I'm all for the idea of no one having to die on the steps of the emergency room because they can't afford to pay. However, Universal Health Care is, by its nature, a big ole slippery slope:

1) If we adopt the policy that everyone should have the same level of care, how do we cover everyone who stands to benefit from cutting-edge procedures that cost a zillion dollars?

2) Is a meth-addicted, HIV positive individual living on the street (or fill in your own bleak image) entitled to the same care as people who make an effort to keep themselves healthy?

If the answer to #2 is no, at what point do we say no? How? And who says it?

If, and it's a BIG if, we're going to provide coverage for everyone, I think we have to limit it to BASIC health care.

Still, it troubles me, this slide toward Government as Mommy. Already, we've created a fast-growing, self-perpetuating sense of entitlement, i.e., rich people suck, unless *I'm* one of them. So let's take them down...

The parallels to Atlas Shrugged are really disturbing. It's a doorstop of a book, but the plot revolves around the government of this country deciding that the rich industrialists who risked their capital and contributed their ideas to make the country run (factories, mines, inventors, banks) are being unfairly enriched-- No one can compete with them! So, at the behest of their competitors, regulations are enacted to limit their production. Then they're forced to surrender parts of their operations to their competitors to keep the playing field even. Jobs are lost. Goods, when available, grow shoddier. Planes fall out of the sky...

And one by one, the big industrialists start to disppear without a trace, leaving their operations to rot. They build a secret community and withdraw, rather than live that way. Then.... well, you'll have to read the book.