Health care in the US, should it be free?

Image by seiuhealthcare775nw via Flickr

Huge discussions and debates going on about health care in the US. But in all the discussions, I have not read a single line where the dangers of socialism creeping into a free society like the US are as real as the sun showing up in the morning.

Free societies, and I mean real free societies, have a very distinct need to offer their poor a chance to live a better life. In case anyone missed it, it was the overwhelming number of poor in Venezuela who voted Chavez in, and it remains the overwhelming number of poor who keep him in power.  Though time is running out for anything but a bullet to stop his hold on power, allowing the poor sector to grow into a position of power is about the most dangerous thing a country can do to kill its own freedom.

Castro knew this, and it is a formula that works and has worked for the past 100 years or so. Most poor are easily convinced, if they have not been already, that it is the rich who are responsible for their financial oppression. How could they not be? They are watching the rich live off the poor and when a tragedy or crisis happens, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. They lose their jobs, factories close.  The employees go home to worry about their next meal and the rich owners go to their yachts for a relaxing vacation.

Are they right to think this way? In my opinion, no. Without these rich people, they have no way of making a comeback. Look at Cuba. The revolution triumphed, and they sent the rich packing. What happened? They then had nobody to run their businesses, nobody to manage their economy. Which quickly took a turn south. Without these entrepreneurs to reinvigorate the economy, countries have nothing. Why do you think that countries with less barriers to opening corporations are more successful than those with more? Encouraging entrepreneurship is as crucial as taking care of your poor.

Welfare systems are not a drain on the economy. They are a necessary investment to maintain the freedoms some countries have fought so hard to earn. This may sound wrong and politically incorrect, but keeping the poor happy and fed, and with enough opportunities to live a decent life, prevents them from going and voting in a left leaning, dictator hungry politician who knows that the way to a presidential palace now a days rests on the number of votes he can swing into his corner. Why do you think South America has taken a sharp turn to the left? The rich have ignored them for too long. It happened in Cuba, it happened in Venezuela. Could it be the US is on its way to a left turn into hell? Consider yourselves warned.