Over time we have become a nation of subjects, not citizens fully engaged in our own governance. I say this not as a rhetorical device but to point out the enormous areas of our life where we have ceded sovereignty over ourselves not only to elected officials… a necessary evil in any developed society… but to a wide variety of unelected experts.
Perhaps nowhere in our lives is this more the case than in our medical care. Bureaucrats in your insurance company may not pay for certain treatments because you just aren’t that valuable of a customer. Bureaucrats in the FDA may not allow you to have access to a developmental drug for your fatal ailment because the treatment hasn’t been proven safe — losing sight of the point that safety is the least of your concerns. We have accepted these incursions into our lives because we have been sure that in most cases your doctor would approach your care with a bias towards saving your life, not minimizing his workload.
No more.
As we have entered the age of Obamacare, this relationship with our technocratic masters has become more acute. You are no longer deemed competent to purchase an insurance product that meets your needs, medical and financial. Rather the government, acting in loco parentis, tells you what you need. And, at some point, the work product of a government panel will tell your physician whether to treat you or let you die. (See In Britain’s Liverpool Pathway We Get a Preview of Obamacare and Hell.)
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