In 1962, Saskatchewan doctors went on strike to protest the institution of socialized medicine in that province. At first, they correctly began the battle by defending individual rights against statist controls.
In the uproar that followed, they finally allowed that they would accept the will of the people, computed (of course) by a plebiscite. They gave themselves the kiss of death.
In 1962, New Jersey doctors rebelled against President John F. Kennedy's King-Anderson bill, which was the forerunner of Lyndon Johnson's Medicare program. They won the skirmish, but by 1965, they had lost the war.
Nearly half a century later, observe the results. It shouldn't take a chronological play-by-play to mark the significant consequences of the government's victory. Read today's headlines. A politician gets the boot for complaining that his party is not doing enough for the health care system (I sympathize with his emotions, but he should check his premises — government caused the problem in the first place). A bureaucrat gets the golden parachute for embarrassing his fellow bureaucrats (perhaps they were worried that he'd clog up an emergency department, because he had spiked his cookies with some illegal substance).
If that's not enough for you, there's plenty of empirical evidence available to show the magnitude of the disaster over the years. I'm weary of the bleats from opposition parties, intellectuals and anyone else who thinks that his gang could have done things better.
The point is that health care is not a right, to be provided for by the enslavement of one group (the medical profession), paid for by the forced appropriation of wealth from another group (the taxpayers) and resulting in the terrible treatment of a third group (the ill).
Any proclamation of a right that violates the rights of others is an obscenity and deserves no further consideration.
Eric Joly, St. Albert
