The Deception at the heart of Hillary Care

I posed the question last week: Does Hillary Deserve a “Do Over?” At the Politico Mike Allen argues that is exactly what she is getting. The problem is that although she has certainly learned from the debacle last time around, she is still proposing government control rather real choice. Don’t be fooled.

Here is what Hillary had to say about her new health care proposal:

“This is not government-run. There will be no new bureaucracies. You can keep the doctors you know and trust. You keep the insurance you have if you like it,” Clinton said, though aides later conceded that administering the plan would require hiring more government workers. “This plan expands personal choices and increases competition to keep costs down.”

The problem with all this talk of choice, is that it ignores the fact that the government is dictating most of the choices. Hillary smartly designed the proposal to seem moderate and centrist but it is really just more of the same thing we have been seeing from Democrats for a decade. It is incrementally ratcheting up the governmental involvement. It means more spending, more programs, more mandates, more centralized regulations, etc. This in turn means less innovation and higher taxes.

This is nationalized health care by baby steps. Hillary wants to convince people that this plan is not a radical change and that is true as far as it goes. The problem it is a large step in the wrong direction rather than a true effort at fixing the problem. It is Washington who has warped the tax code and insurance markets and Hillary’s plan will only make this worse.

This is another attempt to mandate a universal good and ignore the underlying economic realities. It may come in a simpler package but it is still government controlled health care. And we all now have that is likely to turn out.

For Hillary Government is always the answer

Set aside the fact that Hillary’s promises about social security practically guarantee higher taxes (see below). Think about the extreme nature of this assertion:

When I’m president, privatization is off the table because it’s not the answer to anything.

Wow. So nothing is ever properly left to the private sphere? Once government gets its hands on something then it is forever to be controlled by the government? There isn’t single program in the universe that might be better handled by the private sector?

And where does this stop? Hillary has repeatedly tried to pose as a moderate, pragmatic politician. But time and time again her tendencies are socialistic and overreaching. It seems the mask has slipped.

Her early work on families argued that children should have the legal rights of adults and that the government should appoint lawyers and advisers to help them claim these rights. She even argued that children should be able to divorce their parents and control their own lives.

Her entire operational philosophy is that government – and specifically the legal system – is the proper tool for effecting social change. She famously argued that it takes a village to raise a child. She doesn’t mean community commitment and support. She means collective activity through the courts and government programs.

Her most famous failure was an attempt to force government control of a huge chunk of the countries economy. Looks like she means to come back for another bite at the apple!

If you value individual freedom and the free market this statement has to be shocking. If privatization is never the answer then government is always the solution. And, as the truism goes, the government that is strong enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take away everything you have.

Hillary should be forced to explain what she thinks is the proper role of private property and the free market. Where exactly does the power of the government end and your freedom begin? Your house, your family, your job?

Hillary promises to raise taxes

What? Did she really do that you ask. Well, no she didn’t come right out and say that she planned to raise taxes if elected. But she made it clear that is the likely scenario in her pronouncement on social security:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton promised retirees that if elected president she will not cut Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age or privatize the taxpayer-funded system . . . She said instead she will protect the program through fiscal responsibility and criticized President Bush’s leadership on the issue.

Fiscal responsibility? Nine times out of ten that means raising taxes. If you have millions of dollars of spending on programs that you have campaigned on AND you have taken social security cost saving measures off the table the budgetary pressures of DC are going to lead to increased taxes.

Oh sure, she might talk about targeted tax breaks for the middle class, and about making the tax system more equitable, but this will mean higher taxes for a lot of people. You will find that the Democrats have a pretty expansive notion of who the rich are these days. Small business owners, two income families, and others that don’t think of themselves as rich are going to be hit with higher taxes if Hillary gets elected.

This is just another example of how she talks about change and leadership but what she really means is a dogged determination to fight for old fashioned big government liberalism.

UPDATE:
In case it wasn’t clear, J.T. Young over at the American Spectator spells it all out:

The demographics and economics that have hounded it and transformed it now threaten to sink it because Social Security is not what it seems. In contrast to the economy, which has not only survived but thrived in spite of numerous temporary downturns, Social Security cannot survive itself. It cannot because it is essentially a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme appears to generate revenue by taking in ever more participants and their contributions. The early contributors at the pyramid’s apex do quite well, but as the pyramid’s base grows, it is unable to continue attracting enough new participants to deliver on its promises.

Read the whole article to see just how wrong Hillary is on this issue.