Dissent and Nationalization of Health Care

 The title of an op-ed by Hannah Krening of Front Range Objectivism. I'll quote  some bits:

If government owns and pays for my health care, they own my body just as a farmer owns his cow. If government is paying, it will decide what kind of care I get and when I will get it. Under "free health care for all," access will diminish as lines lengthen, and my care may not be there when I really need it.

Government will consider the needs of others (those with pull, for instance) against mine. I will be unable to make life and death decisions on my own; instead I will have to plead my case to a government functionary.

[...]

The problem is that both sides share the premise that health care is a right. But rights are not claims to things, like a car, food or an appendectomy. Rights are the freedom to act to gain these things, while respecting the rights of others. Over the past several decades, the accepted definition of rights has become corrupted to mean claims to things.

Government health care proponents maintain that a benevolent government will somehow provide these claims to everybody. But this is impossible; there is no such thing as a free lunch. And government does not produce; it can only manage others who do. Someone will be forced to satisfy all claims.

That's it, there's no getting by those problems if government manages health care. Too bad this piece was published on-line only.