Proponents of greater amount of government involvement in healthcare do so in the name of caring for the little guy.  A single payer system is said to be great because nobody can be discriminated against due to their economic status.  Rich, poor, it does not matter; in the land of universal health care everyone is equal.  Therefore, it is great for those who are allegedly victimized by the supposed private insurance system that places profits over patients.

Conservative opposition to single payer health care has been focused around economics.  It has been almost two years since the Wall Street Journal reported that Bernie Sanders’s health care proposal would come with an $18 trillion price tag.  There is not simply enough defense spending to cut or one percenters to tax to pay for that.  Still, human emotions often throw the laws of economics out the window for feel good emotions.

The amount of horror stories that arise from rationing and long waiting times in Canada and Britain are too numerous to list here, but a recent story has shown us why single payer health care is not just impracticable, but incredibly dangerous.

After the decision to literally pull the plug on 11 month old Charlie GardPresident Trump, Pope Francis, and members of Congress spoke out to offer the family of young Charlie support and potential assistance.  The Orwellian decision that young Charlie should “die with dignity” was handed down by the improperly named European Court of Human Rights.

Potentially because of the international backlash, a British judge gave Charlie’s parents 48 hours to present new evidence as to why their son should be kept alive.

Here is the biggest problem of single payer health care.  Charlie Gard’s life may come to an end without exploring all possible options because some judge, not his family, decides his life is literally a lost cause.  Do we really want this for ourselves?  Do want to be praying that Anthony Kennedy votes the right way on whether a baby’s family or some politician, bureaucrat, or state controlled medical personnel decide the fate of the baby?

A frequent saying is, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”  The government that is big enough to “give” you “free” healthcare is big enough to deny you that same healthcare on any basis ranging from scarce economic resources to saying the patient should “die with dignity” despite the fact there may be a possibility for a breakthrough treatment in the United States or Italy and that the family raised the necessary money to finance such a trip.

It is true that single payer is a black money hole, but it is also far worse.  Single payer healthcare is not compassionate.  It gives tremendous amounts of power to politicians and to nameless, faceless bureaucrats.  It hits those who are said to be victimized by the current system the hardest.  The case of Charlie Gard has proven it gives the state the power of life and death.  Even if the hospital is correct in their medical judgments, no government should have the power to supersede the parents of a child on life support.

People on the left talk incessantly about not wanting politicians to get in between patients and their doctors when talking about abortion.  Yet, it is they who are more than willing to put the crushing force of Uncle Sam in between patients and their doctors to devastating and dangerous results.