North Star Writers Group

This week, it seemed that we all stepped into a 1992 time warp: the Cowboys, 49ers and Packers leading their respective NFL divisions and Hillary Clinton proposing a government takeover of health care. I guess causing the Democrats to lose control of Congress once wasn't enough for her – she has to try to make it happen again.

It is a thinly disguised attempt to crush a health care system that, while far from perfect, is still the last, best one on Earth. (And if you doubt that appraisal, just ask all those Canadians and Europeans coming here for surgeries and procedures they cannot get at home where they have already made the mistake of trying government-controlled medicine.)

Hillary's thuggery begins with compelling everyone to buy insurance, paired with a "play or pay" tax on businesses that do not or cannot buy it for their employees. The former piece would require an enforcement bureaucracy at least as big and awful as the IRS, and is a frontal assault on private property. The latter piece is even worse – its cost would crush small businesses, and larger ones would simply pay the tax and be happy to get rid of all their health care expenses by shoving them onto government. Thus, Hillary gives companies a financial incentive to do the dirty work of instantly creating government health care for her.

Then there are the heavy-handed mandates on private insurers, which always drive up costs. Every time another person or procedure has to be paid for, everyone else must be overcharged and overpay to generate the funds required to cover that expense. This is barely disguised stealing. We don't abide shoplifting, which we recognize raises prices to compensate for that lost product. Yet with health care, we have no problem doing this – surcharging some, thus directly enabling and even encouraging the parasitic behavior of others. And it isn't hard to figure out where it all eventually ends – with the total collapse of the system when the number and cost of recipients outstrips the ability and willingness of the rest to overpay.

And naturally, Hillary claims to be able to pay for all of this by repealing the Bush tax cuts, which will hurt the economy and actually lower government revenue as taxpayers shelter more of their income from the higher rates. The cost figures and the payment methods barely pass the laugh test. Only the most moronic person could think that it won't cost trillions more than claimed while any revenue needed to pay for it would barely materialize.

This plan would take everything that is wrong with the present health care system and make it worse, then cast it in stone with the force of government behind it. I can offer a much better one in just three simple steps:

• Crush the trial lawyer lobby, which is driving doctors clean out of business with perpetual malpractice lawsuits. The expense of malpractice insurance alone adds incalculable costs to everything, as doctors pass it along to patients, who are their customers. But since the Democrat Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the trial lawyers, this is nearly impossible.

• Dramatically cut income taxes. The only reason we have such a thing as "benefits" to begin with is because employers wanted to find ways to compensate employees more without being subject to a high income tax during World War II. And as is typical with government, it's still with us some 60-plus years later.

If businesses really want to be rid of the expense of health care, a big income tax cut can result in them shoving that responsibility back where it belongs – on the employee, not government. They can simply pay a higher salary and folks can shop for their own insurance, which also automatically solves the "portability" issue since insurance would no longer be tied to employment. The resulting competition for these consumers' dollars amongst insurers would drive costs down.

• Get rid of prohibitions on buying insurance across state lines. Why this should be illegal in the first place is beyond me. Presumably it was done solely to protect near-monopolies within states and give them captive customers to overcharge since they have nowhere else to go. This market should be freed up and people should be able to buy whatever plan they want from whatever provider is willing to sell it to them, wherever both entities may be based.

My plan puts you and the free market in charge. Hillary’s plan puts her and government in charge. And that's really the entire point of the whole exercise – for Hillary to get power and control over you and your life. Once she's paying for the consequences, she'll be demanding to control your behavior, too.

The question is whether enough of us still love freedom enough to accept the responsibilities (like buying our own insurance) that come with it, or whether we have been outnumbered by those who don't want the responsibility and are willing to stupidly hand their freedom over to Hillary so as to avoid it.

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