The Brits are laughing at America’s resistance to health care reform.  They don’t understand it.  Most of the world does not understand it.  They don’t understand because they lack the American perspective on issues that deal with liberty and an inherent distrust of government involvement in our personal lives.

Here is the link that I am referencing…

http://news.independentminds.livejournal.com/3753821.html

American’s have not yet fully embraced the idea of exchanging their freedom for the safety of the social net that much of the western world has embraced. There are risks inherent with the way Americans prefer to live… less government involvement in their lives, more freedom to make choices that affect their lives, allowances for most people to carry firearms, expectations that people provide for themselves as much as possible, taking a chance on people instead of installing cc cameras to monitor every aspect of their daily lives. The list goes on and on.

It takes courage to live in a free nation. If your armed neighbor loses it and starts shooting, you might be killed. If you lose your job and your insurance and then get sick, you might go broke paying for medical bills. Terrorists might walk the streets easier without a camera on every street corner. These are only a few of the risks that we face because we live in a free nation.

Any America can currently get free health care. Is it the quality of care received by the well insured?.. probably not. But in reality socialization of the health care system is not going to ensure equal care for everyone. Even now our government leaders are making it clear that they will not opt out of their golden health care plans. The pleebs will get one system, the elitists will get an entirely different plan. So what’s to this debate?

The US health care system needs some tuning but the tuning should start with tort reform (something the Trial Lawyers Association and their buds in the Democrat Party are unwilling to discuss). Once tort reform has happened then the government should take a look at the insurance industry to make sure it is not being abusive. These two steps are probably enough to fix the system and should be tried before the radical overhaul that Obamacare will require.

In the end it all comes down to courage. Are Americans still courageous enough to desire to live free? Or are they starting to long for the suffocating safety afforded by the nanny state. There are some aspects of living in a nanny state that look agreeable at first glance. It would be nice to have free health care in most circumstances. It would be nice if the government could stop terrorism completely. But what do you trade for these conveniences. As for myself (and I am not that courageous of a person), I would choose to live dangerously but in freedom. If I lose my job and get sick and wind up in a public health facility then so be it. If a terrorist blows me up because there isn’t a camera watching our every move when outside of our homes, then at least I died a free man. If my neighbor takes a gun and starts shooting people, at least I have my own gun to try and defend myself.

This debate, like so many others taking place in American society is about courage. Some Americans are growing weak in the knees in regards to living with real freedom and in regards to what it means. Other Americans are standing strong and do not want a federal nanny to look over them. The risks they face are worth it to be able to live in freedom. I don’t expect the rest of the world to understand what is truly a purely American struggle.