Every commodity has a limited supply.  The free market is the most efficient, cost-effective and  productive means of distributing a commodity.  We have not enjoyed free-market access to healthcare in America.  Our current system is one of  business-government partnership.  Bureaucratized insurance companies monopolize the market.  We can’t shop for our treatment as we would for a car.  An MRI can cost between $400 and $4,000, but we’ll never know.

The new healthcare plan is not about helping us choose and purchase the healthcare we want.  It is not about allowing us to find and purchase the best healthcare available.  It is about government choosing and distributing as IT sees fit.  This is unconstitutional.  Unconstitutional means illegal.  It also means anti-freedom.  Dr. Ezekeil Emanuel, Obama’s advisor, envisions a “whole life system” where treatment decisions are made by mathematical calculations of an individual patient’s life expectancy and “social usefulness.”  This is not OK.  The Constitution PROHIBITS our government from evaluating the worth of an individual.  To favor one over another is not only unconstitutional, it is immoral.

60 % of American households receive more benefits and services from the government, than the money value they pay in taxes.  This figure will increase tremendously after the initiation of Obamacare.   Healthcare comprises about 17% of the US economy.  Dumping that amount into Federal hands puts a full  50% of US production under their control!  That is the point, entirely.  The healthcare discussion has never been about how to make more of us healthier; it is about the future of our country.  Proponents of Obamacare  believe in the Progressive philosophy of nanny-government with entitlements for everyone.

There are others who believe that each man knows best how to spend his own money and to make his own personal decisions, with healthcare near the top of any such list.  A person of this (sound) mindset might suggest the following improvements to our way of distributing medical care:

1.  Healthcare expenses should be tax deductible, across the board.

2.  High-risk insurance pools would ensure that coverage is available to those with pre-existing conditions…and that the cost of coverage for non-high risk individuals can be kept down.

3.  Unlock the insurance monopolies.  Let us buy insurance from out of state.

4.  Providers must be free to negotiate prices and coverages.  Consumers must be free to see all their options.

5.  Government must not mandate ANYTHING in such personal matters.  Mandates are not freedom.

We’ll upload a higher quality version once we get it.

One very popular song annoys me.  It’s the country song with the line, “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.”  How does that guy know he’s free?  Somebody told him, “Americans are free.”

I felt free when I was a little girl and my grandma would march us all around the piano in a two-room schoolhouse singing, “God bless America.”  That song would not be permitted in a contemporary curriculum.

My father once built a restaurant from the ground up without any plans.  He wanted to see if he could do it.  He knew the rules, and he had to jump through some atrocious hoops to get permits and approvals after-the-fact.  Aren’t Americans supposed to be innovators who push the envelope?  If we aren’t allowed to, we’re not free.

We’re not free when our money is involuntarily withdrawn to bail-out banks, and industries…and European interests.  We’re not free when our money buys lighted signs and radio ads reminding us to “stay alive” and “turn off the stereo”!

My dairy farmer friend is told where she must sell her milk, how much she’ll be paid, how to care for the cows and where their manure must fall.  She’s not free.

My husband is not free.  He is required to pay union dues to work his job.  Sherry Loar was forced into a union in her own home!  She has been a babysitter for 30 years, then she received notification that she was, as of that moment, a union.  She asked, “Am I management or labor”?  (See Mackinac Center website for information about her lawsuit.)

People up north aren’t free to ride their 4-wheelers.  My boys aren’t free to sell worms or minnows.  We’re not free to fish.  (Can you afford fish anymore?)

None of us is free when our financial transactions are monitored.  We’re not free when our doorways have GPS markers.  We’re not free when our voices are recorded as we cross the Mackinac Bridge.

References to American freedom are nostalgia, and I prefer to be a realist.  We’ll never recognize true freedom as long as we accept the current definition.  We are not free.

Patrick Henry:  “For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

That brings me back to the song.  “I’m PROUD to be an American…”  One of my favorite books says, “Pride cometh before a fall.”  I’m GRATEFUL to be an American.  I’d be more grateful to be a truly free one.

Linda

Price: $20.00 per person

Where:
White Tails Steak and Ale
Kalkaska, Michigan

An Evening with Linda Goldthorpe – Candidate for U.S. Congress – 1st District of Michigan

Light Refreshments Will Be Served

Also upsetting the first district is the observation that the national press has attempted to choose our Republican candidate.  Again, this is not acceptable.

It has been suggested that a debate be held among Republican candidates for US Representative in Congress for Michigan’s first district.  This is as it should be.  I am eager to discuss issues with anyone.  However, it has also been suggested that the losers of this debate commit to drop out of the race!  I thought long and hard about this.

It is not enough to replace Bart Stupak.  We must replace Bart Stupak with a person who is willing to take the heat and stand up for us.  Our new representative must recognize, that if the government is not held to the Constitution and the rule of law, all else is pointless.  I know that person to be me.  If I didn’t believe that, I’d have dropped out already.  I’m not looking for a career.

To the organizers of a would-be debate, to preempt our rights as citizens to vote in a primary:  I will not participate in any such event.  I will continue to speak the truth at every opportunity, and permit the voters to decide who they wish to represent them, at the appropriate time.

Thunder Bay Recreation Center, 701 Woodward Avenue, Alpena