Not “Free”, if Edwards has his way.

John Edwards has a plan for universal health care, and he wants every American to know it:

The former North Carolina senator said all presidential candidates talking about health care “ought to be asked one question: Does your plan cover every single American?”

“Because if it doesn’t they should be made to explain what child, what woman, what man in America is not worthy of health care,” he said. “Because in my view, everybody is worth health care.”

As anyone who reads this blog regularly is probably aware, I am not a fan of socialized health care plans. It isn’t that I have some fundamental belief that there are people who aren’t “worth^[a]” health care, but rather that I think the cost for any such plan is way too high, especially in a country founded with the concept of freedom in mind. Some people will claim that $120 billion a year isn’t so high, especially if you consider that we’re spending $200 million a day ($73 billion per year) in Iraq (source), but I’m not even talking about the dollars and cents (though that cost is tremendous, and almost certainly could not be covered in the way Edwards implies, which means raised taxes on everyone).

No, the cost I’m worried about is the cost of freedom:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”

Admittedly, being forced to see a doctor periodically isn’t a huge infringement on freedom for most people, but it is an infringement. What about those individuals who, for religious reasons, don’t believe that they should accept medical care? Should they be forced into a doctor’s visit? What if they then have a change of religion and subsequently become critically ill? Will they still be allowed to access the “universal” health care?

What about the pressure that the government will place on subjects citizens to reduce costs even beyond a regular checkup? Choosing whether or not you get a vaccination will only be the first freedom you’ll lose. It won’t be long before no one will be allowed to eat any food with trans fats^[b]. If you have any sort of chronic condition, well, you may as well just lock yourself up, because you can kiss your freedoms goodbye.

1. This is a common trick among politicians trying to push Socialist values — they talk about what the individual is worth. “Every person is worth a living wage,” or “Why is the doctor worth more than the janitor?”, they’ll say, never pointing out that workers typically aren’t paid based on what the worker is worth as an individual, but based on what the job they’re doing is worth, as I’ve discussed before. [↩]
2. I would bet good money that won’t be the last food-related restriction. Maybe it won’t just be restrictions, either. Maybe everyone will be required to eat a minimum number of certain healthy foods per week. If your parents wanted you to eat your vegetables, you might risk missing dessert or being grounded. If it’s the government sitting at the table telling you to eat (or else), what might they use to persuade you? I don’t want to find out. [↩]