Sunday, July 1, 2012

Giant Step Backward: The Decision for the Socialization of Medicine

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) joins with countless Americans in decrying the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding the Obamacare individual mandate.

The decision represents a tragic expansion of socialist style healthcare and the promotion of a pro-abortion agenda. Moreover, the Court recognized that the individual mandate forcing citizens to buy health insurance truly represents an onerous tax on all Americans yet did nothing to protect them against it.

While there is no question as to the desirability of an efficient, quick and humane health-care system, the socialistic aspects of the Obamacare law will only make the problem worse by establishing socialized bureaucratized medicine.

The more gigantic an organization becomes, the more its bureaucracy grows, driving itself away from those it should provide care for. Even worse, bureaucrats position themselves in the middle, making decisions for both doctors and patients. This massification of medical services runs counter to one of the most elementary principles of Catholic social teaching: the principle of subsidiarity.

According to this principle — which is contrary to socialism — what can be done by an individual or a smaller human group should not be assigned to or assumed by a larger group. On the other hand, the socialization of medicine places in the hands of government a terrible weapon that can be easily used to pressure and persecute citizens or impose ideological agendas that have nothing to do with health.

This is precisely what is happening with the so-called Obamacare.

The Court’s support of this system represents a giant step backward in improving health care in America.

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