Conscription By The Real Name

I have read a couple of articles lately that have troubled me. I passed the first one off as simply an aberration. Now, since I have seen the same information twice, I must take it seriously. You can be sure that in this day and age, it would have to be about Obamacare.

From the initial days of his term in office, President Obama wanted to totally transform the health care system into a single payer, government system. This was to be his legacy. As are most liberals, Mr. Obama is an incrementalist. He knew that it would be impossible to accomplish this whole transition in one step.

The answer to his problem seemed to be Obamacare. He envisioned a health care system controlled by the government but administered through the private sector. This would create a hybrid system that would be an intermediate step en route to his true goal.

So as it is with any project in the Obama administration, he also wanted plausible deniability. To accomplish this, he placed the project in the hands of assorted people, none of whom seem to have had any competence in this sort of endeavor. The results, of course, are the unfortunate mess that the nation is trying to deal with now.

The problems that have been built in to the "Affordable" Care Act are myriad. The web site works poorly when it works at all. People are losing their doctors. People are losing the insurance plans that they were happy with. Prices are going up. Out of pocket expenses are going up. Some drugs won't be covered. Major and important hospitals are opting out of the plan.

To make matters even worse, the President has given illegal special dispensation to friends, politicians, unions, big business, and other power groups while the average person suffers. The President expected the young people that supported him to flock in to cover the cost of older sicker folks in the system. That isn't happening.

Now we come to the latest travesty. It seems that a large portion of the doctors not retiring are considering not accepting Obamacare patients. Primarily, I understand, because payments are so low. I suspect that the high degree of government regulation and the cost of compliance may also have something to do with it.

What is the proposed government solution to this problem? They are discussing government conscription of the medical profession. In other words, forcing, under law, doctors to work for the government. It seems to me we fought a civil war to prevent this sort of thing. If you are forced to work for someone, under duress and against your wishes, is that not slavery? 

The Obama presidency is in disrepair as it is. The American people are not dullards. Most of us are aware and concerned. This is a major problem, all the denials and all the spin doctors in the world can't heal it. Major changes need to be made and conscription of the medical profession is not one of them.