The IMF's Push for Universal Healthcare

A little while back, we learned that Massachusetts took the soviet plunge by adopting universal healthcare for all it's citizens. Referring to Mark's commentary on this topic at South Puget Sound Libertarian, we learn that:

Massachusetts has passed a law that requires people to have health insurance. If the State deems that you can afford to pay the premium, then you must pay or you will be fined. If the State decides that you are unable to afford the premium then you get coverage anyway at the expense of local businesses and taxpayers in other states through transfer payments from the Federal government. Liberals, of course, are overjoyed at this and think the Massachusetts law will serve as a model for the rest of the country. They and statist conservatives equate this legal mandate with "empowerment". They are obviously functionally incapable of understanding the distinction between coercion and facilitation.

Massachusetts lawmakers removed the freedom of choice from consumers. They no longer have the choice to pay as they go. To sweeten the deal, they told the "poor and down-trodden" that they would also be covered through state-provided healthcare coverage, paid by you and me. (That's to say, you get to pay twice.) You can learn more about the Massachusetts bill by going here.

 

At the time that I was reading about it, I had wondered how long it would be before we saw this monster rear its head again. You see, these things have a modus operandi to them. I'll explain. The socialists in the state and federal governments want so badly to have national healthcare. National healthcare is the last piece of the puzzle to instituting a true socialist government in the United States. They have every other component from the Communist Manifesto save universal healthcare. To achieve their goal, they must get states to implement their own versions. Once a sufficient number of individual states create their own unique programs, the socialist at the federal level would step in, declaring that they must nationalize the program to bring uniformity and equity for all citizens (claiming a mandate from the people, I'm sure). But, it has to be started at the state level to appear "grass-roots". If it were done top-down, they would be called out for trying to implement socialized medicine.

 

So, what does the International Monetary Fund have to do with this? The IMF has taken the next logical step by declaring that the United States must implement some form of national healthcare to protect it's citizens. In a press release, Mr. Rajan stated:

In a globally-competitive economy, it is very important that you insure the individual. You have a safety net for the individual because of the serious risks of losing your job, and so on. Do not protect the company; do not protect the job; but protect the individual. That is the kind of mantra we should have in this situation, which means you have to have some form of universal healthcare. It is very, very hard in this competitive economy for so many, 40 million plus Americans to be uninsured, of which 8 million are children. So, you need universal healthcare and you need strong educational systems. The challenge of improving education in the United States, especially in poor areas, is extremely important.

 

So, the point I am trying to make is that it is not so much about protecting those jobs that we should be focused on, but protecting the opportunity, the ability of individuals to have that opportunity and to have a safety net to fall back on. In a sense, our policies are toward advocating that kind of a more flexible system rather than a rigid system which will hold up for some time, protect a few and then collapse, leaving people without recourse.

In my opinion, the IMF, World Bank, and United Nations have become arms of the greater socialist agenda. With programs like Agenda 21, they are constantly pressuring all levels of government around the world to implement more socialist forms of government. One of the stated goals is to get universal or national healthcare for all citizens. While on the surface it sounds like a noble cause, one must ask the question: At who's expense? Healthcare has to be provided by someone. Unless you're going to provide it at gunpoint, someone is going to have to be compensated for their services. That's where all the working-stiffs come into the picture. The "have's" get to provide for the "have-not's" through taxation. Now we see the miracle of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The one major problem with this concept occurs when the participants decide they all want to be on the receiving end of the equation instead of the producing end. It's not sustainable. In fact, it's nothing more than wealth redistribution by force.

 

Unfortunately, idiots abound when it comes to redistributing your wealth. They say things like:

The outdated notion that healthcare is a privilege and/or a commodity is the reason why our healthcare (including mental health) system is in such chaos. The rest of the world has universal healthcare for its citizens. Only the U.S. refuses to accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document adopted by the United Nations in 1948.

We the people must begin looking at the lack of healthcare as the grave issue that it is. Until we accept healthcare as a right, the movement will never expand! (Signed by Frank)

"The rest of the world..." Do us a favor, Frank, and go jump off a cliff! Basically, Frank is advocating theft of private property by using the threat of government force to relieve you of your possessions. If Frank wants to provide Americans with healthcare, he can do it out of his own pocket. I have no problem with that. But he doesn't. The thing Frank doesn't realize about his beloved "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" is that the rights it purports to declare are not unalienable. In other words, they can be taken away at any time... without notice... for no reason whatsoever. Don't believe me? Let's take a look, shall we? From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we read:

Article 2

 

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

 

Article 25

 

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Sounds pretty rock-solid... until you understand how lawmakers view entitlements. After reading the above, one is left with the impression that they have all these glorious rights because they're entitled to them, right? That's how common folk read law. Lawmakers read it another way. They see it as a government-granted privilege that can be revoked at any time. Let's look at how lawmakers really view your entitlements. I found this excerpt contained in a Q&A of Hearings of the House Committee on Rules:

[E]ntitlements are rather like discretionary programs that have "gone to heaven." They hold a permanent "free pass" good until the end of time (or until the rare instances when their entitlements are revoked) for as much funding they need.

Notice that there was no stated reason for revocation of entitlements. Just that there may exist a "rare instance" to cause lawmakers to revoke them. The entitlement of rights expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are nothing more than government-granted privileges that can be revoked without notice by the United Nations. This goes for healthcare, too. Again, universal healthcare is nothing more than the last feather in the cap worn by socialists trying to implement their agenda in the United States. I predict that we will next see a concerted push by more and more blue states to implement universal healthcare. Stay tuned...