair share of taxes knows that it's not the government that will be paying for these 40 million or so shiny new BMW's (re-upping the lease every five years). It's us, the taxpayers.

I'm already carrying the payment for my own health care "BMW". And I'm sure It's really going to hurt carrying someone elses payment.

What's really a shame is that my shiny BMW health care (plus the other guys I'll be paying for) will probably end up a lot more like a public subway after the government gets their hands on it.

Now I'm not saying we should do nothing. Health care is just too expensive, virtually no one disagrees with that. But what seems to be much smarter than adding 40 million people to a "too expensive health care system" would be first to make the health care system less expensive, or to provide different levels of service at different prices (offer BMW's AND Chevy's).

Without addressing the cost issues first (and verifying that the cost problem really is "fixed"), we'd end up doing something incredibly stupid (like trying to lease 40 million new BMW's forever).

Speaking of incredibly stupid, there seems to be a trend emerging. Health care, global warming, even the economic crisis... fanatic elements seem to keep screeching about the end of civilization as we know - either the planet will be destroyed in natural disasters, or we'll all die from a lack of medical care, to the economy will collapse us into the stone age --- all if WE DON"T ACT NOW! The fear mongering by the fanatical seems to be a strong trend lately. In this case, it's "Our health care system is in ruins. It must be completely re-structured or it's useless."

Many would argue this is clearly not the case. It's reckless, irresponsible, and politically self-serving (just give everyone everything, get re-elected, and raise taxes - business as usual). Trying to give away BMW's for votes while destroying the factory, is again reckless, irresponsible, and politically self-serving.

For what they're going to charge us taxpayers, we might as well be giving away BMW's to bums.

Well, that's all the time I've got, I've got to head over to the Post Office, and wait in line for a while. (If there's time, I can head over to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and wait even longer in line there, woohoo!)